The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot '60-'66 Trucks Modifying Panhard Bar

Back in '87 when grandpa passed away from cancer, I got the '65 3/4 ton fleetside he had bought for me. I daily drove that thing until 2005. Rolled it going to church. In '91 I found a rear end that had way better gearing than the corporate 4.57 axle. It had a tag on it, 3.54, and the rpm formula calculators matched the rpm's I would turn going down the road. I later discovered I had a '68 Dana 60, supposedly a rare breed nowadays. When I installed it in '91 it was an easy swap, except I found out the hard way that the panhard bar is different between the corporate axle and Dana 60. I took the truck to a welder and he modified the frame mount, but the panhard bar was in a bind. I ran it like this from '91 until the day I rolled the truck in 2005. I now have a different truck, basically the same as the one grandpa got me back then, except this one has three-on-the-tree, and will soon get the SM420 that was in the other truck. I still have the Dana 60 too, and plan to install it in this truck as well.

This time around I want to have the bar modified instead of the mount. Do you guys see any issue with modifying the panhard bar to be able to mount correctly to the frame mount? After making sure the tracking was correct, my idea was to have the panhard bar cut in two places, so the two pieces that mount to the frame or axle would be perpendicular to their respective mounts, and the middle piece would be angled accordingly, and then some gussets welded in for strength. Does this seem like a viable option?

I did locate a '70 truck with a Dana axle in it, and it has the correct frame mount, but there is no easy way to extract it from the truck in the junkyard. So I decided to resort to modifying the bar instead.

If the panhard bar is the right length and just needs a twist to get the ends to line up correctly, I would just heat the bar and give it a tweak, rather than cut it two and weld it back together. You can do that multiple times to get it correct and have a stronger bar than if you cut and weld.

In most junkyards I've frequented, they'll roll a truck on it's side so you can get stuff off the bottom. If the frame is already toast, a cutting torch would make short work of extracting the frame mount.

You rolled the truck twice? and you want to know about a Panhard bar? Check out A.A. first.

Re-read his post. He only rolled it once. So he only has to check out A.

OH, that's different. Never mind.

I have an xj bar that I'll use to bend up and then use the ends from the factory bar. Thanks for the suggestion about bending vs cutting/ welding, I like that idea better.

The truck at the junkyard is in decent shape. But I want the engine. It's complete, ram horns and everything.

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I rolled Mean Green one time. It was basically done except for the disc brake upgrade, and some other cosmetic things. I rolled it trying to avoid an accident and then became the accident. I later found out kids were throwing rocks at vehicles going by on the freeway, and the trucker's trucks sustained damage and they were stopping. I was in the maneuver of going around a jeep, did the look over the right shoulder to make sure I could merge into that lane. I began merging, looked forward, saw brake lights, they weren't fake brake, they were all stopping. I made a move under brake to go around when the car in front of me moved into my path. Still under brake, tried to make the same maneuver again, but the rears locked up, the left front tire blew, and I went tumbling down onto the onramp.

Are you dealing with coil or leaf springs? When we set up race car suspensions we would usually mock things up with the frame leveled and tied down to a level floor with chains and screw-type jack stands, and either weak or no springs so we could move the suspension through its full travel with a floor jack. Once some measurements are made that way, it's usually pretty simple to fabricate sway bar mounts, 4-link pivot points, etc.

One rule of thumb on a dirt tracker is "Build it 3 times as strong as you think you need, and don't be too surprised if it breaks!"
Jerry

This is a stock 1965 coil-sprung 3/4 Chevy. The 3.54 Dana 60 is out of a 68+- C20 Suburban. What my intent is use the Jeep XJ bar, heat it and bend it so the different panhard bar mounting angles match, while utilizing the factory panhard bar axle and frame mounts. Nothing major.

My first idea was cut the existing bar twice to correct the angles, then weld in some gussets for strength. Bending was suggested and does seem like the better method. I remembered having an old jeep xj front track bar laying around, and figured it would be a great platform to use because it's already bent, so finding the correct angles may be easier using it, than bending the old bar.

Basically melding these two panhard bar designs in a better way than I did when I was younger and didn't know better. The way I did it back then worked, but it wasn't correct. Lack of money was a factor back then, now I can do right.

This is how I did it back in '91. Again, it worked, I daily drove that truck until it got rolled in 2005. I really like the bent bar idea to make this right. Might be able to correct it without bending the xj bar if the current bends allow it to be shortened to work.