Home again for a couple minutes cause I had to go get the ex at the ER again...life, what a drama all the time...

Anyway...sure enough, my donor car for the disk brakes is a 68 and that is what I looked under this morning, my 64 has the ball joint style. It looks pretty beefy on mine, so I will have to look into that.

See, I'm already learning...I've been concentrating on the control arm issue so much and thinking about home made sway bars and rack and pinions that I hadn't put my attention to those subjects yet. Also, I have been tending to concentrate my efforts on the issues I've read about, and I hadn't seen anything on the idler yet, or hadn't noticed anyway. I have read about reinforcing the steering box area.

Honestly, I have been worried about the handling more than the stregnth because I plan on pulling the K-member when the new engine is finished and reinforcing it then. For now, I have been spending my time on geometry and alignment issues, and was only considering things from the TieRods out...


Back to work


Gearhead

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

you sell it on ebay @ $287.60 (NOS, really one of a kind, all that crap)

_________________
Juan Ignacio Caino

Please use e-mail button istead of PM'ing. I do log in sometimes but I'll be answering quicker thru e-mail.

Excuse me for being dense here, but what is the actual problem we are trying to fix? An AlterK-tion (Bigblockdart) kit does away with the stock suspension all together.

_________________
Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

Well SlantZilla:

I see the problem from a few angles...

1st...cost and personality. I am a DIY guy because I've been burned over and over by the aftermarket, and everything I do myself seems to work and keep working. And although the offering by BigBlockDart is a really nice product, and from everything I've read, the only one for street use, for the cost of even the base unit I purchased my Lathe, Mill, and all the material and parts to build what this thread is about. Also, I just don't have that kind of cash for this project, or I'd be putting a new roll cage in my Goat so I could go race it...

2nd...I have installed a number of trick suspensions in other cars over the years all from kits or by swapping parts from other vehicles to improve geometry. I have a 66 GTO in the driveway with tubular upper and lowers with Delrin bearings instead of bushings. It also has coil over adjustable shocks...it drives and handles awesome but it was just a kit I installed and I didn't learn much doing it...this time, I wanted a hands on experience with the satisfaction of doing it myself...

3rd...I like the torsion bar factory suspension. It has alot of features that make it a good candidate for the DIY guy like me. It is known to be a cabable handling setup when properly tuned, setup, and/or modified.

4th...The specific issues I am trying to solve are well known...without discussing strength since my thread isn't about that, but about correcting these two other main issues...

a. when you lower your a-body, the factory limited adjustment for positive castor fades to non-existent. If you opt for problem solver bushings this can be overcome, but then you have rubber bushings with a short life span given the quality of todays rubber and the lack of quality of our air breaking them down in no time...The use of tubular uppers will solve this problem but without addressing issues coming next in point "b".

b. the ongoing argument over the use of the available urethane bushings on the LCA verses stock, bonded to shells, rubber bushings. If you use the urethane, it is claimed that the LCA can slide forward and back on the bushing, which it most certainly can given the design. (is this a problem...very debatable...but I don't want to run my own personal test on my time and money...some say you can use an adjustable strut to tweak the LCA forward to not only lock its position on a urethane bushing, but also to increase castor. This might work fine, but I don't like the idea of pulling the LCA forward and placing stress on the bushing, thereby stiffening the suspension and transmitting more road noise, and placing even more stress on the bushing itself. I don't want a soft rubber bushing in this critical point in the suspension geaometry...so what to do. Well, my first thought would be to tap the end of the LCA pin and place a locator there to limit travel...OH...I found a little known and hard to find thread where the Doc Dodge did just that...great minds think alike...but this means the stock pin and LCA location must be retained which doesn't help the castor issue.

5th...many of us already have some cool parts and don't want to start over with all new...in my case, I was given a just rebuilt set of KH disk brakes for free, and I already had a small bolt pattern 8 3/4 in the rear, so it was more cost effective (both time and money) to buy small bolt pattern aftermarket wheels than to change over to late model stuff. And of course, the ability to upgrade only some of the parts, or build it over time...all things easier on the pocket book that shelling out for a comprehensive package like the Alter-K-tion unit.

