How to Build Hot Rod Chassis (Motorbooks Workshop)

The book starts out with a short history of the So-Cal Speed Shop. Chapter one is called Know What You Want. This chapter is all about planning. Planning is the most important step you can take. You need to decide what you want the car for, the use you are going to put it to, and the Era it focuses on. The next stage is to make an artists drawing or sketch of the finished car. A file of cuttings from car magazines can help give an idea of the features you would like in your car. Once you have designed the car on paper, you can work out how much it will cost to build. If you underestimate the time to build or the cost, the chances are it will end up in the classifieds ads page as an unfinished project. Chapter one ends with the assembly of a typical SO-Cal chassis. Chapter two, the frame, is all about the 3 choices you have. One, use the frame from the donor car, scratch build your own frame, or buy a ready built frame. Squarness of frame is discussed, as are the modern methods of frame manufacture. it concludes with a bit about the mock-up, blocking the chassis up to the right height and temporarily bolting bits on to give the feel of the car and the use of a scrap engine and transmission to check clearances. Chapter two concludes with scratch building a frame and how So-Cal fabricate their frames. Chapter three discusses the front suspension in detail. all the different susupension types are discussed, as is the steering system. There are several pages devoted to installing the front suspension including shock absorbers and steering racks. Chapter four concerns the rear suspension. It shows rear axel options, leaf and coil springs and has a fair bit about independent rear suspension. Details of installing rear suspension and the rear axel are shown in various photographs. Chapter five is shocks and springs. What is a spring? Springs are looked at in detail from what they do to what to buy. Leaf springs and shock absorber mountings are discussed as is the problems found by using cheap shocks. Chapter six is all about the brakes. Disk and drum brakes are looked at in detail, the benefits of vented roters are discussed and the function of the front brake which controls 70% of the brkaing load is looked at. A seperate section covers 'How Your Brakes Actually Work'. It covers matching the actual brake cylinder and the callipers used. It also discusses the proportional pressure effect where the front brakes require a different operating pressure to rear brakes. There are three grades of brake fluid available and each type is pulled apart in detail. Brake callipers are looked at and suggestions made but basically, buy the best, most suitable brakes you can afford. Mounting the Master cylinder and brake pedal are shown in photos. Chapter 7 looks at the hardware, the nuts and bolts of the thing. Load, stress and strain are looked at, how bolts are made, thread specifications, the use or not of stainless steel bolts, what keeps a bolt tight and finally nuts. The chapter concludes with a look at the plumbing oil, fuel, and brake pipes. Chapter 8 the drive train. This is all about the engine, the transmission, the clutch pedal and mounting the rear end although previously covered in the rear suspension chapter. Standard manual and automatic transmissions are covered. Engines are covered, although not quite in the detail I would expect. I suspect there is another book in the series that covers engines in more detail. Chapter nine ends the book with a short introduction to wheels and trim. This is an intersting book especially the chapter on brakes and is recommended to any hot rodders out there. --Model Engineers' Workshop Magazine

The comprehensive book on building hot rod chassis. A hands-on how-to guide to building a hot rod chassis. It includes basic chassis design information, plus sections on modification, scratch-building, steering, straight axle and independent front ends, springs, rear suspension, rearends, brakes, wheels and tires. A large number of examples show application of this knowledge. More than a collection of articles on someones kit, a real guide to building it yourself. --Hot Rod Library

This book covers all the facets of chassis building for hot rods including the basic frame, suspension, steering, brakes and handling. Both beam axle and independent suspensions are described for front and rear and conversions to more efficient drum or disc brakes are covered. No matter what body style you have in mind for your hot rod, this book will tell you what you need to know about building and setting up the chassis to go under it. --Rod and Custom