It's What's Up Front That Counts

With the growth of the hot rod industry, and the resulting proliferation of readily available aftermarket parts, modifying an early car, or building one from the ground up, has never been easier. No longer is it necessary to search high and low for the bits and pieces required because virtually all of them are as close as this month's advertiser index. Ironically, the difficulty that today's rodders often face isn't where to find the parts and pieces needed, but how to choose from the array available and end up with components that are compatible. This holds true even for something as relatively simple as a solid axle frontend.

Picking Your Parts
One of the obvious advantages of buying a complete, rolling street rod chassis is that all the components are from the same source. By virtue of sheer repetition, trial and error, and experience, successful chassis builders know what parts to use for a given application. And, while those parts may vary from builder to builder, each has usually settled on some combination that works. Where homebuilders often get into trouble is when they indiscriminately mix and match parts from a variety of sources for no particular reason; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Unfortunately, when it doesn't, a builder is often stuck with a collection of good parts that are of no use collectively.

The reason that mixing and matching parts can be troublesome is simple enough. It's because there's always more than one way to do most things, even when it comes to building a street rod chassis. So, it follows that different suspension component manufacturers have developed their own way of doing things. Often, it's not that one way is any better than another, it's just different. As a result, the best bet is to stick with the same manufacturer for the basic components, even if you buy them piecemeal. If you deviate from that approach make sure to have all the information you need to choose alternatives wisely.

Mounting the Steering
For street rods with traditional frontends the norm has become a Vega steering gear with '37-48 Ford spindles on a dropped axle. It's a combination that has been proven to work well and, with the plethora of reproduction parts on the market, it is easy to come up with everything necessary. Rebuilt Vega boxes, and new derivatives, are readily available along with a variety of mounting brackets. New Pitman arms, spindles, and bolt-on steering arms complete the package. But while the availability of all those parts should make installing steering simple, there are some common pitfalls to watch out for.

One of the simple secrets to making a street rod with cross steering behave as it should can be found in the relationship between the pitman arm and the drag link's attachment point on the right spindle. The goal is to end up with the drag link parallel to the ground. And while this is a simple concept, it's accomplished differently by various component manufacturers. Where the steering mount positions the box on the frame can vary. In turn, where the steering gear is positioned impacts the style of pitman arm used; the type of front axle, and the kind of locators (four-bars, hairpins or split wishbones) will dictate the type of steering arms that will fit. All of those factors have to be considered.

Recently, we began resurrecting a chopped '32 Ford Tudor and, like most homebuilders, we're gathering parts as the budget allows. The chassis is based on reproduction '32 rails with a Dagel Super-X crossmember. The rear suspension has yet to be decided on, but so far we've added a variety of Chassis Engineering Components up front, including a four-inch drop, forged I-beam axle, forged spindles, Easy-Rider front spring, and a split Ford wishbone. The next chore: installing the steering.

We began the process by setting the axle on blocks with the spindles at the height they will be with the wheels and tires installed. Next, we set the chassis at ride height. There are a number of ways to do that with an unfinished car that's not heavy enough to fully compress the spring. We chose to remove spring leaves until the car sat where we thought it would when completed.

Next, we installed the radiator and positioned the engine (a '51 331ci Chrysler Hemi) approximately where it needed to go. We then mocked up the Flaming River steering on a Chassis Engineering bracket. As we might have guessed, the steering and the left motor mount wanted to occupy the same space, so there were two choices, move the steering or the engine. We chose the latter for a simple reason. By using the Chassis Engineering steering mount, along with their deep-drop steering arms, the drag link was level, plus, it and the tie rod cleared the wishbones with room to spare. Obviously, these parts were meant to go together, and there's no sense fighting success. Moving any part of the steering would have caused a variety of problems, and as custom engine mounts were going to be required anyway, it made more sense to move the engine up and back an inch and leave the steering alone.

Fabricating an Adjustable Panhard Bar
One of the items we wanted to add to our '32's frontend was a Panhard rod. On cross steering installations they can be a valuable addition to improve stability. Of course, with our combination of parts, namely the split wishbones, all the pieces would have to be fabricated.

Basically, the pieces required were two brackets (one for the left framerail and one for the right radius rod), a threaded tube the proper length, and a couple of rod ends; simple enough and pretty typical of most installations. However, when it came time to make a frame bracket, we decided to deviate from the norm.

For optimum performance the Panhard bar should be parallel with the drag link. So, just in case we elect to make some adjustments to the drag link at some point, rather than welding the Panhard bracket to the frame, we made one that bolts on. If any significant changes are required later it will simply be a matter of fabricating a new frame bracket.

Installing an Antiroll Bar
Remember when we said that everyone has their own way of doing things? Well, that applies to us as also. One of the components we've found to be very beneficial on a solid axle frontend is an antiroll bar (often referred to as a sway bar). Antiroll bars prevent excessive body lean in corners, and with a big iron Hemi hanging over the frontend we just thought it would be a good idea. Some of our pals who frequent our late night building spurts are convinced that an antiroll bar is unnecessary, while others think it's ugly and complicates the frontend, necessary or not. But that's the great part of building your own car, you can do it anyway you want; in our case, the antiroll bar stays. To come up with the basic pieces for our application we again called on Chassis Engineering. They provided the antiroll bar and frame brackets, while we fabricated mounting tabs on the radius rods, and simple, adjustable connector links.

Planning Ahead When building a street rod from the ground up the usual advice is to plan ahead, a good idea. Another tip is to select parts carefully and make sure they're compatible--that might even be a better piece of advice.