6th...from what I have read on the BigBlockDart site, he doesn't really recomend his setup as the ultimate handling package, but rather, a drag racing package that is very streetable, and that he is working with a G-machine guy to produce a handling k-member designed for that purpose. Maybe I'm wrong, but I swear I just read this stuff in Reilly's own words on his site...or somewhere, his site is down for construction just now...

So all these points together give good reasons why someone might want to work on the factory suspension over opting for the K-member package. There is also a certain amount of pride that can be taken in modifying stuff on your own that you can't get buying the parts and bolting them on, and when you are at the track and kick someones behind, it makes them feel much worse when your suspension looks basically stock or homebuilt as opposed to some trick looking aftermarket stuff that people expect to get beaten by...and part of what I like when I'm racing, is the look on peoples faces when the get whooped by $30k less car than they have...

So as I've already stated a number of times, I really appreciate small compaies like BigBlockDart for the cool products they bring to market to fill the variety of cool niche ideas that make the automotive hobby so great. But just because the Alter-K-tion exists, does not mean we must turn off our brains, put away our tools, and take out our credit cards.

Although at first I was a bit annoyed by the attitude of your post Slantzilla...since it seems obvious to me that the slantsix.org site is filled with people who are interested in low buck, DIY approaches to this stuff, which is why I post here rather than elsewhere or not at all...for I certainly don't need to pass on any of this knowledge or spend any extra of my valuable time. The main reason I do is that I like to write and talk about my ideas to learn from others, to think things thru more clearly on my own, and for the satisfaction I seem to get from passing on some of my own school of hard knocks learning experiences.

That said, I was planning on writing about all the reasons I'm doing this before getting started on the actual parts producing and technical aspects anyway, and so your post has made me get the basics out of the way at the same time...so thanks

Karl

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

OK...so I've now listed for SlantZillas sake why I would do this rather than buy a solution.

Sorry I didn't post yesterday, but this is allergy season here and yesterday I got nailed bad, I was so stuffed up the nerves in my teeth are aching and it feels like vice grips on my jaw...I was tired of being miserable though and went drag racing last night...only made two passes...but the 350k mile old slant clicked off 17.67@76.1, and 17.63@76.3. I was really easy on the launch cause my clutch is weak or it would've run its usual 17.40's...

Anyway...so now that I listed what I consider the most pressing problems upgrading a factory suspension for handling and least with respect to whats available in the aftermarket...let me go thru my thought proccess on the solution.

Tubular uppers solve the castor problem by relocating the upper ball joint more rearward which give more positive castor while still able to adjust for proper camber with a lowered car. This would be a great solution for the $300 but for the missing link...the lower control arm still moves around on urethane or needs a bonded rubber bushing.

A bonded lower bushing can be used with the tubular uppers with an adjustable strut rod to keep the alignment sound with the LCA exactly perpendicular to the LCA pin. Or you can use an adjustable strut to pull the LCA forward while using urethane upper bushings in stock control arms. This would provide the positive castor we are looking for but at the expense of placing stress on the LCA bushing and transferring excess road noise as well. This can also be done with a urethane bushing and will solve the problem with the LCA moving around...

So a good solution would be similar to what FirmFeel suggests. Use an adjustable strut, and run a urethane bushing, adjust the strut for smooth perpendicular travel (rotation around) to the LCA pin, then use tubular uppers to get the good alignment specs. Not a bad plan and probably sufficient to work quite well, but at a cost of $300 for upper arms and $175 or so for strut rods.

One thing I learned from the 66 GTO mentioned above, is that most road noise is transmitted by the parts of the suspension that don't move freely. In other words, if the suspension moves freely in all the directions it should, then the springs and shocks absorb the road quite well. The bushings that are pressed on and the control arms can't move easily is where the bulk of the road noise and harshness come from...assuming decent spring rates and not super high rates. The GTO has a very solid feel to it, and it definately bumps solidly over RR tracks and such, but it no longer has that jarring sensation my urethane bushing cars have always had...and I like my urethane bushing cars ride! So the bearing idea in suspension parts really does seem to work well and have a good ride unlike has been suggested to me over the years.

So let me take you thru how and why all this came about...

Well, my front suspension is tired on my Valiant and needs to be gone thru...

