I purchased a couple of 7" carriage bolts from ACE Hardware and they work just fine for the radiator support. I'm still waiting for a bunch of back ordered parts. My lower arm on the passenger side has been painted and has dried for a few days. I like to let the paint harden before installing the part. I installed the lower inner shaft and A arm. Lubed up the shaft threads. installed the seals and bushings. Next the assembly was placed on my new crossmember with 7/16x20 grade 5 bolts. Here again I could not find any torque spec's for these pieces. The web told me that the 7/16x20 grade 5 bolt should be torqued to 60 FtLbs. and I tightened the bushings as much as I could. The lower control arm is a little tight on the shaft, but I think that is better than being loose. Mike
You are correct that there are few if any torque specs for these older vehicles. My preference is to use the Grade 2 specs. There were almost no heat treated fasteners on these vehicles.
You can apply too much load or damage threads using Grade 5 torques, especially in tapped holes.
Also, you need to have the suspension at normal ride height when you tighten rubber bushings. Otherwise the bushing will be incorrectly loaded when the vehicle is placed on the ground. That will shorten the life of the bushings.
Rusty, the lower control arm bolts have nuts and lock washers, so I think I'm OK here. Actually, I was really thinking that these bolts may need to be tighened a little more. AND the lower control arm bushings used here do not have any rubber in them. They are the metal of the cross shaft to the metal of the bushing. Help me to better understand what you said, Thanks, Mike
The key is that regardless of bolt grade, higher torque creates a higher clamp load. So parts get compressed more. The key question is whether the mating parts can withstand the higher clamp loads.
In your situation the difference between Grade 2 and Grade 5 bolts will probably not cause damage unless there are fairly thin parts. If you are using Grade 5 nuts things should work fine.
I was not aware that there was no rubber in those bushings. Thank you for pointing that out to me. I have not worked with the enclosed knee action front suspension.
Even without rubber in the bushings my thinking is that if there has to be relative motion between the metal of the cross shaft and the bushing there is a “home” or neutral position. If there is no relative motion then my input is not relevant.
Yup, using grade 5 nuts also. AND these parts are relatively thick. There is relative motion between the shaft (which is stationary) and the bushings of the control arm. I can move the control arm up and down, porbably more than what the car will spring and rebound. I think that the bushings need to be tight. Hate to have them come loose. Thanks for the input, Mike.
Still waiting for the rebuilt shock absorber and the front suspension seals. Back ordered stuff. This weekend, since the crossmember is in place, I secured the engine down and started to reinstall the engine compartment stuff. Had some trouble with the radiator. The over flow pipe kept getting in the way of the radiator fitting snug against the support. Had to do a little bending to get it to work. The water pump was a treat. It is so close to the radiator and my big hands made it difficult to get the lower hose on and bolt the pump to the engine block. Then the generator gave me a surprise. My engine uses a wide fan belt. This belt fits on the water pump and the crank pulley, but the generator pulley was sized for a much smaller belt. I checked the generator numbers and it is the correct generator for the car, but the pulley must be from a later model. My wide belt would ride on the very outside of the pulley vee. After looking through my spare stuff, I found a wide vee pulley and all is right with the world once again. Take a look at the picture. The narrow vee pulley is on the top. Don't know why I never noticed this before. Mike
This morning I started to install the passenger side front suspension. I had enough seals and Gene's shock to put it together. I first bolted the lower control arm in place, then attached the spindle/brake assembly. It might have been easier with the brake backing plate off, but I did not want to remove all that stuff. The lower pin threads through the control arm and there are two seals, one on each side of the spindle shaft. They look like large O rings. I pre-lubed the lower pin and bushings, then tightened the bushing as tight as I could get them. The shock was then bolted to the top of the crossmember. The shock can not be installed with the spring in place. I then placed the upper seals on the ends of the shock arms. Had to lube them up good to slip them over the large bushing ends. Installing the uncompressed spring was a little hard, but I rotated it in place so the spring end fit into position on the lower control arm. I used two floor jacks to lift the control arm against the weight of the car. Once the top of the spindle shaft got close to the shock arm, I then used a second floor jack to push the spindle shaft up into place. When I was close, I threaded in the upper pin. Had to move the spindle shaft up and down a little to get the cam part into place. I had to make sure that the adjustment Allen was toward the front of the car. I then centered the upper pin as best as possible. The cam had to be turned so the pin ends were centered in the shock arm. Next the bushings could be screwed down and tightened. I removed the grease fittings to facilitate getting the seals in place without damaging them. Getting the seals over the bushings and shock arm ends was a little difficult, then once in place they were twisted and it toke a few minutes to straighten them out. Fortunately, I did not damage them doing so. I still have to tighten everything up, add more lube to the pins and king pin, connect the brake line. Maybe later, I had enough fun for today, Mike ---- the 1st picture shows the upper seals on the shock arms, the 2nd picture shows the two jacks and the 3rd shows the seals in place.
Still waiting for back ordered parts and my rebuilt shock absorber. Have been working on putting the engine compartment back together, since it is again sitting on the crossmember. After getting the radiator installed, I noticed that the air deflector between the grill halves, is free to vibrate. Not connected to anything near the radiator. See picture. I also was wondering about a couple of pieces of metal on the radiator support. Never really knew what they were for. Found instructions on how to remove the grill and it mentions that there is a cross bar on the radiator support that needs to be removed. I'm thinking that someone long ago must have cut my cross bar off and left only these stubs on the radiator support. Mike
You are missing the hollow rod that the air deflector attches to with a single small bolt or screw. The rod attaches to the little brackets that you have circled, I believe the rod was part of the core support.
