Time to replace 30 year old suspension - little help please?

[911dean]

Frank

Thanks alot...another piece I want for my suspension. Just got off the phone with Chuck. Quick change splined hub and retrofit threaded inserts on there way to my house. I've already got the Rebel pieces and hollow torsion bars.

I'm getting there, slowly but surely.

Dean

[frankc]

Quick update:

Brass Oil Cooler:
I received the cooler back from Pacific Oil Cooler - it looks great (need to unbox and post a pic). I will be sending them the oil tank after it is powder coated.

Chassis Dolly:
I finally finished the chassis dolly last week. The car was picked up on Friday and taken to the body shop where they are going to paint the inner fender areas, under the quarter panels, and the engine bay. I'll also have them weld on the support bracket for the later style front oil cooler.

Transmission:
I have been having much discussion on the best way to move forward with the transmission - specifically the setting of the R/P backlash and diff carrier preload. After determining what spacers I should order I discovered that that particular part number is NLA, so I had to get creative and order several to be stacked to get the desired shim sizes. The shims had to come from Germany and just arrived late last week, so I'll be picking them up this week and hopefully have some good news soon. If you're interested, the discussion took place in these two threads:

Differential Carrier Bearing Race corrosion - Replace?

915 Repair - What tools needed to change carrier bearings?

Oil Thermostat and Steering Rack:
I took these to the plater to see if they could be anodized, but was told that since they are cast parts the anodizing will not turn out well. He did clean them up for me nicely (acid dip) and I will probably silver powder coat the oil thermostat to match the trailing arms and front crossmember. I may try a phosphate coating on the steering rack, but need to experiment first. The O-Ring and Tire Rub Prevention Kit arrived for the steering rack, so I'm good to go there.


It was just supposed to be a suspension rebuild...

[afterburn 549]

maybe a dumb question..why not go way modern and change to coil over? gets rid of T.bars too!

[RWebb]

coil overs add nothing except cost unless you want to make the car so stiff that torsion bars can't be used

[frankc]

Torsion bars are fine for my intended use (not a track car). Plus that would require welding in a bunch of supports in the areas at the top of the spring/shocks towers that weren't designed to hold the weight of the car - something I'm not so keen on doing.

My general philosophy on modifications is if it requires welding and it is a factory part (e.g.; the front cooler support bracket) then I will consider it. For non-factory parts, I prefer modifications that can be unbolted to be put back to stock if desired.

[James Brown]

heck you can run both if you want to

[afterburn 549]

its just a small bracket that has to be welded on top and just the rears I think. pretty simple to knock off and delete if style dictated.
There has to be mild spring rates for street applications...no ?

[frankc]

I received the car (chassis, really) back from the restoration shop on Friday. I think I may actually be on the downhill side of this project. Let the re-assembly begin.

Since much of the interior and the cowl fan are currently removed, I decided my first re-assembly project would be completing the A/C delete I started many years ago.

Retrofitting non-A/C ventilation ducts

I purchased the correct non-A/C ventilation controls and the other duct parts needed to retrofit a non-A/C setup (fresh air from the center & side dash vents), and today I started removing the original ventilation controls. It feels good to be making progress once again.

I'll post photos of the steps involved for the retrofit on the thread above instead of this thread, since many people there have asked to see them.

Status as of today:


btw, if anyone is interested in how I constructed the dolly, let me know and I'll post some more detailed pictures.

[irl]

Any updates

[frankc]

Well, I am almost done with the A/C delete project, but ran into a blocking point with that, so for the past two nights I've been rebuilding my steering rack. I should be finished with the rack soon and will post some pictures of the process. Then back to the A/C project (and installing the alternator, and reassembling the aux oil thermostat, and installing the fuel and brake lines, and ...).

I tend to have about ten projects going in parallel with this car. I work on one project until I need to order a part or send a part out for work, then move to the next until the same thing happens. All the projects move forward in spurts as parts and time become available. But the good news is several projects are close to being done now, so the prospect is looking good to have the car on the road by the end of the year. I was targeting to have it ready by the time of the F1 race next month, but I still have my transmission to deal with, so that's not going to happen .

[911 tweaks]

hi frank...can u please post details = measurements of your wooden dolly...I would appreciate it...project is coming along great...! keep up the great work...thx, bob

[frankc]

Originally Posted by 911 tweaks

hi frank...can u please post details = measurements of your wooden dolly...I would appreciate it...project is coming along great...! keep up the great work...thx, bob

Bob,
I planned on providing the details on the dolly tonight, but I just came in from working on my ventilation project and had to place an order for a bunch of fasteners so I could finish my steering rack and some engine work.

So unfortunately it's too late now for me to get into the dolly details tonight, but I would be glad to share them with you as I could not find too much info on how people built them when I searched back in the Spring. I hope to post some pictures, dimensions and the hardware list tomorrow night.

[Craig_D]

Good luck Frank. I know what you mean about multiple projects at once. It'll all come together though.