But I wanted disk brakes and improved handling...this was 3 years ago I thought this and I'm still driving the same suspension daily right now...

So I had a few extra bucks at the time and bought all urethane front and rear knowing I wouldn't get to it for awhile. Then I started reading about Mopar suspensions and following Lou's (Dart 270) progress on his cars.

I did searches on Trans Am cars and read books on suspension...this is how I came to the conclusions I've already written about. At first I thought I'd just run the urethane, some were using them without issue...but then I I got hold of a couple control arms with sway bar mounts and started looking them over, I fitted my urethane bushings and assembled the pins and viola! I could just drill and tap the end of the pin and put a washer on and no more LCA wondering around. I did an internet search and couldn't find anyone making this solution...I found really nice greaseable pins available at FirmFeel, but just stock replacement in design. I searched Slantsix.org but didn't find anything...couple months go by and somehow I stumbled on Docs thread about the same mod of a locator on the end of the pin...but no updates. Some people showed concern for wear, but I didn't think this would be an issue with a lot of grease, after all most of the stress there doesn't place thrust forces of great amount and the only real tension on the locator would be from the urethane in the bushing, which could be set by me...were off and running I thought.

I could take care of these issues with just a drill press.

Then I was given my 68 Valiant parts car (anyone need a good 318?) This had just rebuilt KH brakes and a sway bar...so I took it apart.

Upon looking at the LCA mount it seemed there was plenty of room to move the LCA forward a bit and increase the positive castor...hmmm

So I thought I would do what I had planned, but would turn down the urethane bushing to allow the LCA to move forward a 1/4" or so, this would give me everything I was after...so now I started looking at the strut rods. Stock ones are non adjustable...well that won't work if I move the LCA forward, and after reading more, I come to find out they are a little on the long side anyway, at least with urethane bushings. No problem, I'll buy or make some.

So I go to FirmFeel but I don't really want to run a bushing, then I run across a web site with some Ford handling parts and here is some cool rod end stuff...I thought, I can make that...

But I started searching for Mopar equivilents and up pops the BigBlockDart site....now I've never talked to Bill, but from his site and writings I can see he is much like me, and his strut rods are really nice and right in line with what I would want. Price isn't even that bad as I know what it costs to make stuff like this...but that doesn't change the fact that I just started a new business and have no money!

At this point...I have a full size lathe, a mini lathe, a mini CNC mill, and a turret lathe, but no full size mill, so I can't just build anything, my little mill is great for lots of stuff, but not steel suspension components. But luck comes my way again, and an old friend and customer from the slot car shop I owned for ten years, happens to be visiting a mutual friend when I happen by...he inherited a mill and all the tooling but just found that he is not a machinist, he wants to sell it but won't because he uses it just enough to build slot car parts to make it worth keeping...long story short...he can use it anytime he wants and I now own it!!!

So allof a sudden, I have the ability to amke whatever I want (more or less)... this was three months ago...

So I also looked at the different K-members because I was interested in Rack and Pinion steering, but only AlterKation seemed like what I would want, but I did'nt have the money and I didn't want coil springs...I don't know, I just get a kick out of making the stock stuff work as much, and whenever, possible. So I set that idea aside thinking some day I might build my own K-member or modify the stock one for a rack.

But for now...just improve what I have on a budget and try to get to where Lou is...besides, I also need to have money to build the engine...

Around this same time(3 months ago) I was putting the finishing touches on the 66 GTO. This car belongs to a good friend of mine, and I have built the engine and all the suspension and wiring on the car. This was my first experience with Delrin Bearings and is part of the Global West suspension line for GM a-bodies (GTO.s, Chevelles, etc...)

http://www.globalwest.net/

I am really happy with the ride of this car and that started me thinking about making my own for the Valiant.

So after considering many options, I decided on a path to follow. It would be relatively low cost, solve the issues descibed above, could be made myself thru easy to find parts and materials, and would allow one last thing...

