1937 Chevy Coupe

[smallfoot]

Doc., my protractor is sitting on the only place it'll fit on top of the hat. That pivot shaft has slotted holes under it, to help align the top A-frame so the top ball-joint can be placed behind the lower ball-joint. I'm not above cutting those slots a wee bit bigger. The front-end alignment man will probably have a canary, though. Those book-learned alignment guys nowadays have a lot of canaries, when they see a hotrod coming in.
Thank you for the tutorial, it opened my eyes.

Oh Doc, In your reading did it say anything about running at negative 3* instead of positive 3* caster.
Torchie, it looks like a short door. I thought Ford started the long door coupes in '42, maybe someone here could tell us the truth about that.

Sounds like the guy at the tire store I deal with when I asked if they could align my 31....jeesh, if they ain't got a computer program for it, they be lost...[ddd

 

[Torchie]

Torchie, it looks like a short door. I thought Ford started the long door coupes in '42, maybe someone here could tell us the truth about that.

Last Hijack Doc I promise.
Skips pic looks like a short door.
The long doors were called Sedan coups Mac.
Torchie
(Now back to our regularly schedueled programming.)

 

[Skip]

Last Hijack Doc I promise.
Skips pic looks like a short door.
The long doors were called Sedan coups Mac.
Torchie
(Now back to our regularly schedueled programming.)

I'm 99% sure it's the one on top. I'm headed out to look at it today. Pics to come.
Last Hijack Doc, I promise. [ddd

 

[Dr Crankenstein]

Doc., my protractor is sitting on the only place it'll fit on top of the hat. That pivot shaft has slotted holes under it, to help align the top A-frame so the top ball-joint can be placed behind the lower ball-joint. I'm not above cutting those slots a wee bit bigger. The front-end alignment man will probably have a canary, though. Those book-learned alignment guys nowadays have a lot of canaries, when they see a hotrod coming in.
Thank you for the tutorial, it opened my eyes.

Oh Doc, In your reading did it say anything about running at negative 3* instead of positive 3* caster.

Negative caster will put you in the ditch... like a shopping cart with a wonky wheel, it'll "search" constantly and fight you every inch of the way.

You might be able to auger the slots to attain positive caster, but I'd imagine you'll sacrifice camber to get there. If you're lucky enough to make good caster/camber numbers, but you're spring hats remain at an improper angle, you haven't fixed the anti-dive issue...

"Imagineer" (MercuryMac TM) the car under braking loads... with anti-dive negated, you'll "drive over the spring" rather than into it. (You'll be looking for a hand brake or a perfectly timed parachute extraction.)

Have you determined ride height? Do you have an aftermarket three-piece arrangement, or a one-piece (stock) cross-member grafted in? I can't tell from your photos, but either way, I see some cuttin' and weldin' in your future.

.

 

[Dr Crankenstein]

We haven't had much time lately, but made some progress.

More bubbly, sloppy, hit and miss "welding". We cut these two lumps off...

and proceeded to make our own strut rod mounts. The bushing plate needs to be 3/8" thick. We didn't have any 3/8'' on hand, so we glued two 3/16" plates together, drilled for the bushing and ground 'em smooth. We then attached the strut rod and bushing, torqued the bushing nut and tacked the plate to the frame...

... some head scratching [S some cardboard and some skull cramps took us in this direction...

... plenty of angles and some compound angles. More head scratching, more cardboard and we have it boxed as much as possible...

...

 

[Dr Crankenstein]

A couple more pics.

We moved to the inside and did much the same, but different dimensions, because the bushing plate lies off the center of the frame...

and that's where we're at today. We'll box this side something like my Crayola work shows.

.

 

[DozerII]

Nice work Doc, that right there looks like it would cause me bad skull cramps

 

[Torchie]

Nice work Doc, that right there looks like it would cause me bad skull cramps

No kidding......
Looks good and stout now.[P [P [P
Torchie

 

[earthman]

That was some serious fittin' and figgerin'. [cl

 

[Dr Crankenstein]

Unfortunately, we don't get much time to work on the car, but we have made some progress...

We finished fitting the driver side strut mount and moved to the passenger side. We had some trouble making both sides alike, where the passenger side mount wanted to lie 3/4" ahead of the driver side. [S [S (fling wrench) [S [S

Some measuring, cursing and figuring later, we decided it had to be the control arm... though the arms are interchangeable (no right or left side) we were using the same (old) control arm to fit both sides...

Rewind: Some months ago, Btard found and bought genuine Ford NOS control arms (another nice find, in my opinion) and we pressed the new lowers into service...

The new arms proved our theory. (The old arm wasn't true.) We made the necessary adjustments and we now have near perfect symmetry.

One last step. We fit and tacked braces from the strut mounts to the cross member.

This should conclude our Nuclear MII exercise. It was a pile of work, we made piles of dust and caused ourselves some headaches, but we're happy with our version of the MII. No mystery steel, no child labour (excluding Btard and myself) and OEM quality parts.

P.S. We'll finish weld when everything is placed and fit to the chassis... we've done enough grinding without asking for it!

.

 

[earthman]

Stout looking....maybe military grade

 

[bob w]

Very nice, thoughtful installation, Dr. C. I like the oem Mustang II stuff too.

 

[35 PROG]

clearance issue??

Dr C In your last photo where the rectangular tube ties the strut brace to the cross member, did you check for clearance to dump the headers looks like it may want to share that space. If you already checked this great, then I will not interrupt the scheduled program in progress[P[P[P

Shawn

 

[DozerII]

Looks great Doc,[P[P

 

[Dr Crankenstein]

Thank You for your comments, guys, they're appreciated!

Dr C In your last photo where the rectangular tube ties the strut brace to the cross member, did you check for clearance to dump the headers looks like it may want to share that space. If you already checked this great, then I will not interrupt the scheduled program in progress[P[P[P

Shawn

We've been working with a pair of swept-back "shorties"... no issues up front, but some tight spots may force some "tough love" beatings downstream... or, their demise in favour of plan 17. [S

.

 

[Dr Crankenstein]

We got a few hours in yesterday...

Btard stripped the front suspension and we set the frame at ride height, which takes us back to where we were before discovering the MII problem... anyhow, we dropped the (bare) small block and 700R4 between the rails. We also laid the 8.8 rear (loose) on its saddles...

We centered the 8.8, set the pinion angle and tacked the saddles. We also set the trans angle and started building a cross member/support, but had to quit when we found ourselves lacking a certain metric nut for the stud mount.

So, Btard placed the heads and headers we're trying to use. They're tight and there's no gasket in the picture, but they'll work with some modification. (The driver side is worse in a different way... last time we had this stuff mocked up, we cut the collector off.)

.

 

[earthman]

Lot of heat concentrated there. Have you considered fenderwell headers?

 

[DozerII]

Yup that's tight [[

 

[smallfoot]

Man, with that frame ya'll are putting together, it should ride like a continental!

 

[Old Iron]

I would like to know what you boys are doing with the confinement cage in the corner
I think you're holding out on us [ddd