47 Olds Four Door

[Bib_Overalls]

Friend is starting a 47 Olds four door project.  The car is stock with the original straight 8 and hydromatic.  

The plan calls for an interior and exterior restoration with a modern V8, automatic transmission, and air conditioning.

He asked me some questions I can not answer.

Can this vehicle, with it's stock front suspension,  be fitted with a power steering box?

What about front disc brakes?

Is there an alternative to the stock front suspension that will retain the stock ride height?

The rear suspension is coils and lever arm shocks (the shocks are mounted to the axle and the link runs to the frame).  Will this rear end handle the power of, say, a basic crate SBC?  Would like to avoid the hassle of cutting all the bracketry off the current axle and mounting it to something new.  

If the rear axle has to be replaced is there a best candidate?

Anyone want to buy a running Olds straight 8 and hydromatic?

[HotRodLadyCrusr]

If you PM me your buddies address I will send him very detailed info, including pictures, on everything that was done to Big Olds.  Will cover most of the questions he has and lots more too.

[sirstude]

Has he got the small (66), medium (78) or large (98) Olds?  I don't think you could get the straight 8 in the little Olds, like Denise has.  The basic stuff that was done on her car will work on the bigger cars.  It took me about an hour to cut the bracket off my Olds rear and weld them on the 9" Ford I put in my 41 (middle sized).  If I can help, let me know.  There are some pictures on www.picturetrail.com/sirstude of my Olds.  

Doug

ps.  Most of the initial information for building my car came from Steve that built Denise's car.

[GPster]

I have two suggestions. I would imagine that this thing is some wider than Mustang II material so Pacer in which the whole suspension un-bolts from the uni-body with power rack and pinion and disc brakes and a 5 x 4 1/2" lug pattern or a 1/2 ton Chevy/GMC truck that can be up-graded that way and has a 5 x 5" lug pattern ( 2 wheel drive after '72 ) but would leave you making a steering box mount and an idler arm mount. GPster

[parklane]

I have two suggestions. I would imagine that this thing is some wider than Mustang II material so Pacer in which the whole suspension un-bolts from the uni-body with power rack and pinion and disc brakes and a 5 x 4 1/2" lug pattern or a 1/2 ton Chevy/GMC truck that can be up-graded that way and has a 5 x 5" lug pattern ( 2 wheel drive after '72 ) but would leave you making a steering box mount and an idler arm mount. GPster

I put a Pacer front end in a 54 Chev p/u we built in the early 90's, and it worked really well. The biggest problem would be finding a Pacer to rob the front end out of.
John

[sirstude]

I forget about the Pacer front end because neither yard here has any left.  It is a pretty neat setup, looks like a big Mustang II.  The nice thing about it is the rack and pinion is out of the way of the front sheet metal.  That is the one thing I have to fight with my setup.  You will have to do some major frame work, because the Olds frame is really weird around the spring pockets and A arm mounts.  If you just make a jig to tie the front of the frame to the middle of the frame, then you can cut out the A arm section and put in some square tubing to tie things together and then mount the Pacer stuff.  

Doug

[Bib_Overalls]

Appreciate you guys.

I am going to take some pictures in the morning to post here.  

So far as I can tell Fatman is the only vendor offering a Mustang II suspension and to get it you have to buy one of their frame clips.  The owner wants stock or near stock suspension height and I suspect anything aftermarket will be to low.

This is going to be fun.