How would you do this?

[Mr T Bucket]

And that took you how long? LOL. Yep, that's getting it pretty darn close. Grill shell needs to be chrome though, heh heh. Maybe by the time this thing's rolling, somebody will be making them again. Need to check on Wellbaum's progress on their shells...

 

[GAB]

Sorry, What color is the frame going to be? Grill shell and shock were already drawn and the hardware comes out of a library.

 

[one finger john]

Sorry, What color is the frame going to be? Grill shell and shock were already drawn and the hardware comes out of a library.

Amazing work as usual. Could you add some conservative pin striping to the frame & shell? Frame would be gloss black.

John

 

[Mr T Bucket]

LOL, I knew you couldn't resist. You can just leave it orangish for now. We'll say it's still in primer.

 

[Gerry]

I have been looking at this for a while.
Heres a suggestion... and its only a suggestion.
Why not look at placing the damper under the frame, if you have enough clearance. If its above the scrub line and the lowest point of the front axle, that is. The pivot would possibly be around the center of the rad shell so it would be sort of lost (visually). That way you get the set up you want, which I think is a move away from the usual (well done for that), and not loose the smooth top of the frame thats a feature of a Bucket. It may take a little working out to get a viable leverage but hey, anything is possible. Of course there is the old torsion bars up through the chassis method as well. Just me 50p worth (thats about 80c in American). I am still having a think about your set up and if I come up with anything I will post it. I am still wondering if you could just make do with a bell crank and loose the 3rd side of the triangle as this would lighten it up a lot. I have used bell cranks on mine and they are fine.
Gerry

 

[PotvinGuy]

Yet another idea: I've looked at putting the shock in the frame; not hiding it, but placing it in a cutout in the frame. link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/dr.kerrysmith/Pictures?authkey=Gv1sRgCJXO4tmVqr67Qw#

(I still don't know how to insert an image in the post; 6 years of college down the drain)

 

[PotvinGuy]

I did it!

 

[Gerry]

This make 160c
putting the damper in the frame would be a certain WOW. Not sure how you are going to get the leverage you need. (They said the same about my set up for a while but it works like a dream). I also have very little suspension movement on the front end.
Go for it and show us something new. Im hoping that Ted has not been here before... but not taking any bets on that. keep thinking and making mock ups. Thats the way stuff gets done
Gerry

 

[GAB]

Mockup you want...mockup you get! Interesting idea. This is what it would look like in real world dimensions.

A few years ago, I was at the state fair and looking at a new John Deere combine. I noticed a small hydraulic shock on the reel head that looked a lot like a Pete & Jake unit with the exposed shaft and the eyelet ends. The body of the shock was maybe 1/2 to 2/3 the length of their shorty units. From the looks of the application, I thought that it might have some higher valving rates to do it's job. It might be worth checking into.

As far as that goes, the Pete & Jake shock should have plenty of dampening action for the front of these cars even with the leverage. When P & J first started selling them, they were the shocks that were used on the rear of '63-'79 Corvettes. The stockers had a dust tube on the upper end and on some of the real early ones, you could see where they had cut that off. I'd about bet that the current offerings are pretty close to the same specs.

Quite a bit of work to try to hide them...but it looks doable. So who is going to be first? :whisper:

 

[Differen T]

Mockup you want...mockup you get! Interesting idea. This is what it would look like in real world dimensions.

A few years ago, I was at the state fair and looking at a new John Deere combine. I noticed a small hydraulic shock on the reel head that looked a lot like a Pete & Jake unit with the exposed shaft and the eyelet ends. The body of the shock was maybe 1/2 to 2/3 the length of their shorty units. From the looks of the application, I thought that it might have some higher valving rates to do it's job. It might be worth checking into.

As far as that goes, the Pete & Jake shock should have plenty of dampening action for the front of these cars even with the leverage. When P & J first started selling them, they were the shocks that were used on the rear of '63-'79 Corvettes. The stockers had a dust tube on the upper end and on some of the real early ones, you could see where they had cut that off. I'd about bet that the current offerings are pretty close to the same specs.

Quite a bit of work to try to hide them...but it looks doable. So who is going to be first? :whisper:

This is a very interesting concept. In addition to looking into the various types of spherical plain bearings available I would like to suggest using a gas filled shock as it is possible that with the shock in this position the rapid movement of the suspension may cause aeration of the fluid in non pressurized shocks.

Al

 

[PotvinGuy]

Mockup you want...mockup you get! Interesting idea. This is what it would look like in real world dimensions.

A few years ago, I was at the state fair and looking at a new John Deere combine. I noticed a small hydraulic shock on the reel head that looked a lot like a Pete & Jake unit with the exposed shaft and the eyelet ends. The body of the shock was maybe 1/2 to 2/3 the length of their shorty units. From the looks of the application, I thought that it might have some higher valving rates to do it's job. It might be worth checking into.

