Shake down cruise

[jaybee]

Recently I was BS'ing with a buddy, just kicking around in the garage, and the conversation went far and wide as it often does in such situations.  Of course there was talk about body mods, project themes, and such, as well as drive train talk.  Things got very interesting when the talk turned to chassis, however.  I believe pretty strongly that a car that's going to be driven needs to be able to mix safely with modern traffic, not be driven at 50mph in a 65 zone like you see a lot with restorations.  Fools in late models that cut in front and hit the brakes or other stupid maneuvers get away with it a lot in part because new cars are pretty capable.  Old cars should be brought up to snuff.  In fact I'll go a step farther.  A lot of rods have 400, 500, or more horsepower under the hood.  If you're going to do that the rest of the car should be able to handle the consequences of that speed.

Obviously careful choice of parts goes a long way toward that goal of a totally competent ride.  What do you do to tune a car so that it turns and stops as good as it looks and goes?

[enjenjo]

Disc brakes, power brakes, power steering with a quicker ratio, lowering, bigger sway bar, and one in the rear, wider tires with more grip, smaller steering wheel. I want a rod to handle at least as well as a modern econobox for Pete's sake.

I have the 65 Buick wagon, a low miles unrestored original car in excellent condition. It handles terrible compared to any modern car. the steering is slow, brakes are marginal at best, and it rolls like a tug boat. I'm fixing all that.

[jaybee]

That's where I'm coming from.  Have you ever taken that first drive and the parts just didn't work toghether quite like you thought they would?  Maybe some little quirk in the handling or braking?  And what did you do to dial it in just a little better?

[enjenjo]

I have built a few disasters. I built an Anglia one time with a really trick front suspension, copied from a drawing the owher brough to me. When it was done, I took the stands out, only to watch in horror, as the front of the car settling onto the floor. I had the geometry totally backwards, and ended up having to do the whole job over from scratch. The drawing was not engineered properly, and I let the trickness of the concept blind me to that. The second one worked great, and it raced for several seasons.

Having done a few now, they are generally what I expect. But occasionally one will have handling problems, sensitive steering, wandering, too much body roll, or some thing like that. I try one of several adjustments that have worked for me in the past, and that will usually fix it. You can adjust toe in, caster, and camber to fix it, but only so far. If it's a big problem, you have to do more.

But there are times when it just needs to be done over to make it right. Most often the change isn't drastic, but needed anyway.

I had one car, that I replaced the front suspension on, that handled terrible.  After chasing the problem for several days, I found that the U bolts on the rear axle were loose, causing the problem, and I had not worked on that end!