OK...here is the tough part for me. I am usually a documentation and engineering fanatic, and my normal proccess here would be to completely analyze the suspension geometry and design everything on paper or in the computer and plan each detail. But I realized early on in this two things...first, I have very little time, second, I want this to be easy and fun. I looked into a number of suspension design software packages, and none seemed to incorporate torsion bar suspensions, or include the Mopar suspension for analysis. Some software would allow me to create this suspension within, but the costs started to get pretty high. I could create my own in 3D cad, I have he software and skills...but the extra hundred hours...???? I could draw it out on paper...Or I could set up spread sheets, calculate stresses, write equations...I just want my car to handle a little better...I'll do all that when I build my own Kframe or set it up for rack.

For now, I decided on the easy route, take as a given that others have made the factory suspension work more than well enough to do what I want to do...(handle well on the road, and be impressive for what it is at autocross or track days) and simply work to eliminate the issues these people have found or dealt with...and not worry about ackerman, or scrub, or other things that I would worry about if I were designing the control arms myself.

So my final decision was to build my own adjustable strut rods, so beefy that stress calculations for the parts would not be needed. I would build my own bushings/bearings out of delrin for the LCA (I even looked into using needle bearings), These would be made such that the LCA would be located approx .300" farther forward in the chassis, increasing the positive castor of the suspension. I would machine my own LCA pins with a larger flange for a greater thrust suface for the bearings, and they would be greasable. The pins would have a "locator" that bolts to the back side and positively retain the LCA in position while rotating freely about its axis. These locators would also rec'v grease via the same passage as the bearings. They would also be designed so as to minimize any possible interference with the end of the torsion bars. I am working on my own tubular sway bar design have have not decided yet on a path to follow.

So the end design would use the stock upper control arms with urethane bushings (although now I am seriously considering making my own delrin bearings for those as well). The LCA would rotate freely and be captured by design with increased positive castor, and the strut rods would be soild and non bushed so no distortion of geometry would occurr over rough terrain.

This should allow for camber adjustment while retaining all the positive castor you would like for any ride height. There would be no more issues about LCA moving around, no need for problem solver rubber bushings, the pats can be fitted independently from each other so the unit could be built over time if needed, works with all stock steering components if wanted, and allows me to build all this stuff without spending gobs of hours at the computer...which for a guy like me is fun in its own way, but I want to get this done and not design it for another three years continually changing my mind about things...

Next post will be about the production of the first parts and why I chose to make them the way I did...the Strut Rods.

Gearhead

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

Rock on !!! Thanks for sharing!!!!!!!

So one cool thing I forgot to mention is that I actually won my first run last night. Fri and Sat nights at PIR are just for the fun, no bracket racing. When I pulled up they called out a 68 Barracuda against me with a V8. Oh well I figured, another embarrasment for me and my slug af a Valiant...

To my surprise...I won!!! He has a stock 273 2brrl with a four barrel on it and 2.40 something gears...he ran low 18's...who'd-a-thunk-it!!!!

So that was kinda cool.

Here is a pic or two of our project suspension test car...my little Valiant.





Took these this morning with last nights race numbers still covering the windshield.

Strut Rods. Well, as I stated earlier, I didn't want a bushing strut rod, so this eliminated FirmFeels products. The BigBlockDart units looked really nice and everyone who has them seems to swear by them. I had here a strut from an Alfa Graduate that put me to thinking about a possible good idea for my car.



These use a ball joint on the frame as the pivot. I thought this wouldn't be hard to make and I bet it would work good. But I wasn't in the mood to search out an available and usable ball joint with appropriate mounting design...although a GM a-body upper ball joint is held in by four bolts and would probably work well. Also, by nature, ball joints are pretty stiff and don't allow the really free movement and might stiffen the LCA movement, although, this probably isn't a real issue given the leverage at work on the ball joint. So even though it seemed like a possible good solution, I opted to build some similar to the BigBlockDart units.

His mounting method is simple, and the bent strap construction to hold the rod end lends itself to simple manufacture, I chose to build the frame mount a little different. One thing I thought about, was that if the mounting point of the pivot is moved toward the control arm, then the radius of the arc the strut follows thru the LCA movement would tend to pull the lower arm forward during suspension travel, increasing positive caster as you brake or accelerate. But I didn't want to redesign the stock suspension so I chose a method that would allow the pivot point to be very close to the original location.

