1926 Dodge Brothers

[rainman]

Sugar Ray it may be an illusion in the pics but you look a little close on you're spring to mount. You have to keep in mind when weight is placed on the front the springs will separate, (eye to eye will be wider). It may not be a problem but you need to keep this in mind. Ideally you're spring shackles with no weight on the front would be fairly close to horizontal. Hope this makes sense to you.

 

[jfg455]

Rainman is 100% right. Forgot to mention that in my front end info! [

 

[SugarRay8]

Looks awesome......congrats on the great build.

Thanks!
I’ll have to look into your company one of these days. I have a 92’ LX 5.0 that I bought new and it’s been sitting way too long already.

 

[SugarRay8]

Great looking build, I also like the visor. You're in my son's area, (Niangua) I'd like to see this beast in person also, I try to get to Niangua about once a month. Not that far for me I live in Lowry City, Mo. About 108 miles away... Keep up the good work..[cl
RR44

Thanks! Niangua is very close, I’d welcome a visit. It would be nice to have someone who knows what we’re trying to do see it; we’re just figuring things out as we go, gets kind of scary at times.

 

[SugarRay8]

Sugar Ray it may be an illusion in the pics but you look a little close on you're spring to mount. You have to keep in mind when weight is placed on the front the springs will separate, (eye to eye will be wider). It may not be a problem but you need to keep this in mind. Ideally you're spring shackles with no weight on the front would be fairly close to horizontal. Hope this makes sense to you.

It’s not an illusion, they do look closer in the pictures than in person, but they are not close to horizontal.

Rainman is 100% right. Forgot to mention that in my front end info! [

I’ll see how it looks with the weight, but yes, I’ll most likely be modifying the mounts. [

Thank you both for the help, this is the main reason I post here, want this built as right as we can get it.

 

[SugarRay8]

Well, we still don’t have the front end all together, but we made some progress.

I went ahead and made the center spring mounting, bolted it to the spring and then tacked it onto the frame. Once we had this, we jacked up the spring ends (evenly) until the spring was supporting the weight of the frame and motor. With it in that position we measured and marked where our spring mounts needed to be. Hope to have them made and tacked in by the end of the weekend. [[[

We also made some progress on the rear. Got the four links tacked in, going to modify the arms, they are too close to the axle tubes. Otherwise the four links look good. We also tacked in the watts link assembly. First time the arms were too long, typical engineer. So I took 6” out of the center of each arm and made them adjustable. Still got to do a little “tuning” on them, but for the most part they are done.

 

[SugarRay8]

Got the new spring mounts made and installed. Also modified the 4 link bars by cutting a 1” out of them and then boxing them back in.


Installed it all late last night, forgot my camera, so I just got a couple crappy phone pic’s.

The rear travels up and down just like it should now and the watts link assembly keeps it all centered. We just need to get some shocks mounted and then weld everything up solid. [

FYI: The front spring is under load in the pictures.

 

[Gregster]

Looks like you got it headed in the right direction !

 

[SugarRay8]

Looks like you got it headed in the right direction !

Thanks!

I was pretty happy with how it all looked last night and it went together fairly quick.

We didn’t quite reach our goal of having a rolling chassis by the end of the month, but we got dang close.

 

[Gregster]

I never seem to reach all the goals or deadlines , but I still keep coming back for more .

 

[SugarRay8]

Always have to come back for more, it’s like an addiction. [ddev


We pretty much finished the suspension, just need wheels and tires then we can roll it around.

We bought four Gabriel shocks, cut the upper dust tubes off them and then fabricated some mounts.
The shocks are the same part at all four corners and we added coil springs to the ones in the rear.

We’re happy with how it all looks. Made the bottom rear shock mounts bolt on so we can change springs easier if needed. Everything is just tacked in place for now, I’ll drag it into work to weld it all up solid latter (much better welders). [[

With the suspension done, we placed the body back on and are making mounting brackets to attach it to the frame. Hopefully we’ll have it attached in the next week or so.

Slow progress, but it’s getting there.

 

[Gregster]

The amount of time and labor in your frame is unimaginable , it looks very good .

 

[Sam_Fear]

Those shock mounts look chunky compared to the beauty of the frame. I don't like critiquing without possible fix, but I gotta call this one anyway. The rest of the frame looks way too good for the square mundane looking mounts. Maybe round off what you can? I dunno.

No offense, just my .02$

 

[SugarRay8]

The amount of time and labor in your frame is unimaginable , it looks very good .

Thanks.
It’s taken many more hours than I expected, certainly learned a few things that will help speed up any future builds.

 

[SugarRay8]

Those shock mounts look chunky compared to the beauty of the frame. I don't like critiquing without possible fix, but I gotta call this one anyway. The rest of the frame looks way too good for the square mundane looking mounts. Maybe round off what you can? I dunno.

No offense, just my .02$

Are you referring to just the front mounts or the rears as well?

I don’t think there’s much I can do with the rears, maybe round off a few corners.
I agree the fronts look very odd right now we are planning on mounting head lights on top of them.
Just not sure how that will all look so I haven’t really dressed them up yet. We don’t have lights to test fit with, so we’ll see. I may end up having to make new brackets completely.

I appreciate the critique, I want the car to look right when it’s done so please don’t hold back.

 

[SugarRay8]

We made some more progress.

My son painted the wheels, we ordered some white wall tires and got them mounted, then got it all put on the car.

Looks a lot better than the wood mock-ups we’ve been using.

 

[Gregster]

nice striping on the rims , wheels and tires make or break a car , you did good !

 

[SugarRay8]

Thanks Gregster!

We’re very happy with how they look. Hope to get it rolled outside in the next couple days and see what it looks like in the sunlight.

 

[CORPO]

looks great man.. i just love the look of the old school bias plys and wide whites is icing on the cake.. they really help set the look in my opinion

 

[SugarRay8]

looks great man.. i just love the look of the old school bias plys and wide whites is icing on the cake.. they really help set the look in my opinion

Thanks! Here's a couple pics with it off the jack stands.