Poor mans Hemi car. (M-body)

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ramenth said:
Yup, if you take a look at the pics of the K-frame the two "L" shaped things laying with it are the t-bars. Once upon a time someone hit upon this idea as a good front end for street rods, since the upper shock mounts bolt in, swing down and four bolts drop the entire front suspension set up. The t-bars, disk brakes, power steering, V8 engine mounts (or slant six, but if you're looking to build a hot rod you'd look for the V8) all self-contained on one unit. Heavier than say a Mustang II piece, but since Aspens, Volares, Diplomats, and J-body Cordobas and Miradas were dime a dozen the K-frames were fairly cheap. It's not hard to fit 'em up to older full frame rails, and with just a little plumbing on the brake lines, and a steering link to the column you have all the benefits of home. With just four bolts.

Back to dla: that's the nice thing about the M's, even in two door form. They're looked as granny cars, even the old cops, and make nice sleepers. Was a kid around here who modified a 5th Ave with a Dip header panel, put a nice 360 in it, duals, and liked to stalk the 5.0L Fox body Moosewangs and the Crapmaros. No one took him seriously until...:-D
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Tell me more about this torsion bar set up, first time I have seen or heard about it. Can you adjust the ride height? Sounds like you have more clearance on the side of the motor? What steering box can you mount to it? And anything else you can tell me about it. Thanks!!!
 
belmateo said:
Tell me more about this torsion bar set up, first time I have seen or heard about it. Can you adjust the ride height? Sounds like you have more clearance on the side of the motor? What steering box can you mount to it? And anything else you can tell me about it. Thanks!!!
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The bars are transverse. They sit crosswise in the car, contained within the K-frame, going from the control arm and bracketed to the K itself, instead of the length wise bars you might be used to with the A, B, E- set ups. Adjusting the ride height is just like adjusting any other torsion bar set up, except the right adjuster does the left side and vice versa.

As far as steering boxes, there were a few, including the "holy grail" of M-body, which were the quick ratio "cop boxes." Firm Feel now has better boxes on the market. If you do an internet search, there's a few companies out there in the hot rod market who are doing rack conversions, since this suspension set up found it's way under a lot of hot rods.

As far as clearance, TTI A-body headers will fit the M,F,J, and a lot of guys are using the aftermarket bolt on A-body exhaust systems under the Ms with a little tweaking to the car. The one nice thing is that there are no torsion bars in the way going back. The down side is: the set up is heavy. As you can see from dla's pics, the 1G Hemi is fitting. It's tight, but it fits.

One of the big draw backs to using this system was the rubber donuts which isolated the K-frame from the front frame rails. Back in the day, the cops got iron donuts, which stiffened things up a bit. Firm Feel now has these out in aluminum.

Now if someone would develop tube control arms (I've yet to see 'em) it would be sweet.

Anything else you want to know feel free to ask.
 
Thanks for the info! Has anyone tried to lighten up the K member to get the weight down or is that not a good idea?
 
belmateo said:
Thanks for the info! Has anyone tried to lighten up the K member to get the weight down or is that not a good idea?
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The size of the K is about twice the size that you're probably used to. Not really a good idea to try to lighten it up, in my opinion. I'm sure there have been those who tried, but I haven't heard of any success versus strength loss for street use, anyway. Plus with the torsion bars directly bolting to it makes it that much heavier. One of the reasons Ross (res1vw21) is saving for an AlterK for his F-body. (And I'm saving for one for my M-body.)
 
Haven't been real productive lately but I did get the trunk painted (yea its dirty already). Just gave it a real good cleaning and brushed on a coat of POR-15 since it will be all covered with carpeting.Also got a little bit more body work done and of course some more sanding. Was going to take some more pictures today but it has been raining all day so I will get some more pics of body some other day.

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Picked up fenders from media blaster last night and I am very pleased.Everything looks good except for a small section of the lip on the drivers side fender.Should be an easy fix.Saved me a lot of sanding and stripping, would like to get the hood and doors done but can't afford it right now.I wish I would have taken a camera to the media blasters. They also restore cars there and had ALOT of really nice old cars there. Would love to just drop off a car there some day write a big check and say call me when its done! (I don't see that happening any time soon).

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OK time to get back at it. I haven't been out to the garage for a while and when I went out today I had hoped that my car had been overhauled.Nope, still like I left it, looks like I will not be sending Chip Foose a Christmas card this year. Started on the door today and guess what I found, yep, more rust holes to fix. Not to bad though, shouldn't be to hard to repair.It seems like it will never end. It will be a great day when the paint is done.

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Its too freakin hot outside!!! I get half way to the garage and start sweating so I turn around and go back in the house. I have patched the holes in the door and started to put the interior back in.Hoping to get some paint on in the next few weeks, will post some updated pictures soon. thanx for the kind words. There seem to be a lot of old Mopars in Sweden, would like to go check them out some day.
 
dla4567 said:
Its too freakin hot outside!!! I get half way to the garage and start sweating so I turn around and go back in the house. I have patched the holes in the door and started to put the interior back in.Hoping to get some paint on in the next few weeks, will post some updated pictures soon. thanx for the kind words. There seem to be a lot of old Mopars in Sweden, would like to go check them out some day.
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Looking forward to seeing it go into paint.
 
Well its been a long day. Finished stripping out the gunk that seals the windshield (been putting that off), Patched the last of the small holes and sanded down the body, fenders and one door. After all that the second door seemed too heavy. Sprayed the etching primer, 2 coats of filler primer, and a guide coat. Doesn't seem like a lot for 12 hours of work. After all that I have a full day of sanding tomorrow. If anybody wants to stop by I have plenty of sandpaper and cold beer. Did I mention the cold beer? I can't wait till the paint is done.

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If you were closer and I was up to it, I'd be right there to help.

And wouldn't even charge you the beer.
 
This is one of the coolest things I have ever seen!

I'm an M-body fanatic! I'd probably even swap my '74 rr project for a decent 2dr. m-body!

I been looking but never could find one locally or within reasonable distance.

I love Fifth Avenues to!! I have an '80 4dr.Diplomat with a slant 6, also I have a 4dr.'78 if you should happen to need anything for cheap. I'm still after a 2dr. though :cheers:
 
Well nobody showed up so I had to drink all the beer myself. It was 90 again today so I didn't get a lot done, sanded one door, one fender, and one quarter panel.Looks like I'll be sanding for awhile. Will put up some pics if I ever make some progress.
Ramenth - wish you were closer, I would like to have someone around how knows what there doing since I don't. This is a learning experience for me, everything seems to be going well but I will not know until done how its going to turn out. Right now I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Hope you get to feeling better and your surgery goes well.Keep us posted and good luck.
 
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