Thinking About My Rear End

 

Just a little something to think about since there's more than a few people contemplating just such an operation.

I went rummaging around out in the barn to see what I had to allow me to mock-up the rear axle on the jitney and found a piece of 3" stainless tubing. That should be about the same size as the tube on the rear I'm planning on using. I took the adjustable lower legs off the saw horse and set the tube on a couple of pieces of 2x4 that had a vee groove in them left over from some other job. The height from the floor to the center of the tubing is right at the same height as to the center of the front hubs. 

I'm thinking since the radius of the rear tires will be about 2-1/2" larger than the fronts, I should raise the rear up just a little. I'm thinking a little rake toward the nose will be OK but when the weight gets on the car the front will settle more due to the weight of the engine, so I need to keep the frame close to level.  

This is the quick change as it's set-up in a T-Bucket chassis from Speedway. This set-up has two additional bars from the top of the differential center section to the top corners of the frame rather than a panhard bar. Fitting a panhard bar would be difficult with the quick change gear housing sticking out the back. I seem to recall a track locating bar being installed on some drag cars with coil-overs. That triangulates the radius rods so the rear end can't shift from side to side as a result of movement from the spring shackles. I'm going to do a little more digging on that. I need to get a panhard bar figured out for the front end still along with some shock absorbers. Lots of  engineering for a guy who has never done anything with transverse spring suspensions.