1928 FORD MODEL A SEDAN- belly pan.

i know its an old thread but curse word it lol this is cool!!

Do you go Dick Turpin on a wed nights?

Lots of rods get down their.

a fella could get a big head with all these props you know
ile take em in a slightly embarrassed but secretly quite proud way.

anyways, youd all best get ready for some serious updates over the next few months. ive just spent the last 2 weeks getting 'dug in' for the winter, re-arranging my entire workshop around being able to work on this thing on all those cold dark evenings. a bit of paint on the walls, wire up a couple more lights, throw up a couple more shelves and a new dedicated bench, and I think itll be rolling/driving by the time it gets warm enough to not need 3 hoodys anymore.......
theres aready been some major progress on rear suspension (cos I don't think ive posted anything on that yet) and the steering (cos I don't think ive mentioned that either).
not to mention ive also organised the machine work I needed doing, which will be done when my mate is on nightshift and his boss isnt looking over the next few weeks. the bits I need are the bearing spacers for the front hubs, the spacers/bushings for the wishbone spring mounts, and turning down some steering arm ends into tapered bungs to weld into my new steering arms and accept the trackrod ends.

will update as soon as its all done in the metal

Looking forward to the updates!

You don't muck about do you mate.
Looking good

only in the large spells between me working on this

A.F.O.D,
in the words of B.T.O., you aint seen nothin' yet- theres WAY cooler stuff coming than this. i like to think bracketry is my speciality........

epic skills once again, cant wait to see what else you fab up

in this continuing saga set over many years and an indeterminate amount of installments that appear at haphazard intervals, I invariably forget things.

one of those things is why I put my steering box were it is. so gather round one and all, make yourselves comfortable, and listen to a tale of steering geometry, bumpsteer, and good old fashioned fab + welding.

in previous installments, ive described how I made my actual steering column (p.9), and the steering box drop-arm (pittman arm) in the above post. I couldnt have done them without knowing where the steering box mounts, or indeed if the steering box was at all suitable for my application. basically, for a steering box to work for cowl steer on a RHD car, when you turn the steering wheel right it needs to push the arm forwards, and when you turn left it needs to pull back. if it goes the other way, your steering will be reversed, with hilarious consequences. as luck would have it, the one I got goes the right way.

the steering box on my car is from a '68-'72 VW baywindow van. but, it has had the steering output shaft lengthened by about 3", so it sticks out of the cowl enough for it not to catch anything (a common problem with cowl steer is most steering boxes have too short an output shaft to work, so you end up with crazy shaped pittman arms that curve out to clear the body).
img.photobucket.com/albums/v617/dezaster/A sedan/DSC00432.jpg[/IMG]

its been properly machined and double pegged (no welds at all), and is an excellently made piece of kit, the only decently engineered bit I got with the car, and certainly not the work of the person who did everything else on it. the bracket holding it on was a inadiquate, innaccurate, flexy pile of sh!t as you expect, so I binned that, and proceeded to make this-
img.photobucket.com/albums/v617/dezaster/A sedan/DSC00430.jpg[/IMG]

its just a bit 'o 2x4 same as the chassis rails are made from, with 2 holesaw holes in it (they're a different size each side cos of the boss for the shaft on the side you cant see), its got thickwall crush tubes welded in for the mounting bolts, then the bolts were sized up to m12 from m10, as this lot needs to be bloody solid, but mostly cos I had the right size tube to sleeve it for m12s but not m10s
but, the clever buggers amongst you will notice that I couldnt actually have done that until after id mounted it, as I wouldnt know where the crush tubes needed to be welded in as I wouldnt know the angle the steering column would sit at, as its determined by the dash too.
ive still got to notch the side and add in a 4th tube for the last mount at the front there, next time I take it off. I cut the piece of box slightly over-length at the bottom at this point, as although thatll hold it on nicely, it still don't tell me where it goes.

I have to say, this following part has been one of the most stressful parts of the builds, cos what the finished product drives like depends on this bit more than any other part.

basically, its all about parallelograms. if you don't have parallelograms, the links will have different paths which will conflict, creating bumpsteer. you can get away with them being close but not quite, but the further out they are, the more bumpsteer you will get.(if you don't know what this is, its as simple as the name sounds- when you hit a bump, the car wants to steer!)
firstly, you need to make sure your wishbones are horizontal at ride height, but thats all covered in the 'making the suspension' bit.
then your draglink needs to be parallel to your wishbone, so also horizontal. this bit isnt usually too hard to achive.
but then, they also need to be as close as possible to being the same operational length. in other words, the pivot-to-pivot length of the draglink should be the same as the distance from the rear wishbone pivot to the centreline of the axle. this is often quite hard to achive, and my draglink is actually about 2-1/2" longer as I cant physically push my steering box any further forward- the gap between the front of the steering box and the back corner of the right hand head is only 1/4"!!(look in the above pic) but over a length of 36.5" for the wishbone, its only a 7% variation, so I'm ok with that.
this pics explains, I hope- the white rod is where the draglink will run, more or less. as you can see, it and the wishbone sit more or less parallel-
img.photobucket.com/albums/v617/dezaster/A sedan/DSC00436.jpg[/IMG]
on top of that, your steering box drop arm has to be vertical when its at the centre of its travel (i.e. 'straight ahead' position) or you car will turn further one way that the other. ditto the spindle arm needs to sit perpendicular at this point, for the same reason. so, in essence, where your steering box goes is determined by this bolt-
img.photobucket.com/albums/v617/dezaster/A sedan/DSC00431.jpg[/IMG]

as this is where the steering arm bolts on(and the one on the other side of the kingpin). the height of it is determined by your wheel radius, so, in the simplest terms, your wheel and tyre choice determine where your steering box goes!! (the height of it anyway) as it will be a line horizontal to this, plus the length of your pittman arm. as for pittman arm/spindle steering arm lengths, it can start to get real messy if they're a different length, so I played it safe, checked how long most aftermarket spindle arms were, which is 5" operational length (but, remember the operational length is measured from the centre of the kingpin, not the backplate, as this is where it pivots). I also got a mate to measure how long the stock arm on a bay was, and it was either 4.5" or 5.5" I think. so I played it safe and made both 5" operational length. so now I knew where it need to be in terms of height.


but then, for you to not get the dreaded bumpsteer, you also have to take into account the suspension articulation, as this can create feedback through the suspension too when it moves from side to side, so the draglink has to also be parallel to the wishbone side to side too. like so-


lastly, an inside the footwell shot- itll give me a nice flat back to the footwell, and theres just room for 3 pedals and my size 10s in there!! I'm gunna have to get very creative with the linkages for the pedals though, as the master cyls cant go anywhere on this side of the car. I got it all figured though
img.photobucket.com/albums/v617/dezaster/A sedan/DSC00428.jpg[/IMG]

its also reminded my I havent posted up the making of my rather complex gearbox crossmember yet either.... thats one for another day.

Great write up Dez,

can´t believe how bad that deathtrap arm was, you´d think self preservation should be motivation enough to weld it up properly FFS:

natural selection

my point was, you shouldnt cut and weld on components like that at all really, no matter how good your welding is. it should be made how ive made the new one, as youre not relying on a small amount of weld to take all the forces then.
youve actually just reminded me about the old spindle arm, this was made from round bar about 8-10mm looped around with a trackrod taper cut off something else welded to it. you could bend it by hand!!