Rad support/rad cradle

[Jeff Norwell]

I have all the parts except the rubber(it was long gone on disassembly) I have all other items.... we are good.
What confused me was the very 2 first diagrams...... they made no sense.. and all parts are not what is displayed on the service bulletin and Gunthers parts.


Thanks All

[djfordmanjack]

Rich, Lynn is right. that boxy plate is part of the front frame and supports the leaf spring. below that you can see a stack of 2 shims ( like you mentioned 3 in total so one must be above frame bracket and below leaf spring). then there is the shim retainer with bent up tabs and the lower ruber puck, washer and self locking nut.
above the leaf spring and below radiator support cradle the upper round rubber puck is barely visible
I have every reason to believe that this is all factory and has never been replaced before.

[lalessi1]

Ok, I now have a theory about all of this after giving it a lot of thought after a few beers. I think the purpose of the spring is to allow for the difference between the body /fender flex and the frame flex. My guess is the first diagram is the early design used on earlier model years that quickly proved inadequate since the '57's were "longer, lower, and wider", hence the second drawing. I bet that design proved inadequate for the retractables because they were heavier/longer and the frame/body flex was greater than the flat spring could accommodate. I suspect the flat spring was marginal at best and poorly understood by body men and mechanics in terms of proper setup, hence the service bulletin and the fact that a lot of springs failed. How's that for imagining a scenario 60+ years ago. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it!

[hiball3985]

Thats a good a guess as anyone's  I wish someone would make new replacement springs. Mine was gone and I just Mickey Moused it...

[djfordmanjack]

sounds very reasonable Lynn!
I want to add, that the leaf springs also allows for side to side movement ( like in the old buggy spring suspension on Ford Ts As and early V8s) and if the front of chassis or suspension twists, the fenders and body frontend will just move with the main body, hence less fender squeaks, or tears in sheetmetal flanges.

[SkylinerRon]

51A is indeed the Skyliner (57-59) body model code.

Skyliners used  very different body mounts than all the other 57's. They are solid not rubber and the frame is way stronger with a huge "X" member.

The core support mounts are unique to 51A's.

With my top down the door gaps open up less than an additional 1/8"!

Ron.

[thomasso]

76B Sunliners also use solid composite type mounts with shims and also have the X frame.  When I did my car the conv. mounts were not yet being reproduced.  Fabricated mounts from thick dense conveyor belting.

[SkylinerRon]

Good to know, I've not done a regular conv only Skyliners.

Ron.

[fdlrc]

This is how mine was configured on disassembly. 300 Tudor with 223 six.

[RICH MUISE]

Exactly correct assembly. Too bad your spring is broken......wish somebody would reproduce those. Should be easy for a spring shop I would think, the only issue being how to determine what the spring tension is suppose to be.

[Ranch]

I had to shim mine a couple of times, it kept dropping and I would lose the  door gap.  Third time it finall settled in to where the gap stayed pretty good.  I believe my car was in an accident before I got it cause I needed more than three shims.