Thread: Trailing Arm Suspension

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I'm with Richard on the "refurbish" your stock set up idea as long as it does what you want traction and ride quality wise.

The ladder bar idea is pretty cookie cutter in rods..............and I'm not criticizing it by saying that. Pete & Jakes pioneered it in the earyly 70's commercially. www.peteandjakes.com If you go to a rod run and look under any number of early '30's fords, there's about a 40% chance that's what you'll see under there. The key to mounting the ladder bar (usually with coilovers, or pocketed coil springs, but also a Ford transverse leaf spring) is to have the bars "tapering" toward the center of the chassis as they go forward. This allows the rear some compliance from side to side as it rides over irregular surfaces. It's modeled much like the trailing arm suspension on GM trucks of the '60's/'70's, and is what NASCAR chassis employ. You'll also need a panhard bar, or a watts link to maintain lateral location.

The splayed rear springs on your Essex is a Hudson thing. They felt that it gave a more compliant ride (similar logic to the trailing arm discussion above) and was less prone to spring "wrap up". They used that design idea through to their end in the mid '50's.