Suicide front ends - how they did it in the 60's!

[Tripper]

Here's an article from Car Craft magazine Dec '64 on "How to build a Hot Rod! Kool!!! You can enlarge these after you click on them by clicking on them a second time!

BoB

 

[Bonehead]

Fun stuff there.

 

[Gastrick]

I wish there were more articles like that today, showing which factory parts can be used/interchanged/modified. Thanks for posting Bob.

 

[The Rattler]

Thanks!

Tripper,
Thanks for posting that! Cool to see that old stuff! Now you can buy all that stuff & just slam it on!

Rattler

 

[donsrods]

Coincidently, there was just a thread on the HAMB yesterday about a guy who drove across some RR tracks and his front end broke. He has a suicide front end, and of course some of the "experts" started saying "we told you these wouldn't work!" However, once the pictures were all posted up it was discovered that the commercially available spring perch snapped.

What caused it is open to conjecture, but to me it looks like too much bind was on it and that the threaded end was way too small. I'm running a suicide front end, but left the nuts slightly loose so the perch can rotate slightly as the spring goes up and down.

The owner stated he just bought the car off of Ebay a while ago, and from looking at some of the pictures the construction and welding are not the best. That is why some of us shudder when we see work done by some builders, and we feel obligated to say something. There is so much strain on these parts when you are going down the road that they have to be done right.

Here are pictures of the one that broke.

Don

 

[22dodge]

Thanks.........

Thanks for posting that, Bob.
That's how the radius rods were done on the '22.
Interesting to see it, though the "C" clamp spring spreader scares the heck out of me. '22

 

[Tripper]

Here are pictures of the one that broke.

I SWEAR I did not weld that up!!! The welding looks like it did not penetrate well for what i see. I try to weld the most important areas once & then come back & zig-zag weld a second pass for safety. Don is right... those parts are under a lot of stress on & need to be secured *very* well. It's *only* u're life we're talkin' about here!!! I can only imagine how he felt when that came loose!!!!!!!

BoB