Mainly, the diff between Bills and mine resides purely in the mount, I used the same DOM tubing and 5/8" fine thread mounting, and purchased aircraft grade rod ends from a race shop here in town. But rather than a bolt running thru a sheet metal strap and then an aluminum mount and clamped to the frame by a large nut, I chose to machine the entire mount out of one piece, with the main body (LCA side) threaded to rec'v a bolt from the front side of the frame, thru a heavy machined steel washer.

Another thing that I noticed on taking the parts car apart, was that the frame was beat up rather bad from the worn out factory set-up in the car. It would need to be deburred with a die grinder. But it is no easy to reach with the factory sheet metal and plastic covers all around. So I chose instead to machine a solution into the parts so that on installing in my 64, the condition of the frame would not matter.

Here is a picture of the partially completed strut mounts on my lathe:



What I did was machine a reccess into the area directly around the hole in the frame, then machine the washer that clamps the main mount into the frame to be oversize on the inside dia. This allows the mount to slip into the frame fitting the hole closely, but any burrs will go into the reccess on the backside, or into the Larger dia of the inside of the washer. In other words, the condition of the frame at this point doesn't matter and the mount will tightly clamp flush to the frame. A small point, but saves time in the long run for me or any potential customer.

Here is a shot where I am about to part the clamping washer off the lathe...this is one of the hardest operations to do on a lathe and can sometimes be a real pain in the you know what. You must use much coolant, slow speeds, very sharp tools, and very rigid setup...that said, it jammed up on me once but I saved the part and setup. Some metal is easier than others, for this job I already had some cold rolled which makes this tougher, but I didn't want to spend $30 on some easier to machine steel.



I only mention this last part because I want you all to realize I am not using CNC machining center at work or something, although if I produced a kit I would have them made at one of my freinds shops...no, I am using a Enco 13x40" engine lathe. Manual, without digital readouts. So these parts take a fair amount of time to setup, machine, change tools and setups, and move from machine to machine(mill and drill press). Its kind of a pain, but I very much enjoy this kind of work. I bought the lathe for $700 with some tooling but not alot. I had my eye out for a good deal for a year or two and one finally came my way. It is not a high quality lathe, but it gets the job done and holds tight tolerance. It was only used to make brass cannons by a retired guy.

Got to work a little today...more to come soon.

Gearhead

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

Gearhead, I was not trying to demean your post, just wanted a clarification of what you were actually trying to do.

You mentioned Bill's kit. The main purpose of it is to make a lot of room for a big block in an A-body and still have a good handling car.

Trust me, I have been all through the "bolt-in" K-frame kits. I have an AJE for my Duster that may or may not ever be made to work. You would not believe the bump steer and Ackerman problems that are built into it.

Magnumforce is marginally better, but lots more expensive.

DARE is plain junk and Dave is a thief. I can't believe he is still in business.

LRT makes an excellent K-frame kit, but it is drag race only.

When you get ready to mount a rack I can give you a couple ideas of the problems we have faced so far.

I hope your endeavour turns out well. The Mopar world needs more good suppliers.

_________________
Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

Well I wasn't very tired tonight so I thought I'd make a little more progress posting...

So here is a picture of three of the four major lathe produced strut mount parts completed:



The last washer at this point was still needing to be parted off.

Now it is time to tap the 5/8" 18 threads into the mounts, so we move them to the drill press for this manual operation:



These parts are now ready to be moved to the mill and have a flat milled onto them for the head of the cross bolt that holds the rod end of the strut rod.

Here is a pic of the mount in the mill having just finished creating the flat using a four flute high speed steel cutter:



The flat gives enough room for the 5/8" fine( 18tpi ) thread socket head cap screw. I would have liked to use a button head, but couldn't find anything but course thread anywhere in town.

At this point I would use an edge finder to relocate the spindle head above the point where I want to drill, then I would use a center drill to create aa point to start the full size drill. The full size drill has a small chance of wondering on start if you don't center drill it. Usually not with 5/8" drills because they are so beefy, but better safe than sorry.



Gearhead

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

Alrighty then:...

Now we drill a little more than half way thru with a 5/8" drill so that the bolt will slide into the rodend when all finished:



I use a spray bottle with diluted water based machining coolant to keep the tools cool at the cutting tip...So this is the blue liquid in some of the pictures. I have a mist-er which sprays a constant fine mist on your work, but I'm in the proccess of reworking the air lines in my garage and couldn't easily set it up...

