The Resurrection of Foam Car - 63 T6B

[Jack Staggs]

[quote="foamcar" post=35577]Manual says to set at 40 degrees off of vertical, but Alan at the Stable suggests at or near the bottom(car higher), as most cars he sees are at this ride height. Any advice? Can always reset once car is on the ground if it is too high?

Phil[/quote

I don't quite follow Alan's advice. The bottom of what? I would follow the manual and set arms to be at the same angle. Spring rates can change quite a bit if bars are reversed, or virgin bars are paired with used ones, but nothing to be overly concerned with. Be sure that each torsion bar adjuster has adequate range if lowering or raising is needed to achieve correct posture, a likely prospect. If/when adjustment is done, turn the Allen stop screw equal amounts for each bar. Slight differences in spring rates are inconsequential. Corner weights should be checked with scales to be within reason. Of course, all this needs to be done when the car is 100% fully assembled.

[Phil Planck]

Thanks Jack

I am installing 2 NOS bars so hopefully they are about the same. Here is what Alan posted on the "R":

"You don't set the front bars by angle but by height. There
is a limited amount of adjustment in the front. Most of the
cars I see are set near the highest setting. Each bar anchor
has 2 lock bolts with an 8 mm Allen head. Get the front
wheels off the ground to make adjustments. On each torsion
bar anchor there is a bolt which goes straight into the bar,
tighten this one first. Turn the other bolt to push down the
anchor till it is at the lowest setting, which is the body
high height. At this point tighten the both lock nuts. Do
the same for the upper anchor. This is generally where the
body wants to be. If you allow the anchor higher up in it
setting this will lower the front. The range is about 1 1/2
inches.

Alan"

My "bottom" is his "lowest setting".

Phil

[bbspdstr]

Cloudy Saturday, a customer no-show, so I get to catch up on ABCGT.com....

I'll chime in to Phil's front t-bar settings process. The "limited adjustment" to the front end ride height is a matter of slot range for the adjusters.

For the 356 race cars before SCCA allowed coil-overs and after for vintage racing, we ground the slots in the tubes and the external bracket so the front end could be lowered to where different shocks were needed because even stock fitment Konis would be too long.
For the street, that's likely unnecessary so I will recommend that you start at front with a neutral "by the book" setting and do whatever you feel is best for the rear. (I NEVER go "by the book" in the rear, always zero or slight negative camber.)

Then, whether you like your 356 level, higher or lower in the front, the adjustments to get there are FAR easier in front than re-doing the rear.

Be careful getting under a raised car on loaded wheels/suspension unless you have access to a pit or a drive-on ramp lift...but inexpensive drive-on ramp-stands can work if you are aware that the rear wheels droop when jacked and then as they are loaded, tend to walk out. I made 18x18x18 tables out of angle iron and had the local steel supply place shear 18x18 1/4" plates and 1/8" plates to 12x12 and greased between those so the alignments can be done on those as well as ride height adjustments. Just make the perimeter a nice anti-roll-off height or use 12" lengths of 2x2 angle iron as chocks....or go to a specialty shop and let them do it.

Jack, as usual, is correct about weighing corners, but as the fronts are what they are, that corner jacking is possible only in the rear.
I suggest that in measuring rear torsion bar trailing arm angles, if you have trouble getting both sides exactly equal, bias the driver's side (left or right) as the more (slightly) steep trailing arm angle to accommodate a person's weight. (For most of the last 60 years, most of the time, a 356 in motion contains only one person.)

Corner weighting in the original springing of the race cars had cushions in the driver's seat with a stack of 18 lb flywheels on a leather panel-beater shot bag of about 30 lbs, but you get the idea. I made adjustable rear trailing plates for fine-tuning on the scales.
The "truing" of the parts involved support that old saw about even 6v and drum brakes worked 'just fine' when new or just like new today. A little wear here or there really adds up to compromise the effect of new this or that....in this case shimming new link pins, with or without new king pins.

Personally, I really enjoy how everyone doing their own work and involving themselves on this site with questions and tips really strive to 'get it right.' For a 356 nut like me, it's a joy to see!

Bruce

[Phil Planck]

Thanks Bruce
I set both new torsion bars at the factory setting. Hardest part was getting the new bars centered. Pushed one of the inner threaded "retainers" clear past the opening so had to slide the bar out and use it to slowly knock it back in place. Do what the manual says here: get under and watch for the depression in the bar to line up with the adjusting hole. Otherwise it can be hard to tell if you have the bar centered, at least for me. All 4 control arms installed, grease zerks back in and ebrake lever installed. That u-clamp on the ebrake was fun to get installed. Jack said during our phone conversation that it will take several tubes of grease to fill the control arm cavity between the inner bushing and the outer needle bearings. I slopped as much on the arms as I could before sliding them in. Workbench is slowly getting cleared of parts. Next up - installing the steering knuckle assembly. Keeping my fingers crossed.
Phil

[Jack Staggs]

The main thing is to try to keep equal tension on both torsion bars. By setting the bars equally before fitting suspension components, equal turning of the Allen bolt adjusters will keep you in the ball game when making ride height adjustments. When we are called upon to adjust ride height on previously assembled/adjusted cars, we have no way of knowing if one bar is bearing more load than the other without taking everything apart. We just have to use our best guess.

