Nerd Rods, 55-59 Truck Frame Project 1956, C4 suspension, 5.3L auto Kit Frame Design

[rat_rod_russell]

If that cat didn't kill several rodents a week she wouldn't get that privilege. Seriously she's a murdering machine. She also learned really quickly when she brought one in the first time and I gave her a can of wet food. After the 3rd rat she had that figured out and started hunting in ernest. That started 5-6 years ago.

[Motoracer838]

If that cat didn't kill several rodents a week she wouldn't get that privilege. Seriously she's a murdering machine. She also learned really quickly when she brought one in the first time and I gave her a can of wet food. After the 3rd rat she had that figured out and started hunting in ernest. That started 5-6 years ago.

Dude, made my morning... All three of mine make such a sport of it, they had to resort to finding them outside and bring them in to play...

Joe

[rat_rod_russell]

Trips, sick, and design.

It's been a fun several weeks but it looks like this is going to happen sooner than later. I have a few other minor things that need to happen on Georges truck as well. Rear swaybar linkage that got more complex that I would have liked but they are correct and that's more important at the moment.









And then dumbluck today. I "assumed" that 14mm misalignment washers would be available with the 14mm rod end. And I was wrong. But as luck would have it the ½" misalignment washes I have are on the same size sphere used on the 14mm rod end. So one 14mm drill bit and a moment or two later on the lathe and we're good to go.

I also have 14mm X 1mm shims ordered for the bump steer adjustment and the 14mm X 110mm bolts ordered. I'm psyched to see if this is going to work as well as I hope it will. If not I still have the option to shorten the steering arm length for a few more degrees of steering angle at a mild sacrifice of bump steer at the extreme end of the suspension travel spectrum. Like all suspension its a compromise inside of a compromise inside of a compromise.




The goal will be both steering arm and rear sway bar linkage at the same time when all the parts are here in a week or so.

Later
-Russell @ Nerd Rods

[rat_rod_russell]

I got the parts in and they are welded up, I just need to make them pretty then install them. I'm working on a small mountain of assorted parts to get powder coated at the same time. Motor mount plate, shock adapters, swaybar linkage, and the mounting brackets for the rear swaybar linkage. The plan is to get them installed a bit later this week.

Back to work!

[wfo guy]

Nice.

[rat_rod_russell]

This worked out much better than the previous one. The customer is trying to get by a cheap as possible but when the intake air temps were the same as the operating temp the engine wouldn't run almost at all. So we made it a real cold air intake this time to solve that problem.

Note two, when it got up to temp the fans didn't come on. If you started with a truck engine that had a mechanical fan then the electric fan controls are disabled in the software. So that was fun to figure out. If you get no ground signal at your fan relay then you know its the tune file.

A few other things to do then its time to blow it apart and make it pretty.









So close to being done!
-Russell

[rat_rod_russell]

Fortunately its highly functional. It was 103°F the other day and the ITA Temp Sensor right by the TB showed 100°F driving around town while the engine was sitting at 195°F with both fans feathering off and on as necessary. So for this project that's missions accomplished.




And so it begins! 100 mile shake down complete! Taking a few things off to look for problems and then install new goodies to test and evaluate. She gets closer to going home with each little bit of work.

Custom Ackerman steering arms are going on with this round and the sway bar modifications and new linkages as well.

Later
-Russell @ Nerd Rods

[wfo guy]

Kool!

[rat_rod_russell]

Kool!

Thank you sir! I appreciate that





Long story short, there wasn't enough thread engagement for me to be happy with it so the temporally fix is a cut and weld BUT THIS IS ONLY FOR ME TO TEST THE STEERING ARMS, THIS WILL NOT BE DEVILED TO THE CUSTOMER OR SOLD AS PART OF THE KIT. All caps because someone still won't read it and will want to be a hero for pointing out that this isn't a perfect execution. I trust my welds on a thread angle more than I trust 5mm thread engagement.

I also had to move the sway bar a bit to clear the new steering linkage trajectory, hints the spacer blocks on the mount.

Sorry for the delay, I'm helping a friend build his new family home so that's eating up several days a week right now plus manufacturing and production on the other chassis projects in the shop dosen't leave much time. Good thing I'm single or I'd never get to work on my projects. ;)

Later
-Russell

[rat_rod_russell]

First, I was correct, the inner tie rods on the truck were not correct. They were the 84-87's on an 88-96 rack. That's why I had to cut them. So that will probably be an easy fix. Here are a few shots from another chassis in the shop with the steering arms bolted up.





