1937-1957 Buick Oldsmobile Pontiac suspension upgrade
(→Drum brake upgrade) |
(→Front Suspension) |
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The project in this tutorial used a Corvette 1-inch master cylinder, and a 7-inch single stage booster. This combination turned out to be "close enough". The brakes are a vast improvement over manual drums, but not perfect. Stopping power is great, until about the last 20% of pedal travel, as several test panic stops revealed. At the very bottom, you just can’t push hard enough to lock them up. The system probably needs a 9 or 10 inch booster to be perfect. There simply isn't enough power in a 7in booster to lock up a set of 215x75 15s on a 3500 pound car, on dry pavement. | The project in this tutorial used a Corvette 1-inch master cylinder, and a 7-inch single stage booster. This combination turned out to be "close enough". The brakes are a vast improvement over manual drums, but not perfect. Stopping power is great, until about the last 20% of pedal travel, as several test panic stops revealed. At the very bottom, you just can’t push hard enough to lock them up. The system probably needs a 9 or 10 inch booster to be perfect. There simply isn't enough power in a 7in booster to lock up a set of 215x75 15s on a 3500 pound car, on dry pavement. | ||
| − | ==Front | + | ==Front suspension== |
| − | + | The original idea came from an article in Rodder's Digest magazine that showed a suspension upgrade for a '55 Pontiac. Reading this article, which has some decent pictures, will get you thinking in the right direction: [http://www.pontiacsafari.com/L1Garage/BallJointConversion.pdf Project Strat-O-Streak]. | |
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| − | + | The upgrade discussed in the article will work on all 37-57 BOP's, because they all have the same basic setup. The '58 Pontiac lower control arms are the key. They are a direct bolt in, exactly the same as the originals, but with ball joints instead of king pins. '59 and later BOP’s went to a completely different control arm mount. '58 Buick lower control arms are not symmetrical, so they won’t work. ''(waiting for someone to confirm that '37-'57 Buicks are the same as BOP's, right now it is unconfirmed)''. | |
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| + | Also, we do not have a '58 Olds to check those lower control arms. What we do know is '57 is king pins, and '59 is all-new. So 58 is it. We used the '58 Pontiac upper control arms simply because we got the whole front end. Several uppers will work, as it looks like '58 to '60 BOP's all had the same basic dimensions on their upper control arms. In fact, the '58 Buick uppers we used on one conversion had some built in twist that allowed us to add more anti dive than we could get with the Pontiac uppers. | ||
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| + | As you can see in the pics, the '58 control arms are more substantial than the '41. However, all the dimensions are the same. | ||
[[image:58 pontiac 41 pontiac lower control arm s.jpg]] | [[image:58 pontiac 41 pontiac lower control arm s.jpg]] | ||
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