The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop Dropped Axle?

Hey, all-

I have a '55 2nd series with stock suspension- Anybody know if there are still shops doing old-school axle bending to make your stock I-beam into a dropped axle? I know CPP has a kit with a brand-new piece, but I'm working on a budget and have access to a spare axle.

I'm in North Florida, so ideally it would be something within a day's drive so I don't need to spend $$$$ on oversize shipping.

-Josh

Not close to Florida but it's definitely an old-school shop.
Nostalgia Sids http://www.droppedaxles.com I've got one of his 4 inch drops set back for a future project.
Mongo

I watched someone do it on TV...one of those hot rod shows on Sunday morning. For the money you'll spend on oxygen & acetylene to do the heating, and the time it takes, you'd be better off buying one already done! Plus, they had a special fixture to get the bending right, side-to-side, and to keep the king pin angle correct. Other than that, it was heat and bend (with a 4-foot bar).
Good luck.

cm

i also have one of Sids dropped axles, 3 inch drop.
http://droppedaxles.com/

i live in south florida, and shipping of a complete front axle with steering arms and spindles was only $25.00, believe it or not.
give Sid a call. he's a great guy and honest.

you can check through my photobucket album for pics of my install.

leonard

I second that with Sid's axle. at droppedaxles.com While you're at it, send him your steering arms and have him bend them down if you're going 4 inch, and have him plug and ream the holes for a ford modern tie rod end. When you drop the axle 4 inches on a chev, you should really run the tie rods under the leaf versus over the leafs. Lastly, do the same with the pitman arm too and get rid of those old school tie rods. I've called him about 3 times on my project and we end up talking for 15 minutes. A great guy.

Sid's drop axles look cool but how will they hold up under a v-8? Has anyone been there,dun that yet??

a v8 is lighter than a 6 it will not be a issue

Just got my axle from Sid this week. Very well done and magnafluxed after stretching. A very helpful guy that will take time to answer any questions.

Why would a v8 even be an issue?

The only issue I'm having now is these crappy new wheel bearings that don't fit my spindles. Anybody else run into this?

i got a 350/th350 combo in mine without any problems. like someone else said, i dont see why there would be an issue with running a v-8 with a dropped axle.

leonard

are you running the original wheel bearings ? i didnt have a problem with mine using the original ball bearings, and no problem when i went with new tapered bearing on my front disc kit.

leonard

No, I got some rollers from CP, and the inner bearings won't slide on the spindle. They are like .004 smaller than my spindle. I'm sure they'll fit with some emery cloth work, but it still doesn't seem right. My spindles are 60 years old and they sure haven't gotten any larger.

Somewhere there is an old school artical on not dropping the axle but moving it to the top of the spings instead on under them with some kind of blocks prob is the only pic i have seen of it was only for removing that setup for a more modern dropped type axle personaly i want more info on the way it was done in the old days "before all the turn key drop in stuff"

The bearings or the races/adapters?

I'm not familiar with the parts you have, but I've seen bearing swaps where part of it needed to be heated to expand before being installed.

That doesn't work well on our old trucks where there is almost no room left between the axle and the frame. Also the way the axle is designed with the holes for the u-bolts in the upper edge its difficult to safely bolt the axle in place doing it that way.

And heating and stretching the axle is acually the 'old school' way to do it...

the spindles get out of round over the years

Did you use 320 grit sandpaper on the spindle to get the roller bearings to fit? - that's the solution in the CPP literature somewhere.

I had the same issue with the inside bearings on my recent disc brake conversion and a real brief hand sanding with a strip of 320 grit solved the problem pretty quickly.

http://www.classicperform.com/tech_articles/Tapered-Wheel-Bearings/Tapered-Wheel-Bearings.htm

I'll have to get out the emery cloth. I never even considered the spindles could be out of round. Thanks for the tip.

I've seen a couple of axles re-located to the top of the springs...looked pretty cobbled. I would think caster would be hard to figure out too.