[bryant4]

I LIKE that dolly!

Is gravity holding the car body in place? or is it bolted?

With bigger wheels, I could roll a project around in my gravelled driveway/ work area.

nice...

[Rohanm02]

Hi, definitely interested in your dolly plan. Could you share it please. I can't see where the dimensions where posted. Great work..

[frankc]

Sorry for the late reply on the dolly questions. I've been trying to finish up my thread on the non-A/C retro-fit, and then plan to jump back over here to provide some updates.

Yes, the chassis is bolted to the dolly. I started taking some pictures of the dolly and attachment points that I will be posting here shortly, along with measurements & hardware. I hope to finish up the other thread in a few more days.

[frankc]

Ok, I've been getting some more questions lately about my dolly, so let me at least start writing some of this stuff down.

Material List:

Lumber:
3 @ 8-foot 4x4s
1 @ 1-foot 2x4
8 @ 6x8" sections of 3/4" Plywood

Fasteners:
4 @ 1/2" x 8" Hex Head Bolts
8 @ 1/2" Washers
4 @ 1/2" Nuts
16 @ 3/8" x 6" Carriage Bolts
2 @ 3/8" x 5" Hex Head Bolts
16 @ 3/8" x 2.5" Carriage Bolts (2" may be better)
40 @ 3/8" Washers
32 @ 3/8" Nuts
4 @ 5/16" x 6" Hex Head Bolts
8 @ 5/16" Washers
4 @ 5/16" Nuts
8 @ 3x3" Bearing Plates (Home Depot link)

Wheels:
4 @ 8-inch Caster Wheels w/brake (Harbor Freight link)

Regarding the 4x4s; I used pressure treated lumber because that was all that was available at Home Depot. But be careful if you use pressure treated lumber because the lumber I purchased was still quite wet when I assembled the dolly, and two months later when I went to pick up the chassis from the body shop, I noticed that the 4x4s had shrunk quite a bit, leaving the fasteners a little loose and the dolly a bit wobbly. So check the fasteners often - especially with new lumber.

I chose solid instead of pneumatic tires for the wheels because the surfaces that I would be rolling over were mostly smooth concrete, allowing the solid tires to roll with less effort than pneumatic. If you need to roll over a rough surface, you may want to consider pneumatic tires.

The main structure is built from the three 8 foot 4x4s. Two of the 4x4s run the length of the car, and the third is cut in half with the two 4 foot sections used for the cross members at the front and back.

That's all I have time for right now. I have taken lots of pictures and will post those tomorrow along with a description of how it all fits together.

[Flojo]

nice project, nice car, nice dolly!

though for the dolly, I'd rather have placed the rolls below the crossbar:

[frankc]

Originally Posted by Flojo

though for the dolly, I'd rather have placed the rolls below the crossbar:

Flo,
I agree that placing the wheels directly under the crossbars would result in less stress on the longitudinal beams, and I had originally planned to build the dolly this way.

However, two of my design goals were maximum stability and fore/aft clearance, because I knew that the chassis+dolly would need to be loaded onto a flatbed trailer to get it to the body shop (which was the primary purpose of the dolly). So I decided to go with the cantilever design to make the wheelbase as long as possible, thus minimizing the risk of the chassis tipping while on the ramp, and also providing more clearance for entering and exiting the ramp.

But thanks for pointing that out, because I forgot about this little detail and would not have mentioned it otherwise.

[frankc]

Continuing from where I left off yesterday, the primary purpose of the dolly was to transport the chassis to and from the body shop (about 80 miles round trip). Given that, my design requirements were:

• Chassis must be bolted to dolly
• Front and rear dolly axles attached to each other for added strength while being pulled with winch
• High clearance for entering and exiting the flatbed ramp
• Long wheelbase to avoid tipping while on ramps
• Chassis 18 to 24 inches from floor (per request from body shop)
• Wood construction since I just recently learned how to weld, and don't trust myself yet
• Easily disassembled for storage

The above requirements led me to the results you see.

I received a question about how I transferred the chassis from jack stands to the dolly, so let me start there. I built the dolly in sections around the jack stands, bolted it to the chassis, and then removed the jack stands and lowered the dolly. I will detail the steps below, starting with the rear axle.

The Rear Axle
The rear axle cross member is bolted to the chassis using the transmission mount bracket (Photo 1).

Photo 1:



The bracket is bolted to the axle using the 4 @ 5/16" x 6" Hex Head Bolts (Photo 2).

Photo 2:



Note that you will need to flip the two rubber transmission mounts so that they attach from the top instead of the bottom, since the bracket is now pushing up on the chassis instead of pulling down like it normally would (Photo 3).

Photo 3:
post


The 12" 2x4" is used under the transmission bracket to raise the chassis enough to clear the 4x4, however even this was not quite enough and I had to carve out two small pockets in the 4x4 to clear the rear sway bar mounts (Photo 4).

Photo 4:



I'll cover the front axle cross member in the next post.