Thread: Project "Left Overs" is back alive !

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Originally Posted by billy zz

oh god.
i have been sitting at an uncluttered desk and without getting up .
have set things down
AND NEVER SEEN THEM AGAIN IN MY LIFE.
i am not stoned ,drunk or stupid.
so i guess i am just brain damaged....

i gave this some more thought.
maybe i am a retard but since i am retarded i dont know it?
maybe i am lucky to still be alive?
that would explain a few things around my house.....

Originally Posted by stovens

I like the dry erase board idea of where the things were put, I just imagine losing the dry erase pens! The worst things to find for me are screw drivers, safety glasses, and paint can lid openers/bottle top openers. For some reason they seem to have feet of their own, and like to hide!

I wish I the wall space for another dry erase board. I had one back when I was racing. The things to do, chassis settings, etc. Worked good was about 4' x 6'. Now I don't have the wall space for a 4" x 6". Now I have written lists for the store and stopped somewhere else first, and thrown out a scrap of paper I didn't need only to find out it was the grocery list. Now whats really bad I don't remember throwing it out, I get home and assumed I forgot it and it would be on my bench or desk, I can't find it and after looking for about 15 min's it dawns on me what I did..........

Originally Posted by billy zz

oh god.
i have been sitting at an uncluttered desk and without getting up .
have set things down
AND NEVER SEEN THEM AGAIN IN MY LIFE.
i am not stoned ,drunk or stupid.
so i guess i am just brain damaged....

Billy you are not stoned, drunk, stupid, brain damaged, or retarted........... It was ME.... When you turn and aren't looking I take it............ to replace the one I lost and cannot find............

Today I had 3 goals in mind to complete.

1) Make the plate that goes under the spring and bolt the spring in place.

2) Drill and tap the wishones to increase the thread size from 1/2 to 5/8 inch so I can use my angled spring perches to realign the spring to the wishbones.

3) Build the frame mounts to put the rear of the wishbones to the frame and get those welded on.

I actually only got the first two done. I found out we had the proper 3/8 fine thread tap, but didn't have a 37/64 drill bit that it takes, so I had to drive to a local steel supply house/industrial tool place to pick up one. It was a nice day, so I took my 27. It was filthy from sitting in the shop uncovered, so I just hosed it down and am going to have to give it a proper cleaning tomorrow.

While I was at the steel supplier I picked up some 3/8 flat plate to build the wishbone mounts out of. Luckily they had two nice small pieces in their drop area, so I was able to carry them home in the roadster.

Drilling the wishbones was a cinch, tapping threads was NOT a cinch. The ends of the wishbones are forged steel evidently, and it took about an hour each side to tap them. Even with lots of antiseize as cutting oil we had to tap a little bit, then stop and clean out the shavings. But they came out fine and the new angled perches screwed right in.

We mounted the front spring to the wishbones, and that is where Dan suggested we should put the Olds engine, transmission, and body onto the frame to see where it settles down to. I told him I already did the calculations, but he felt the only way to really dial the correct caster in was to load it, then set the caster. So we made temporary wishbone mounts and clamped them to the frame and bolted the wishbones to them, just so the wishbones will stay in place when the weight gets put on the frame.

At that point the 96 degree temp in the shop had gotten to us, so we wrapped it up until tomorrow. One change that I may make is not to use the S10 rear I was going to use. Kurt had given me an 8 incher out of his 65 Ranchero a while back, and I gave it to my Son Don when I sold him the 46 Tudor. But the S10 was just a little narrower than I would like, and the Ranchero rear is 3 inches wider at 57 inches WMS to WMS. My rear wheels have a dual Ford/Chevy pattern, so it will be no problem to switch. I asked Don, and he said he is probably going to have a 9 incher made up to the exact width he needs, when the time comes, so he gave the 8 incher back to me.

That is where we ended up tonight. Here are some pictures of the spring mounting plate I made up, and the front end after we installed the spring, axle, and wishbones. This is not the ride height, I figure it will settle down about 3 inches when all the parts are bolted on.

Don

Looking good,Don. Pretty soon you'll need another shop,one for parking,and one for building!!!

Lookin' good so far, Don. Chassis fabrication is my favorite part of building a car. Progress happens in big visible leaps so you can step back and see your progress. For future reference - when you need spring plates, check out the trailer parts aisle at your local ACE Hardware. I needed 4 matching plates for my roadster. Rather than spend a couple of hours making them, I bought them at ACE (see pic). They have 3 or 4 different ones with different hole-spreads and hole sizes, so measure before you go.

I am interested to see how far your front end settles. With that 7-leaf spring I'm guessing only about 1 1/2 inches. Actually, if it rides a little high, that would be fairly typical of a mid-60s Altered...