[Phil Planck]

Hope I got it right Jack. At least I used an analog gauge to get it set:



Here is one side:



Ebrake lever reinstalled:

[Phil Planck]

Just got in from using Jack's shimming technique. Pretty slick way to do it. Mounted one shock also, so am going to recheck the shims in this new, closer to ride height position.




Thanks Jack.

Phil

[Jack Staggs]

Nice work, Phil. I noticed in the photo of the hand brake linkage that your car still has the sound deadening in the bottom of the gas tank well. T6 cars have fresh air intake louvers just ahead of the windshield. When water enters the intake, it is supposed to be caught in a bucket with a rubber hose attached to drain the water out through the right door jamb. If there are any leaks or spill over, the water will drain under the gas tank. This errant water will be trapped and absorbed by the mat, holding moisture directly against the bottom of the tank for months at a time from even a single episode, eventually resulting in a rusted, leaking, tank. I've had the pleasure to repair/replace many tanks directly linked to this problem. We carefully remove this material by heating with a heat gun, and save it for repairs in other areas. No increase of noise level has been noticed.

[Phil Planck]

Thanks for that tip Jack. Yes, all the original sound pads are still there. Most in pretty good shape except at bottom, front of tank. No signs of rust on tank or structure, though could be when I remove the tar paper. I am guessing Foam Car was lucky and either garaged most of the time or had no leaks in the drain system. The trunk area has not been touched yet - last area like that. Yeah, doing this ass backwards, but right now focused on getting the running gear all back in for multiple reasons. I did get some paint matched to the tank years ago and repainted the bottom. Top tank pad is very good and do not plan to remove it, just clean it up, mask, and paint the top of the tank after I coat the inside.

Did some test installs of the steering box today also, as I knew I removed it with the arm on. Finally got a method to install it with arm on, so will torque it down and put the cotter pin in. Am meeting son and granddaughter next Sat. halfway between our homes and he is going to give me a 79 Pontiac Trans Am collapsible steering column section. Will see if I can adapt it to Foam Car. Attaches to the box in a very similar fashion, though the I.D. of the shaft is a little smaller. Can't copy the picture from this site, but if you blow up the picture you can see how it attaches to the box:
http://www.classicindustries.com/product/1979/firebird/parts/15028.html

Phil

[JTR70]

Its looking great Phil! A shame to think of all the dust and overspray that those beautifully fresh surfaces will be subject to during the bodywork and paint phase. Will you be cacooning the chassis to preserve it?

[Phil Planck]

Justin
That dust problem is down the road a bit. Will keep the air hose handy to blow it off as I go. Speaking of swearing, I had one of those moments today. I removed the steering knuckles to clean out the link pin bores before final lube. While cleaning the link pins a said WTF:

This link pin does not have an even groove machined in it for the adjusting bolt! The groove tapers narrower. The other 3 are okay. Put the steering assemblies back on Foam Car and may not be able to tighten this one enough. The shim stack may change if I use a "good" pin. Need to find one.

Filled the upper axle tube with grease until it started coming out the control arm needle bearings. Installed the steering gear box. Need to clean up some grease:


Once I had the steering assemblies back on I greased them with the gun. The owners manual says to take the weight off the suspension, but the shock puts a load on both link pins since the torsion springs have to rotate about 13 degrees in order to attach the shock. So, I greased before installing the shocks.

Phil

[Phil Planck]

Pondered what to do about the link pin. You can't buy just one that I could find, can't file it as too hard, so got out my precision Dremel grinder with a round, cylindrical stone slightly smaller than the adjusting groove. The taper outboard does not matter, but after pulling a good pin, the groove is not ground as far inboard by at least 4 or 5mm. So I ground a continuation of the groove and kept trial fitting. Still could not back it off more than 1/8 of a turn. Found a ball bearing that appeared to exactly match the groove and could see the problem was that I was not quite wide enough. Ground some more and now I can back out(loosen) the pin plenty. So will use the "corrected" pin. Re-attached shock and installed steering damper and dropped tie rods in place. On to the backing plates with brakes.

[Phil Planck]

Work bench is just about cleaned off of parts to put back on the front suspension. Got the sway bar on today:


Steering stabilizer and tie rods:



Before installing the brake back plates I did a "precision" measurement of the camber. One side read zero and the drivers side -1degree:


Hope this will not be an issue. I should have sent the control arms off to Tom P. to check. Hopefully good enough. Will get it on an alignment machine some day when it is drivable on the road.
Got both backing plates installed and torqued, with the longer bolts at the front. Need to add safety wire:



Question for the day: Which of these brake hoses is correct?
Long one:


or short one:


or, neither.

Thanks - Phil

[JTR70]

I think mine varied by about that much from side to side Phil. If its off by one negative degree I think you're still in there. If an arm is bent I've always heard you get a positive degree reading? Looking forward to Bruce or Jacks insight on this. Anyway, keep up the great progress!
Justin

[Jack Staggs]

Phil, it's fine. Nice work.
The short brake hose looks correct. Be sure to install the wheel and tire to check for possible contact to the hose throughout the turning radius. Sometimes a slight twist of the hose is needed for it to fold over the right way to give adequate clearance.