has anybody looked into using this newer I-beam and hub setup on our trucks?

 

I thought about it on my 77 but the engine crossmember where the beams mount to the pivot point is different and plus the 80's and up are front steer and ours are rear steer. Thats just a couple of things that kept me from looking into it more. I'm waiting to see Marz's kit to just bolt on a fullsize car's upper and lower arms.

 

I have a 68 F100 with 76 disc brakes, Im curious as to Stroker 393s comment about steering linkage changes. my truck looks to have to much toe out but I havent been able to get it checked out yet. Also it was orig. a 6cyl. thats now got a 460 in it, my thinking is I'm going to have to go to a heaver spring.thought about cutting a round or two off of a heavy duty spring (F250). but dont know how that would work, somebody share your knowledge with me!!!

 

I havent seen anyone mention the "old school" way of dropping an I-beam.
http://www.roadsters.com/axles/

By heating and stretching the end of the axle like you would with a Model A ford (or similar). I built a jig for this using an I-beam (10") and put one on then heated it with 2 torches. I wasnt happy with 3" and kept going til I pulled the end off! I do have a nice supply of spare beams amd will try again someday though. Any input on this would be nice.
SHAKES

 

Or how about this?




Looks like it was cut and welded.

 

These show an axle being dropped.....





Our beams are quite thick on the ends, seems like you could get a few inches here? I guess Roadsters.com is not doing it amymore, must be a reason...
SHAKES

 

I ran into a guy a few years ago with a 73 that he lowered himself by cutting his
I-beams BEFORE the spring perch then cut the springs a whole bunch! Welded in a thick piece of strap, looked like hell but he said its been that way for years. He even hit a cattle guard doing 80, left the ground and never had a problem. I had pics of it but theyre lost somewhere, not the way I would go anyway. Just too sketchy looking.

 

Although Dave showed the Twin I's ability to be dropped on his web site Industrial Chassis has no tooling to do so. IC does all roadsters drops using a heating forge, Quenching and precision contour jigs in a 60 ton press. The pics shown on roadsters is of IC dropped axles. Industrial Chassis has a set of Is on hand to make tooling if possible but it is not high on the priority list.

The method shown in the previous post is backyard tech on a model A axle and not very metal friendly in maintaining the temper of the steel. Or in Quality control of the king bolt angle in relation to the perch.

There is not enough material in the twin I from the king bolt to the radius arm bolt to allow the end to displace up and in. By moving it in the spring perch will no longer be able to be used.

The Pictures of the modified stock i beam scares the hell out of me and should scare you also.

Garbz

 

I agree with Marz-68, please check out his gallery,WOW! I do not have all the stuff at hand that Marz has, thats why I chose the Fatman kit. Marz, you are truly one of a kind and you do some INCREDIBLE work, I would love to stop by and see more of it some time.

I have installed a Fatman hub to hub IFS under my 79 F-100 and was very pleased with the ease of the installation and straightforward design. The a-arms are stainless steel and they utilize mopar ball joints and rotors, Impala large piston calipers and a Mustang II rack with extension.

I did refer to the ease of installation, this is not saying it was a piece of cake but simply refering to the engineering already being worked out and having support available if needed, I have had much worse installations than this. You can check out the pictures in my gallery, it is still coming together. Lots more to do.

 

The reason that the 67-72 trucks have 2 different part numbers for the front springs is that the engine/trans is mounted off-centerline of the frame. I had the same problem on my 67 F100 when using a set of aftermarket generic springs that were matched. The good spring companies know this and sell 2 different part numbers that are "supposed" to be compensated in rate or height to make up for this. My (original 352 FE) 390 is offset 1 inch if measured from the frame rail to rail to the crank centerline.
It's possible that the difficulty with this is that my big FE is more then twice the weight of a 240, and will "tip" the truck more on the same set of springs.

I guess one inch really does make a big difference.

P.S. - I have no idea if the 73 and later trucks are this way or not.

 

Where did you guys buy youre lowered springs from ? I am looking for progressive rate springs , do they make 1inch , 2 inch or 3 inch dropped springs ? I was thinkin 1 inch dropped springs and 3 inch dropped beams . I could only hope . And the guy at AIM said there beams are exactly the same length as stock , go figure , I will go with djm and AIM tie rod relocators . Thanks

 

bump this back up to hear more about the IFS kits?

 

I bought the DJM setup to install 79 disc brakes on my 70 F-100 shortbed. Only complaint is the slop between the kingpin and the receiver hole in the beam. It has about 0.018" slop. I called DJM to discuss and they said that was OK and the wedge bolt would hold them in tight. From an engineering viewpoint, that is NOT satisfatory, as any wear indusced from movement will occur right at the wedge bolt/kingpin slot interface, which could theoretically cause kingpin breakage. I am going to install these darn things anyways, and tile will tell how it works out.
The AIM beams are a joke as far as being a structural shape - sorry - they just do not have it when it comes to a structural I-bean (or any other shape) beam. I wish they could give real number like moment of inertia, so we could make out own informed decisions.
If someone could tell me the actual steel composition of the stock I-beams (i.e.; are they weldable steel?) I would design a cut/reweld kit to simply lower the existing beams. You just can't beat an original Ford part.

 

OMG .018" slop with a new beam, that will wiggle around causing hammering and wear besides altering toe-in and camber all the time. I wouldn't want a beam with more than .005" clearance period! I recall in a Popular Hot Rod or other mag in the past they bored out a worn beam on the Bridgeport mill the pressed in a sleeve then Tigged and dressed the ends. Reamed for the proper pin fit.

On a 69 F250:
On those forged beams I took a spare set and cut them off on the solid section between the pivot point and the "H" section and cut 1 1/4" longer. This also done on the other beam but cut to allow the finished beam to be 1 1/4" longer after welding it up. Ground down to 1/8" wide the "V" then Tig welded it solid. This allowed for 9.50 front tires to have the same tread stance as the 12.00 rears. With this the tie rod end on the right side had to be cut off and another threaded end "V" notched and welded allowing for a left side tie rod end if future replacement was needed. I know Mr. Ackerman is altered, never was correct on a LWB truck to begin with.
This also alowed for more tire to radius rod clearance hence readjusting stops for a tighter turning. That truck passed 922K miles 5 years ago
and still running with the new owner.

 

That was a typo. Meant to say 0.008" slop. Still too much in my opinion. I would think 0.001" to 0.002" would be about right.