I have 8-inch Ford rear ends in my coupe and roadster. If I had it to do over, I would either go with 9-inch Ford or Toyota pickup. Why? Gears and parts for an 8-incher cost more than gears and parts for a 9-inch. A posi unit for an 8-inch is out of sight... if you can find one! With that big high-torque Olds engine and tall slicks, you may need the beef of the 9-inch. On the other hand, Toyota pickups came with a bunch of different gear ratios, many of them are posi, they're pretty beefy for their size, they're plentiful in junkyards, and they have a Ford bolt pattern (5 on 4 1/2)!

Jim, that's good info about the Ace hardware trailer plates. I just am not sure if the bolt pattern would have been the same as the Total Performance perch I used, but worth checking out, that's for sure.

You are right about 8 inch stuff being a lot more expensive than 9 inch stuff. I don't know if it is because of availabilty or what, but it costs a lot more for everything. I'm not too worried about hurting it, as I rarely get on my cars hard, even my 27. I drive like an old man.............oh wait, I AM an old man. Don has an 8 incher in his T bucket, with only something like 2:79 gears, non posi, and he does push his harder than I do, and it has held up well.

I was going to buy him another center section with deeper gears for Xmas sometime, but that ratio seems to work great with his light weight, 3000 stall convertor, and good HP. When I am following him in my 27 and he leaves a light I have to push it a little just to keep up with him............for high gears it launches hard. If I remember correctly, I think the rear Kurt gave me has a similar ratio and that will be nice because I want this rpu to be the car I drive on the interstate to distance events. The 4:30's in my 27 make it very unpleasant at anything over 50 mph.

As you can see by this picture, Don has a somewhat heavy foot.

Don

Don - a place that most overlook is the lowly Pinto. Although they have 4 lug axles many, not all, have the standard everyday 8". I found a very nice 3.40 ratio punkin that I ended up using in my 'bucket

Oh really, I didn't know they had 8 inchers in them. Problem is, you never see a Pinto anymore, or a Vega either. I'd love to have one of either to make a little drag car, but they have all been gobbled up, or are so pricey these days.

Don

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

Oh really, I didn't know they had 8 inchers in them. Problem is, you never see a Pinto anymore, or a Vega either. I'd love to have one of either to make a little drag car, but they have all been gobbled up, or are so pricey these days.

Don

The ones in the rust belt ended up at the crusher quickly but there are still a few left in back woods salvage yards - if you can get in to do a wander. And that was only some of them that had the 8's. Guess I shouldn't have put my last two out for the trash collector last summer

Today's project was to get the rear wishbone mounts made and welded on. Sometimes an easy task doesn't end up so easy, and Dan sure put in a lot of work today to get this job done.

What complicated it was that the Speedway wishbones were a couple of inches too long to tuck neatly in front of the kickup. I would have had to extend the frame out a couple of inches more to use them as is, and that would have looked disproportionate, I think. So what we did was shorten the wishbones by two inches.

We could have just hacked two inches off the ends and ordered new bungs to weld in, but that would take another week from Speedway, so we cut out the welds and salvaged the original bungs. Dan got those welded back in place and now the wishbones are 2 inches shorter. The mounts set inboard a little so the tie rod ends tuck up nice and tight to the frame. I should have no interferance with the steering arm this way.

We also removed all the leaves from the front spring except for the main leaf, to get an idea where the car should sit when the engine and body are on it. This week I will order my tie rod from Speedway, bolt some hubs onto the spindles, put the tires and wheels on, and then install the engine and body temporarily to see how everything is fitting.

Here are some pictures of what we got done today.

Don

Nice job on the shortening, can't even tell where the were cut!

What are you still doing up, Steve? Oh, that's right, you are in California., 3 hours behind us.

Thanks. When Dan proposed that we cut 2 inches off of them I was really looking for another solution. It just seems wrong to cut up a new pair of $ 300 wishbones. But he was right, as usual, it really made them fit much better. One thing about Dan, he isn't afraid to cut something up and start over.

Don

Don If you don't mind, since I have never built a front end of this type why are the wishbones adjustable. It looks to me when the spring is anchord you have nothing to adjust anyway???? As I said If it dosen't take 2 pages let me in on whats going on
Thanks

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

One thing about Dan, he isn't afraid to cut something up and start over.

Don

With his skills he should have no fear. Dan does beautiful work.

Getting back to the 8-inch Ford rears, this was told to me by a friend who is a devoted Ford guy. I make no claim about the accuracy: The 2.79 and 3.00 were probably the most common gear ratios (Both of mine are 2.79s). The 8-inch rears were used in Mustangs, Falcons, Fairlanes, Comets, Mavericks, some Mustang IIs, and a few Pintos; 2.79s in automatic trans cars and 3.00 in the sticks. Other ratios and posi units were "special" for performance cars. The Pintos and Mustang IIs that came with 8-inch rears were the V-6 cars. V-6s were more common in the mustang II than in Pintos, but Ford made some of both.