Rear axle lower damper mount

These part went thru the zinc plating process aswell.

Some general progress pictures

Final assembly rear suspension

Rear suspension and axle housing in place

Setting pinion angle, for spring perch welding

My little son is helping out lifting the bare block and flywheel cover into the frame and the new engine rubber mounts. This to get the correct angle of where the engine and trans tail shaft sits.

New rear axle, second mockup

Above the right Y hanger is mounted with the adjusted washers. Now I don't have any play radially or sideways, will be interesting to see how much total play there will be when everything is in place?

Rear spring washers

 Today I got some custom washers that I had ordered from a friend. They where made slightly thicker then I needed and tomorrow I will grind them down in a surface grinder to the exact dimension i need at all the 6 attachment points for the rear springs. Pictures below shows my intention.

Reaming new rear spring eye bushings

Pins didn´t want to go in the new bushings that had been pressed in to the spring eyes, it felt like the hole had become slighlty oval in shape. For the first spring eye (the one in the pictures) I made a mistake and clamped the spring eye itself in the bench vice. This can effect the final result after reaming making the hole oval in shape, more than necessary. So for the rest of the spring eyes I clamped it on the spring itself where it cant effect the shape of the bushings.

Reaming new rear Y-hanger bushings

 Pins didn´t go in further than this after the new bushings had been pressed in to the Y-hangers. It felt like the hole had become slightly oval in shape.

 I was able to find and borrow a 19H7 reamer at a friends work, that is 19.000 to 19.021 according to the tolerance tables and the pins where around 18.95 so that would give me a min of 0.05 and maximum of 0.071mm in play. 

Rear main leaf spring bushing replacement

My new favourite toy, I only wish I owned it. New bushings coming into place with ease!!!

 Front and rear bushings in place, now I only need some reeming to get them to shape so that the pins will fit.

Adjusting rear springs front mounting point.

Pictures of when I am trying to adjust the worn rear spring front mounting point.

Above: Left side, rear leaf spring, inside of front spring mount. Quite worn.
Below: Same bracket as above but outside. Less wear.

Y-hangers bushing replacement part #1

With a small metal saw, flat screw driver a hammer and som patient the old worn bushings came out and the new ones on their way in. But this was pretty much as far as I could get them with the bench vice. Fortunatelly I know people who has the tools needed.

Leaf spring perch modification #2

When test fitting the lower damper and axle bracket I noticed that the increase in axle diameter from stock 2.5" (Dana 44) to 3" for the ford 9", made the U-bolts a bit short. So I decided that I would take about 6-7 mm out of the thickness off the spring perches.

Rear leaf spring perch modifications #1

When I ordered the new rear axle I was given a set of free spring perches, however I forgot to tell them what width i needed, so I got a 2.5" wide set and my rear leafs are only 2". This meant that the U-bolt couldn´t fit over these perches. 

Rear sway bar, mockup, first try

First mock up of the rear anti sway bar. I read the instruction and and was told that the sway bar should be located on the same side as the springs are mounted. So I test fitted everything with the sway bar on top of the axle and everything worked out great except for one thing. The axle bump stop will hit the sway bar exactly outside the sway bar rubber mount, when fully loaded. The other thing is that the frame mount is almost exact the same width as the inside of the spring so when loaded the spring will touch the frame mount. The only solution I can figure out is to mount the sway bar under the axle despite what the instruction says and flip the frame mount and elongate the strut in between. It will be quite s long strut, so to prevent it from (buckling) I figure I could switch the pipe section for one with larger outer diameter.

And one last thing I found the axle mounts so incredibly ugly so I will try to make some perches much like the spring perches and weld these to the axle, and if possible make another mount for the rubber bushings as well.

New rear axel first mockup

First mock up of the new rear axle. First thing to modify is, the new spring perches are to wide 2.5" hence the springs and U-bolts are only 2" wide. So the plan is to cut away 0.5" in the middle of the perches and weld the two halves back together. I know there are 2" wide perches available, but I already have these 2.5" wide ones so it just a bit of labour to get them right.

Adjusting worn rear Y hangers

In this post I have tried to rework the old worn rear Y hangers. With a little bit of patient and a lot of spare time, it seems like I can reuse Henry fords old Y hangers for another 57 Years... or so?