[chieftain]

Mybe try here, they list 10 58's.
http://www.fremansauto.com/pontiac/

or try here

http://www.pontiacheaven.org/

[grouch]

Originally Posted by oldguy829

This I can figure out.

Thanks again.
Grouch, you getting this??

I am now, finally, thanks to your 'heads-up' message. (Been so busy with other things, my Olds frame has been collecting tools and bolts. Anything that sits still for more than a day in my garage starts turning into a shelf).

Chieftain's excellent details give me real hope that whacking off the frame won't be necessary. Even if I have to pass a rod through the lower A pivot in order to determine where to make the steering linkage to avoid bumpsteer, that won't be as bad as grafting the frame, IMO. I'd much rather take some standard parts and fit them via custom, permanent adaptations to the frame.

Downloading the PDF that Chieftain linked to. Tons of good info to absorb in this thread already.

[grouch]

Originally Posted by home brew

That is sure an interesting article. I remember when Rodders Digest was building that Pontiac (although I'm not sure of when "when" was ). Must be quite some time ago before "kits" when people actually built and engineered their way out of problems. Also did anyone notice that there are no website addresses in those ads.

Amazing, ain't it? The article is about fabricating instead of marketing kits and kit installers! That makes me more determined to graft new parts onto my old frame instead of cutting the frame up.

[chieftain]

Thats about the point where I was at too. I had already fabricated side mounts and even started on a disc brake kit. I had made a bracket for the one side and had a rotor and caliper mounted up. But they were off a late 70's Monte Carlo - metric calipers and 10.4" rotors, same as the s-10. I wasn't real happy with thinking I would be stuck with small disc brakes .

[oldguy829]

Grouch, welcome back. Don't you hate it when life gets in the way of cars.
Chieftan and I have been chasing this in circles, unfortunately we also have a thread going on steering boxes and haven't been to careful about which topic is discussed in which thread. see "605? steering box" not to mention private messages.
I am 100% convinced we are on the right track. There has to be a similar path you can follow on Olds upgrades thru the years to do the same thing, but I'd bet big bucks the lower A's on Olds and Pont are identical and you can just follow what we work out, or find better solutions with Olds that we can use on Ponchos.

I think this topic is worthy of some follow up. Once I get it done (assuming it works) I would like to post what we learn for others to follow. With help from you and chieftan we could put something together for the knowledge base.
Know anyone into Buicks? Bet there is a lot of crossover there too.

[chieftain]

That article doesn't really show the parts too well. Here's a better pic from the MPC on the 58 front end. Notice they show an air suspension, that would be really nice to get that option .

[oldguy829]

Haven't actually installed anything yet, still waiting on some parts, but i'm beginning the mock up for the upper control arm mounts.
Assuming approximately an 11 inch steering knuckle, I need the front mount hole to be 3/4 of an inch higer than the rear for an 8* anti dive angle.
I intend to build in about 3* of positive caster in the upper mount location, so I can shim + or - from that starting point. that means the upper needs to be 1/2 inch behind the lower. I am assuming the upper mount needs to be precisely parralel to the lower mounts to give the minimum amount of camber deflection throughout the suspension range. 3 to 4 * positive caster, plus king pin inclination should also provide a little negative camber during cornering to help plant the tires. Anyone got a problem with any of this?
(most of this is from building racing go karts, so the therory is sound, but I'm concerned I'm missing something in the suspension roll that karts don't have)

My real problem comes from the Ackerman steering effect. I can't find the data, but I seem to remember that Ackermans theory determined that the steering arm to tie rod pivot joint had to intersect a line from the spindle pivot to the center of the rear axel. In the magazine article on the upgrade we are looking at, they shortened the outer tie rod 3 inches to accomodate the steering arms on the 63 spindles. This would completely destroy Ackerman steering. Am I missing something here, or just being too damn anal?

My spindles should be here tomorrow and I want to get after it this week.
Any corrections or WADA comments are welcome.

(WADA - what a dumb a...)

[home brew]

Take a look at this thread:

A shot of ackerman anyone?

[oldguy829]

Thank you homebrew.
That was a very poite way of saying, Yeah, you're being too anal.
S'OK, one less thing to worry about.

[chieftain]

On the design of the 58 set-up, the upper arm is parallel to the frame , not the lower arm. Look at the factory upper arm mounts on the pic I included earlier.
Make you you center your gearbox and have the front wheels pointing straight to determine how much needs to be removed from the inner tie rod . I would do this without the springs in as use some threaded rod or jack up the lower arm so it is parallel to the ground just like it would be if the car was on the ground.
As long as one of the steering arms isn't bent from being in an accident you should be ok. And just because the inner is shorted it shouldn't affect toe-out on turns (ackerman) even though your using 63 arms and spindles.

[home brew]

Originally Posted by oldguy829

Thank you homebrew.
That was a very poite way of saying, Yeah, you're being too anal.
S'OK, one less thing to worry about.

Actually I was wondering the same thing as you awhile back and did several searches and found that thread and saved it my favorites under front suspension. I've been reading about the Ackerman principle for almost 50 years now and then these guys say forget it. I guess Ackerman decided he needed to address the situation for the horse and buggy trade 175 years ago and then later it just became part of our automobile history.

[oldguy829]

I'm hung up on some of this from kart racing. On identical karts, setup is the difference between 1 st and last. What I was missing was slip angle. On kart tires there is virtually none. Without proper Ackerman you get scrub and it costs you. Didn't realize auto tires can have up to 10* of slip angle, Ackerman is about 2*, so you can be way off and it just doesn't matter, for the street. Still difficult to just ignore something that has been proven to be crucial in another application.
Chieftan, can't tell precisely, but it does look like the upper is aligned with the frame. sure isn't aligned with the lower. Now I need to absorb what effect that has on caster/camber during deflection..... plus caster and minus camber, right? Or is this another "it doesn't matter".

[chieftain]

One thing the upper is the fact the front mounting is alot furthur away from the ball joint than the rear mounting holes on the crosshaft. I guess thats the way it was engineered to have a parallel upper shaft with the frame.

[oldguy829]

Just an update for Grouch, and any lurkers.
Helping a friend redo a 49 Olds, and he owns a salvage yard. Can personally confirm nothing from 57 and 59 works, also 58 Buick and Cadillac will not work. Did not have a 58 Olds to check, can anyone measure the lower control arms on a58 Olds? Bolt pattern is 1 7/8 inch apart, on each side of the crossmember, which is an 8 1/2 inch spread. Seems to be common on GM's of the era. The problem is, the arms need to be symetrical. Ball joint is exactly 90* from the center of the control arm mount. So far, only the 58 Pontiac matches up. These are getting hard to find, and expensive.
Fortunately the uppers are much easier. Pontiac thru 60 works for sure. Also Buick and Olds. In fact, the Buick Olds arms have a twist in them that allows us to mount them at a fairly steep angle (looks like 10 *) for anti dive, while keeping the upper ball joint level. For those of you with fabrication skills, we are looking for an easy method of converting the existing lower control arms to ball joints, since the uppers are an easy (cheap) find.
For those looking to lower the front end while doing the conversion, we are looking at the adaptability of Chevy spindles from the 60's, as there are several companies offering drop spindles and disc kits for chevy, but none for BOP.

[Chopt 48]

I've tried to follow this thread for a while and still can't make sense of it. I can see the point of not wanting to cut up the original frame but sometimes that may be the best and most expedient way to solve the problem.

Have you considered building tubular A arms that fit the original mounts. have the correct geometry and have uppers that are built to be adjustable with ball joints that match spindles that hold the proper sized disk brakes?

I believe Speedway shows adjustable arms for circle burners in their catalog. they won't fit your application but you could get the adjustment method there.
This would keep the cost of replacement parts down and make a system that would work without a lot of nonsense.