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Need new front end

M

mahrbeezer

New Member
I got my first bucket and Im starting to turn some wrenches and bring her back to life. Im taking it down to the frame and starting fresh. I want to get some opinions from the guys who really know these machines. The front axle seems to be out of a van or truck. I want to swap it out for a tube axle and need some help. Let me rephrase that, I need the whole front end, hub to hub. Im going to spend a little coin and go chrome. I have been searching through the magazines and searching the internet. It seems that speedway has the best price that I found so far. Before I do any purchases, is there any difference between speedway, Total, etc....... What are the "do's and dont's" as far as front suspension. I like the spring behind and was told its a better setup. I'll try to post some pictures.
 
First of all, let me congratulate you on being wise enough to scrap that front end........it is REALLY bad. Just being honest with you, but you evidently came to that conclusion before I mentioned it. There is some real shadetree engineering there.

For the money Speedways front ends are hard to beat. The chrome is pretty decent, and the prices are competitive. You can get a complete setup from them, and I would suggest you go with the Wilwood brake setup to match your spindles (buy new spindles too while you are at it).

I would suggest you also take a close look at the rest of the workmanship on the car if the front end is any hint. Sounds like you are preparing to do that as well.

Good luck, and hats off to you for having the good sense to know what you need to do.

Don
 
That was my plans exactly but I wanted to get a few opinions on speedway frontends. I plan on going with the whole assembly from them down to the wilwood brakes.
 
Not going to bash Speedway's Front Ends (I have one), but you ought to read this thread before you make your decision.....

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=304871&highlight=speedway+frontend

I've put a lot of thought into the engineering of these front ends since I saw the above thread. On the one hand the shackle mounting bolt is mounted in shear on these spring behind front end's, where as in a stock front end it would be mounted vertically through the axle (in compression), and be MUCH stronger! On the other hand, there are thousands of these front ends running around without problems, and this seems to be an isolated incident. I suspect the bolt worked it's way loose, and failed shortly thereafter (It wouldn't have to be very loose for the shock the front end takes on bumps to cause it to fail). The part I don't like is it wouldn't take that much more work for the bolts to be mounted vertically, just a small, welded L-shaped bracket at the location of the current hole in the bat wing, but I'm not sure how big it would have to be in order to be strong enough (I'm envisioning it 1" x 1", and 3/16" thick material, any on here an engineer that can calculate if that would be strong enough and offer enough welding area to hold up?). I would check those bolts monthly to make sure they stay tight, and pull them off once a year for a complete inspection (actually, not a bad idea for all the critical suspension bolts).
 
i would not hesitate to use a front end from speedway. as stated, there are lots of them in servive now. i would be willing to bet there was something not set up correctly or a modification done that lead to the failure in afore mentioned thread. don gave you the straight skinny on speedway chrome front end setups. if you are looking for one in plain steel, at least consider what ron has to offer. JMO

Ron
 
I agree that you should have no problem with the Speedway front end setup. It is impossible to know what happened to this frontend after it got in the hands of the buyer. He could have over torqued it, or maybe his spring is a little too narrow for his application and he forced it out by tightening up the perch bolt.

By their very design these types of front ends are not perfect, but we all use them anyway. They didn't get the name suicide by accident (or maybe they did :eek::lol:) There is no denying that the two perch bolts are the only thing keeping the spring from kissing the pavement if they should break. We are using a Speedway chrome front end on my Son's T bucket and it has been fine so far, and certainly as good as what we have seen from other manufacturers.

Don
 
I've done quite a bit of research into the Speedway spring behind kits and have ordered one for my race T. I'm sure the kits are plenty strong enough for street use, lets face it, its gonna have to stand up to some serious abuse from me !!:D
 
I'd be more afraid of the one you have than the Speedway unit.
 
LumenAl said:
Thanks Keeper! I was going to have to search for it and there it was! :lol:
Click to expand...

How much did it cost to have it chromed? I was thinking about getting a standard one and having it chromed. Just wondering if it would be worth the hassle? Are you selling the old front end?
 
mahrbeezer said:
How much did it cost to have it chromed? I was thinking about getting a standard one and having it chromed. Just wondering if it would be worth the hassle? Are you selling the old front end?
Click to expand...

I gave the whole thing to a member of this forum for the price of shipping... haven't seen much of him in quite some time...

As for cost of getting it chromed?, a lot more than buying one chromed from the start, but that's the price to pay when you want something different.
 
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