1927 T Bucket Roadster Project: Part 12, Split Wishbones

Split wishbones give any hot rod a traditional front suspension look. Today, Bob Hamilton begins the multiple installment process of splitting the wishbones and adapting them to the home built 1927 T-Bucket roadster chassis.

This is the twelfth installment in our series documenting how Bob, the creator and star of the informative StreetRod 101 DVD Library builds a 1927 T roadster using only a modest budget and loads of experience that he’s happy to share with you.

Bob started with a fiberglass body that had been carved up for drag racing purposes. He filled in a previously cut out section of the rear deck, installed a floor, began building a tapered frame that follows the 1927 T’s body contours and constructed the front and rear crossmembers, rear suspension and panhard bar, positioned the engine, mounted a vintage Mustang steering box, constructed the transmission crossmember, built motor mounts for a small block Chevy engine, began to position the front axle and properly positioned the spring perch brackets, or “batwings”, on the front axle. Follow along today as Bob begins a multi-part session that will show you how to mount split wishbones and adapt them to a tubular front axle.

split wishbones
Example of to-be split wishbones

While there are variations by year, most early Ford wishbones look like the above to start with.

T-Bucket split wishbones

They were built to mount to an I-beam axle and need to be adapted to a tubular front axle. That’s what Bob covers in this first, short lesson on how to split wishbones for a T-Bucket hot rod. Therefore, you’ll need to cut off the stock clevis like the one above and fabricate a new clevis that will mate the front of your split wishbones to your tubular axle.

Split Wishbones Front Clevis Mount

“On to the front wishbones. The stock wishbones I had did not fit my axle. So I decided to make my own front clevis out of ½ x 1 ½ flat bar stock. I clamped a piece of rectangular tubing in a vise with added flat bar spacers, clamped the ½ x 1 ½ to the tubing and then heated and bent the flat bar around the tubing on both ends.”

how to build split wishbones radius rods

“The gap was larger than the axle boss (I designed it this way) so I then made two spacers and tacked them in place to give it more of a stock type look. I could have used just the rectangular tubing without the flat bar spacers and wound up with a closer fit, but I chose to do it this way. Either way will work fine. A lot of what you do and how you build a car depends on what your skill level is and the equipment that you have access to.”

T-Bucket Split Wishbones

The photo above will show you how the fabricated clevis is to be attached to the front end of the split wishbone and is attached to the tubular front axle.

That’s all for this short first installment on how to split wishbones. It’s truly fascinating to actually watch Bob build a  hot rod suspension like this and his StreetRod 101 DVD Library covers it all in great detail. Hopefully, you’ve been inspired by this series to start your own StreetRod 101 DVD collection and have already begun benefiting from Bob’s world of helpful advice. But, if you haven’t we highly recommend you check it out at our sister site, StreetRodPlans.com.

StreetRod 101 DVDs
Collect the complete StreetRod 101 DVD Library: available at our sister site, www.StreetRodPlans.com

There’s much more to come and you should check back often as we continue this cool 1927 T-Bucket roadster series.

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John Morehead
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2 thoughts on “1927 T Bucket Roadster Project: Part 12, Split Wishbones”

  1. Split wishbones don’t work! There’s a reason Henry made ’em the way he made ’em.
    Anyone with suspension knowledge knows why.

    Reply

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