Why we will never have a dropped spindle for the Twin I-Beam

[MadMaxetc]

I was thinking about it the other day and I thought I would take a look into it.

Picture 1 Picture 2

Here are my thoughts...

First let me say that the position of the caliper and the mounting of the backing plate are some what minor issues compared to the following...

If you look at the way this thing is built you can see that the actual shaft is pressed into a cast body. Then it is smashed on the back side to keep it from coming out. This means that you have to have access to the back side of the hole.
If you look at the picture, you can see that the upper bearing is right where you would want the shaft to be for a 2" drop. So if you take the current design the most you could probably do is a 0.5" drop. That is hardly enough to be worth it.

Well what if we cast the shaft into the spindle!!

Well the problem becomes one of strength and bearing loads. The bearings would be all wrong. Right now the bearings are loaded fairly equal. If you move the rotational axis up 2" then the lower bearing would only carry about 25% and the upper one would carry 75%! this would mean that your king pin bearings would only last about 2/3rds as long, assuming that the would wear at the same rate. (they would probably wear faster!)
Now about the shaft being cast. I do not think that a cast shaft would hold up to the stress. I think it would have to be a forged spindle. It would also be difficult to machine the shaft, as the spindle would be off balance to the shaft.
So I think for those reasons, and the fact that forgings are expensive, that path is a no go as well.

I am out of Ideas on it for now...

What are your guy’s thoughts?

[Tim P.]

Im not an expert in this area but heres a thought what if you delete the whole twin I beam system go with a straight axel with leafs and flip the axel as the straight axels spindles are off set about 4 or 5" from center plane of the main axel that would give you a good drop but then Im sure that there are other changes needing to be done to make this work as a system like steering brakes setup etc. I might just be rattling on here but this is what I pick my brain only but a momet to come up with this.

[MadMaxetc]

That may work.

I was simply trying to explane why the Twin I will not have droped sindles.

You can always swap to another suspention design and fabricate it to make it work.

[snake]

MadMax -

I agree! I brought up the same factors that you did in a thread a few weeks ago and the discussion got even further involved. I'll see if I can find it (remember the title) for you to review.......

[snake]

Here's a link to the previous discussion....

http://www.fordification.com/forum/view ... hp?t=18196

The discussion about dropped spindles starts several posts down into the topic......

[MadMaxetc]

Ha HA HA! I posted on the subject and don't even remember!

Oh well. I am still thinking about this. If You make an I-Beam and Sindle Set it might be posible.

more to come I am sure...

[FORDification]

The laws of physics shouldn't apply here. Doesn't this fall into the "if we can put a man on the moon why can't we...." rhetoric?

Thanks for the brainstorming though, guys. What you say does make sense, though it's not what I wanna hear.

[Jake11]

The axle needs more offset, not spindle, No? The spindle has not very
much meat on it to work with. A section of plate could be used to weld
a cut axle if it was gusseted and done right.

[Leadfoot]

why drop the spindle when you can drop the beam? and if you did drop the spindle would you not run in to the radius rod?

[snake]

In my opinion, the biggest problem/concern with the dropped I beams is the tie-rod relocator (those don't look real sound to me). Obviously, the more drop you have in the I beam, the more offset you need in the tie-rod relocator.

A big benefit from a dropped spindle is the elimination of the need for the tie-rod relocator. But as noted above and in the link above, I don't think dropped spindles will ever come about without also having custom I beams/king pins to match them.

[MadMaxetc]

I think you said it snake.

You would have to have an I-Beam & Spindle set.

I think while I am bored at work I will start modeling up a pair. Who knows, maybe it is my gateway to fame and fortune!!