As far as that goes, the Pete & Jake shock should have plenty of dampening action for the front of these cars even with the leverage. When P & J first started selling them, they were the shocks that were used on the rear of '63-'79 Corvettes. The stockers had a dust tube on the upper end and on some of the real early ones, you could see where they had cut that off. I'd about bet that the current offerings are pretty close to the same specs.

Quite a bit of work to try to hide them...but it looks doable. So who is going to be first? :whisper:

GAB, I'm honored you rendered my little idea. Great work. Is the software available?

A John Deere combine! Ideas can come from anywhere. I found these dampers on Northern Tool bandsaws. Would look right at home on a rat rod or a steampunk theme bucket.

In my car, the lower arm is about 10" and the vertical arm about 3". I think the damping of a P&J would do fine. I'd like to use an adjustable QA1, maybe with a spring to adjust ride height (when I split the front axle; stay tuned).

 

[Gerry]

You need to be very careful with non auto dampers. I have been looking for 6 months far a pair of small ones for my T. Talked to a LOT of companies about various ones from steering dampers to machine tool ones. The biggest problem is cycle time. Machine dampers like on the band saw have a max stroke per minute of about 6. Yep thats one every 10 seconds. More than that and they overheat and blow the seals. This info came from a maker of these. The ones I have been looking at are damper for machine tools. These are designed to damp high vibrations produced by the whole machine tool, and as far as the makers know will not overheat. I also found some that are adjustable from 35 tpo 2000 newton metres and have built in stops.
They are very expensive which is why I have not gone that way yet.
I also looked at steering damper, mountain bike dampers and a host of others... all designed for slow and few strokes per min.
Just thought you might like to know where I have got to on this.
gerry

 

[PotvinGuy]

Excellent input, Gerry. I wish I had the time and money to build test rigs and cycle candidates. Most of our rods are built with SEMA-type parts, but there's a whole world of neat pieces that I'd love to see on rods. I've been looking at steampunk lately (hot chicks and machinery; what more can a man want?) and there is some unreal imagineering going on there. Check it out!

 

[GAB]

PG,
It was my pleasure to draw the idea that you presented. As to the software, it's called Inventor and you don't even want to ask the price!

I don't think you would be happy with the hydraulic cylinder that you found on the saw. I built a horizontal band cutoff saw (as shown in your pic) some years ago and made a cylinder like that. It uses a piston with multiple holes in it and a flapper valve below that. The extended cylinder has the fluid below the piston. When the needle valve is opened, the fluid is transmitted to the top side of the piston and the saw arm slowly descends. After the saw arm finishes its travel, the arm is raised manually and the flapper valve uncovers the holes in the piston and rapid transfer of the fluid occurs. With the needle valve being closed, the arm stays in the raised position until it is opened. It works well for the saw but would probably be lacking for a suspension application.

Gerry,
I still think that you could build some pretty simple dampers that would do a decent job of serving as shocks. Finding something off of the shelf is needle in haystack territory it would seem to me. A couple of bucks worth of material, and a little time on the lathe could give some idea as to how it would work. Just start out with a couple of small (1/8" or less) holes in the piston and see how it acts in comparison to a regular shock. Mount it up horizontally in the vise and stroke it a few times. I think this might give results somewhat like Ted gets when he drills a small hole in a shock and drains out the fluid.

I don't think that you need to worry too much about the cycles that this would be subjected to. Realistically, how much use do you think this car will get? Even if it wore out the o-rings once a year, how much grief would it be to do an annual overhaul?

 

[Gerry]

Sorry but I think the cycles is very important. The guys I talked to said they think the low cycle dampers could be shot in a few miles. They are always at work so no down time. I may just make my own in the end but at the moment I ll stick with the frictions.
Gerry

 

[Gerry]

Hey Gab
Hope I did nt come over too strong. This damper thing has been bugging me for months. I have heard from a very reliable source that your pedigree is astonishing so with all your experience I should take note of what you say.
I just repeated what the makers of these small dampers told me.
Regards
Gerry

 

[Corley]

It occurs to me that a very simple way to test out the MFGs theory about cycling of shocks not really made for the application, would be to just add one to one corner of a daily driver for a while. You could just Vise Grip it on (with appropriate pivots), and drive around for a while. Pretty cheap test environment, and if it doesn't self destruct after a few days of running around, then I'd say it would be fine for a 'T'. For more extensive testing, drive some rough roads...

Just another stupid thought from a 70 yo brain... (I hereby relenquish all rights for this brilliant idea to the public at large and specifically the 'T' bucket community... )

Corley