Gene, was that rod welded to the support or was it just crimped? The stubs seem to indicate there were tabs that could have wrapped around a round rod. If it were crimped, maybe it just fell out at some point? I'll have to look at it a little closer, maybe I can make a cross rod that will work, Thanks, Mike
Well..... a few more seals showed up in the mail. So I started on the drivers side suspension. I'm still waiting for my rebuilt shock (it's been nearly a month). Here is a picture of how I did the bottom outer seals. They are popped over the control arm ends, the spindle shaft and lower pin are installed with the spindle centered and then the seals are pushed into place. It's not hard as long as the seals are pliable. I also ordered some new tires from Coker Tire. I used the internet and all seemed to work, until this morning. I received an email from them stating my order did not qualify and cancelled my order, because some of the tubes were back ordered. There was substantial savings with this order, more than $300. So I called them and they were very nice and stated that they can work around this problem and I would get all the savings, but would have to wait for about 2 weeks. They want to send all the stuff at once. This is no problem for me, in that I can not drive the car now anyway. Mike
Oh one more thing. I purchased some new rubbers bumpers for the control arms. Actually they are mounted on the crossmember. My old bumpers had a bolt and nut that held them in place. The new bumpers have a rubber knob that goes thru the crossmember hole rather than the bolt. When I put the new bumper in place it is loose. The hole is too large for the rubber and can move around. I'm wondering about if they will last and if they will be knocked out the first few times they are used. Maybe I should glue them in with RTV? or maybe try to reduce the size of the hole in the crossmember so that they are tighter? Any ideas? Thanks, Mike
I had it wrong................ When the llower bumpers are rplaced on a vehicle hat ha the bumpers on the cross membe to install th studless bumpers it is beessary to drilli a hole in the THE LOWER CONTOL ARM and pull the round tab through.....size of hole is not specified.
I must have a mixture of lower control arms. The drivers side control arms had a square hole where the bumper would rebound. The passenger side has no hole. Maybe I'll remove the bumper from the large crossmember hole and try it in the control arm. Mike
Still waiting for my drivers side rebuilt shock absorber. I ordered new tires from Coker Tire. They had a black Friday sale with 10% off and free shipping, saved more than $300. Anyway they arrived this week. Today, I took the entire mess over to a friend who has a tire changer and balancer. Here I learned that I have two different style rims. The center bump where the hub cap goes is deeper on two of them and one set of two has 4 spoke holes whereas the other set has 8 (not completely sure, but there are more.) The car was in an front end collision, so maybe the front rims were changed with later model rims? Seems the rim offset is the same so they will work. Another item was that the rims are not completely straight, there is a little run out in them, but not too bad. Stamped rims are not that straight to begin with. I'm sure that my rims, which have been around the block a few times have seen some tough service. Now I'm getting anxious to see how the steering and the new tires work. I may use one of my old shocks and assemble the entire lot, just to see how things work. Then when the rebuilt shock shows, I'll change it. Mike
The eight slot rims are more desirable for a lot of folks, more reminiscent of artillery wheels. I think 38 was the last year for them but I could be wrong. It is very common for there to be a mixture of wheels. Back in the day people were less concerned about "correct" and used what was available.
VCCA Member 43216 Save a life, adopt a senior shelter pet. 1938 HB Business Coupe 1953 210 Sedan
Still waiting for my shock absorber, maybe this week. Meanwhile I was looking at my steering tie rods. I noticed that both my long and short rod have different length studs. The long one is 2 7/8" bottom to tip, see picture. and the short one is 2 1/2". The pitman arm thickness is 3/4" and so is the steering arm. I can not get a cotter pin into the hole on the short tie rod stud. At first I thought maybe I have the wrong tie rod ends. Looked in the catalogs but so far none have stated how long the studs are. They do say there is a right and a left, but that must be in regards to the threads, so the rod expands and contracts properly. BUT, my long tie rod is not adjustable. It is solid from end to end. I'm a little confused on which tie rod end should connect to the spindle side and which end to the pitman arm. Thanks, Mike
The early 1939 had the tie rod with the short stud for the pitman arm. The late tie rod which fit late 1939 thru 1948 has the same size long studs on both ends, The early pitman arm had forging number 599645 on it and the late has 3651543. I have a new long tie rod here - I will need to check which one i have.
Gene, I am just amazed at all the knowledge you have. My car was built in April of 1939. Not sure whether that makes it early or late. BUT, As I said earlier it was in an accident, so these parts could have been replaced. They seem tight and serviceable. I'll give the short ends a try at the pitman arm. For some reason (maybe my age) I do not remember exactly how the tie rods came off. Probably as you say. Merry Christmas, Mike.
The short stud is for the pitman arm. Mid year the pitman arm was made thicker (stonger). thus requiring the longer stud i had many years of parts experiance (1950-1977) AT YUNKER CHEVROLET ,COSGROVE CHEVROLET.AND PAT LONG. IN WEST ALLIS. Was technical advisor for 1934 and 1939 fror the VCCA. was in the gathering vintage parts business since 1970.
my first car in 1949 was a 1939 M.D. 4 PASSNGER COUPE.
Well...... my other shock absorber showed up in the mail today, so I can start assembling again. A little more about the tie rods. Both of my tie rods have the short stud on the inner side. My question is where there also two different pitman arms? One for the short studs and one for the longer studs. My pitman arm doesn't allow me to use cotter pins. The nut will not tighten enough to show the hole. Mike