Once we get to half way thru:



We need to change drill bits to 37/64" which is the size for the 5/8" 18 tap used for most all the parts. So once we change drills, we just go the rest of the way thru...I rested the mount on a piece of wood so that I would see the chips and know I was through...Here is a shot of the smaller drill on its way:



Next we will move it back to the drill press for tapping. But I am sleepy now so I will save that for the next post...

Gearhead

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

No problem Slantzilla, I was just in a mood and looking for an argument this morning...when you spend 24 hours with vice grips on your jaw(my allergies) it can make you take things any which way...anyway, you got me moving on the post so that and all is good...

Gearhead...time for sleep

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

Karl....By any chance, might you be interested in limited-quantity production of your developments?

Roger

Yes Roger, I would be...I have friends here in town that can produce the parts, but that doesn't mean they have the best price or capability. Most are very busy with work so that small jobs aren't that appealing.

So certainly you can contact me with appropriate information about your offer.

So now that I have drilled the cross hole for the rod end bolt, I moved the parts back to the drill press to manually tap those two holes as well. I won't bore you guys with another picture of a tap sticking out of the part...at least not that part!!!

Once the cross hole is tapped, it is time to relieve the center of the part, creating the slot that the rod end will slide into...for this we need a 3/4" wide slot, the same width as the rod end. So we start out by using a slightly undersize roughing end mill. This is a special end mill that allows the chips to clear better, and will cut thru any chips that get caught up in the slotting operation. This is what a rougher looks like:



As you can see in the picture, it leaves a fairly rough surface along the sides of the part which will need to be cleaned up later. This is why we use a slightly undersize cutter. Milling cold rolled like this is a slow proccess, I can only safely take about .045" each pass and that is with spraying coolant on the parts. If this was aluminum I could whip thru it in no time, but the steel means I must take care. I could probably cut more and faster, but is it worth possibly overheating the cutter and screwing up a $30 tool...no...better to take a couple extra passes and squirt coolant on it regularly.

So at this point we are half way thru cutting the slot, and you can see the cross hole and the threaded bottom of the mount. Once we get almost all the way to the bottom, I can switch tools to a regular high speed cutter, and make a .005" cleanup pass on each side to get 3/4" of nice looking slot.



So at this point it is time to start on the strut rod itself.

Gearhead

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

Sunday evening and I've decided to postpone the California trip until I figure out this situation with my jaw. It is quite normal for me to experience pain in my left upper jaw from sinous pressure...but geeze...this is the worst I've ever felt without having an infection, which makes me wonder if I have an infection...needless to say, I'm not hitting the road till I figure it out...

So for tonight lets finish the Strut Rods and mounts. I used 7/8" OD by 7/16" ID DOM tubing. This is some really strong tubing almost a 1/4"(7/32") wall thickness. First I drilled it out on the lathe to 37/64" so that I could run the 5/8 fine tap into it for the rod end.



I tapped it by hand as per picture. I have a tapping head that will work on the lathe, but for just two parts its not worth the setup time. I cut the tubing about 3" too long so that I could cut the final length after taking measurements from the LCA after it is installed with its new, farther forward, position.

Here is what the completed unit looks like:



Pretty darn nice and tough looking unit if you ask me... and as I said earlier, I wanted a button head cap screw cause it would look a little cleaner...but I couldn't find any, had to settle for socket head.

As stated, it is not much different from the BigBlockDart style and should work in an equivilent fashion. I don't think strength will be an issue...my only concern is how to keep the parts from rusting, and yet painting them just doesn't seem right somehow...

The strut rods are now 90% complete needing only the final length to be cut, and tapping the LCA end after this length is determined.

Next step is to make a couple of Delrin Bushings...

I'll try to post that in the morning.

Gearhead

_________________
64 GTO...10.80's@122 on street radials
Destroked 455, Qjet, stock ign, 2400 stall

64 Valiant
Old 225, 4spd, 2.92-8.75, 2bbl, headers
dual 2.25"

NICE!!!!!




Maybe some zinc washers somewhere as a sacrificial metal........

_________________
Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes