Inliners International Forums General Discussion Drive Train Front suspension option for 40's Chevys.

The Crown Victoria suspension from the 2000's is a pretty good fit in the 40's Chev frames. The nice thing is that the level portion of frame where the original knee action crossmember is bolted is in the correct location to accept the Crown Vic.
The pluses for the crown Vic are 12" brakes, R&P steering, aluminum crossmember and lower control arms, low cost from junk yards and good service parts availability. The minuses are, It's too wide and needs to be narrowed, 16" minimum wheel diameter, should use deep backspacing (flat outside) wheels.
To fit the Chevy, I narrowed mine by 4-5/8" which coincides with mid 90's T-Bird or Mustang R&P and sway bar from a T-Bird. To narrow the crossmember I cut it and made bolted splice plates to rejoin the halves. These are bolted with 1/2" GR-8 bolts and deep nuts with hardened SAE washers. When mounting the crossmember I used the CV anti-crush tubes recovered from the CV. They are easy to cut out of the CV with a hole saw that just fits over the top as they are only welded in at the top of the frame. The lower arm rear pivot bushings were modified to bolt to the existing frame holes for the Chev K member arms which need to be removed or modified. I was making a new trans mount crossmember anyway and mounting the master cylinder to the firewall. I'm also using Moon disks to hide the wheels that don't look right on an old car.
I also made a new crossmember from square tube to mount the radiator horse collar. If anyone wants to do this I can provide drawing files to have the splice plates and lower bushing mounts CNC cut.

Love the build and the outside of the box execution. Keep us updated.

Very nice work and a lot of it. I had a '41 Coupe with a 261 way back. One of those I wish about.

My friend did a Crown Vic on his 60's Suburban. It has several advantages and has replaced the Volare as the best upgrade choice in a truck. It has

disc brakes
power rack / pinion
aluminum bolt-in Xmbr
commonly available replacement parts
good geometry

He also replaced the rear end with a CV unit so he could have a common wheel bolt pattern and good choice of ratios.

Nice upgrade! Looks great!

I'm in the middle of my third C4/5 Corvette front suspension transplant. It's more work than the CV unit, but the handling on the other two, a '56 Ford F100 and a early 70's Mustang, was really impressive and the ride with adjustable coil overs is better than my wife's Enclave!

The latest transplant is my most ambitious. I'm putting C4 suspension under a 1929 Ford Tudor!!

That little Chevy in the pics is OUTSTANDING!!