Down side this only has 14mm of thread engagement on the rod end. While "the diameter of the shaft" in threads worth of engagement is acceptable by most books this just doesn't feel like enough for an almost all tension stress. So I'll probably still replace the end. Go to a male 14mm rod end and have a 14mm threaded sleeve made for the two the both thread in from each end. Cut a little off the rack and pinion's inner tie rod and call it much safer for the kit.


Now the report on the steering and driving feel.

I have put a few miles on the truck around town and on a longer trip to the Austin Cars and Coffee this last Sunday. The verdict at the moment is that it feels much better now that you are not fighting the steering with each turn but the turning radius is only slightly improved. Noticeably improved but not completely. I feel like its good enough for most customers since the "fighting steering wheel" feel is gone but it could be better. I've not gone back to my "test site" because of the local carnival is in town and the ferris wheel is right in the middle of the concrete I use for that particular test. The butt measuring tape says 4-8 feet tighter since the wheels aren't fighting each other any more but I won't say any more till I get an accurate testable metric to confirm.



I'm going to try one more prototype on the red truck with a "drift racer" trick and shorten the arm length to increase the angle of the steering arm. This isn't the best way to get more turning radius since it also creates "Ackerman migration" that exacerbates the farther you turn but if guys have happily been suffering bad Ackerman and bad turning radius this whole time I think Bad Ackerman and an acceptable turning radius are more desirable outcome. We'll see what I can do. I need to fix up a computer to start plugging in numbers to my suspension geometry program and see what I can do with the pivot location to make this workable.

Also find me on Instagram or Facebook for some daily updates user name NerdRods on both.

Later
-Russell @ Nerd Rods

[rat_rod_russell]

Oh, also picked up a cheep front bumper and slapped some powder on it along with the side trim. The center caps on the wheels were screwed too so they all got the black powder coat treatment that the center grill got and it really brought the whole front end together. Go figure I'd wash the wheels and it would rain the next day but I'll take the cool weather in the Texas summer for having to wash a car or two, hands down. It was 102°F Today it was 78°F. DONE!



I'll get some good photos when the tropical storm finishes blowing through.

Later
-Russell

[rat_rod_russell]

Took her out to the Luling Watermelon Thump Car Show while I cleaned the shop some.





We've been plugging floor board holes, and tweaking the fuel vent line. Dad's building a cover for the vintage air box under the dash and I'm tuning the shift points and VE table for some isolated knocking. More of that when I get the photos off my big camera.



Later
-Russell

[rat_rod_russell]

Getting closer to wrapping up. Added a vacuum accumulator to help the little booster out and got some simple seat belts in. Better than nothing, which is what I've been doing. Sorry guys, I would work faster but the customer's asked me to slow up a bit for now due to some family health problems. So suspension tuning it is! I'm going for closer to Cadillac than Corvette. Now to play with it but more than likely I'm going to need to fit longer shocks on the V2 frame to make that really happen. I'm looking into cutting down the bump stops some as well. Handling is on point (especially now that I can go around corners without holding onto the door) but its solidly on the firm side. The seat handles a good deal of it but I'd like to have a recipe for better ride for customers looking for that finish.







Later
-Russell

[wfo guy]

I'd really like to drive that truck to see how it compares to my 51 Ford that has more conventional suspension with ridetech coilovers on all four corners. I looked at using c4 vette parts and changed to a different plan because of lack of used parts and cost. After building more hot rods, I realize that where you cut corners maybe the last place you should. That being said, I used mid level parts. I'd like to know if better parts result in increased driver satisfaction to warrant the downsides.

[rat_rod_russell]

I'd really like to drive that truck to see how it compares to my 51 Ford that has more conventional suspension with ridetech coilovers on all four corners. I looked at using c4 vette parts and changed to a different plan because of lack of used parts and cost. After building more hot rods, I realize that where you cut corners maybe the last place you should. That being said, I used mid level parts. I'd like to know if better parts result in increased driver satisfaction to warrant the downsides.

It's all relative. There is no right or wrong on this stuff, only compromise. If you like a firm suspension geometry then the C4 with some short coil overs work great and they are easy on the budget too when you look at the long run. I'll try to get some track times down to see what it handles like but with the Automatic and crap gear spread it'll be tricky. The only compromise I won't make is using old frames. Trying to save a few dimes there or give away a bunch of labor to bring those up isn't worth the effort in the long run. The C4 in my research and experience has been the best performance per dollar option out there which is why I use it. I'm going to do a frame with a "less compormised" C5/6/7 front suspension and a C4 rear with some more advanced shock tricks to get more travel out of the suspension and get the ride quality up. Handling is important but no everyone wants a race car and as I get older I'm more interested in that myself. The Z06 Corvette is kick ass and we celebrate performance, but the supple ride of a base model corvette is fantastic compared to base model corvettes back in the day. I''d like to get more of that feel in the long run. But in the mean time, I have no problems drifting this one a bit and feeling right at home in it. ;)

[rat_rod_russell]

Ah yes, been one of those weeks.

