Thread: One Way To Build A Hot Rod Lincoln

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Thanks you guys I really appreciate the comments.
This thing with the lightning holes came about when I was figuring out what I was going to do for the infra structure inside the frame rails to strengthen the frame up. I already made up my mind that any lightning hole I made I wanted some big radius' on them, not just welding in the tubing and putting a small radius from the weld. Not that there is anything wrong with that. It's a lot of work and I think it makes a part look real nice. I just want some big ones on this car. I have been playing with the idea of making some tooling I could slip inside of the different size material I'm using but it would take so may dies it would take forever. I have dimple dies but again they wouldn't work on say a piece of 2 X 3, you could get one side dimpled but not the other. Then I thought of just taking some 1/8" sheet metal and braking one side 90 degrees. With the pieces bent like that I could dimple both pieces then weld them together and I would have a piece of 2 X 3 with big radiuses. I gave up on that when I had flash backs on welding the stainless frame together, so that was out. That's how I came up with the idea of just machining the whole thing, drill an oversize hole and slip the machined piece in and weld around the hole and it's done.
Ken

Ken i wouldn't want to do this again i had to machine up some of the tubes in mine, it seemed to take forever to get them finished

That looks really nice, some times I think I should take up knitting

Originally Posted by Ken Thurm

That looks really nice, some times I think I should take up knitting

Ha! You????????? Personally I am just going to take up sitting in my chair and talking to myself.

And Bob, I have no doubt your Wife knows you are simply perfect in all respects!

Don

I was working on my front end the other day, bolting things on to mock up the ride height of the front end. I got to the leaf spring and put it on, here is this nice stainless front end and this black ugly spring in the middle. I did some research and I decided to make my own springs out of stainless. I bought a piece of 17 4 stainless 4" wide and 12' long by 1/4". I took it over and had it sheared into 1 3/4" for the front spring and 2 1/4"for the rear. This has the properties very close to spring steel after heat treating. So tomorrow I'm heading over to the guy that makes my springs and he will bend them up so I can drop them off at the heat treater, then polish them.
Before I decided to do this I E mailed Eaton spring in Michigan, I think, and asked them if they would make them for me. There response was, no one can make springs out of stainless . So then I called my spring guy and he told me he had made some for the front end of a Indian motorcycle a few years back without any trouble. He gave me the phone number of a friend of his in northern Ca. who also makes springs. He told me that he makes coil springs out of stainless all the time. He gave me the heat treating numbers to shoot for. So we will see what happens.
Ken

That will really set all the other stainless frame members off nicely Ken. I've never heard anyone making their own springs before, so this is cool to see happen on your build.

Very nice build... I have been watching this build for a while now...Keep up the nice work..

Ken i'm very interested to see how this works out

Originally Posted by Ken Thurm

I was working on my front end the other day, bolting things on to mock up the ride height of the front end. I got to the leaf spring and put it on, here is this nice stainless front end and this black ugly spring in the middle. I did some research and I decided to make my own springs out of stainless. I bought a piece of 17 4 stainless 4" wide and 12' long by 1/4". I took it over and had it sheared into 1 3/4" for the front spring and 2 1/4"for the rear. This has the properties very close to spring steel after heat treating. So tomorrow I'm heading over to the guy that makes my springs and he will bend them up so I can drop them off at the heat treater, then polish them.
Before I decided to do this I E mailed Eaton spring in Michigan, I think, and asked them if they would make them for me. There response was, no one can make springs out of stainless . So then I called my spring guy and he told me he had made some for the front end of a Indian motorcycle a few years back without any trouble. He gave me the phone number of a friend of his in northern Ca. who also makes springs. He told me that he makes coil springs out of stainless all the time. He gave me the heat treating numbers to shoot for. So we will see what happens.
Ken