First we had to clean out the AC lines because of a cross over mistake under the dash by one of my team. It happens, get upside down and backwards and this kind of thing just happens. Not the customers problem so its all out of pocket.

Dryer replaced because any water in them and they are toast so that got replaced as well.

Clean all the systems out and now the heater valve is "ticking". Also drawing 2 amps of power when the car is turned off. Vintage Air systems have their own circuit wired to the battery so all that current isn't going through the key. Makes since but this mean it can draw if necessary. I email into Vintage and they had a new one over to me the next day. They are only an hour drive from my shop in reality, but they should still be commended for getting that part out the door the same day as my question came in. So new on goes on and we add a heat shield just for good measure just to make sure that won't be a problem in the future.

We go to charge the system and two of the high pressure lines start leaking. Turns out the local shop didn't use the right dies in their machine when crimping these lines. Everyone there knew that they had the equipment to crimp AC lines but not everyone knew the procedure. It wasn't malicious and they gave me free hose to replace the bad parts so I was only out the ends to get it re done. And time but again that's my problem, not the customers. Turns out their machine was too big to crimp the 130° bends so I had to go visit a friend in Bastrop (45 minute trip one way) to use his tool to do it. I learned a bit about the "Lizard Skin" spray in insulation and sound deadened as well as some quick connect ends for the AC lines I'll be using in the future so thing won't be a problem ever again, so there's always a silver lining and we add more to the knowledge base.

I get back. My younger bother had moved the truck out of the way to work on his fiancees's car. I go to drive the truck back in the shop and............. rod knock............. at least that's what I'm pretty sure it is at this point from our inspection. Just sitting there, I have no clue what could have happened to make that start. I've never seen rod knock on an LS engine so there's a new one. We'll get her on the lift next week and take the pan off to confirm for sure.

Oh, and its been in the high 100's all week with 50-75% humidity in the area. Like I said, been one of those weeks. But we'll get it taken care of and next time **** hits the fan we can just reminder ourselves, "yeah, but it wasn't as bad as the summer of 18".

Back to the sauna, I mean shop.

Photo from us hoping it was a collapsed lifter or bad rocker arm and doing a compression test as well as bore scoping it from the top.



Later
-Russell

[wfo guy]

Ouch! I've seen rods out of ls's here but they were all high mileage engines. The lifter problem is way more common. It's been hot and humid here also. We had rain 3 weeks ago and the weather pattern has made the sweat towel my best friend.

[rat_rod_russell]

Ouch! I've seen rods out of ls's here but they were all high mileage engines. The lifter problem is way more common. It's been hot and humid here also. We had rain 3 weeks ago and the weather pattern has made the sweat towel my best friend.

This was an engine I'd acquired because someone owed me money. The mileage was unknown. I do know the transmission was bad as the guy I got the engine from tried to use it so by 4L60 standards 180-220k. Compression was good so I just ran with it at the time. Compression is still good but everyone keeps saying lifters. I was under the understanding that a collapsed lifter would yield lower compression from lack of lift closing the cylinder faster and we didn't see any of that on the compression test we just ran. 195-210 all the way around. I'll pull the pan first and see what the rods have to say directly. No noise under cranking either. Only after it fired up.

Thanks for the feed back though, always looking to learn and I'm not an engine guy.

[wfo guy]

Is that a mds engine? If it is, there is a kit available now to remove all the parts that the cylinder dropping mechanism uses. That might make your life simpler. I agree that I would expect a lower reading with a lifter failure.

[rat_rod_russell]

Is that a mds engine? If it is, there is a kit available now to remove all the parts that the cylinder dropping mechanism uses. That might make your life simpler. I agree that I would expect a lower reading with a lifter failure.

Nope. Its an older LM7. I'm aware of the problems of the DOD (Displacement on Demand) systems so I've avoided those thus far. This truck has been around long enough in my shop (my contract states that if you change something then you go to the end of the list, he's done that a few times) that the older motors were still the best bang for the buck at the time. Such is life. Good idea though and good advice for anyone else reading this with a DOD engine.