old NASCAR Chargers: front susp parts?

[Mike DC]

What raw material stuff did the racers use to fabricate the front spindles/hubs/etc on the Grand National cars?  Were they off some existing truck line, or something?  Trailer parts? 

What about the brakes themselves?  I know they weren't stock B-body gear but what were they? 


I'm assuming the rear hubs on the Mopar 8.75" housings were made out of Ford "floater" rearends.  Is that right?

[odcics2]

Front spindles and hubs were special made parts. I have seen iterations, so most likely not anything off the shelve.
Brakes also, but used 5" b.c. drums.  Rear sometimes was Imperial. Backing 'plates' all home made. Linings special segmented.
Nichels built the rear axle assys, adding the special floater parts to a cut down housing.

[Aero426]

I have "heard" that Halibrand was involved with the spindles.   I don't know if it is true,or at what point in the 1963-71 Nichels timeline.   Either way, they were special items done internally by Chrysler or outside at a job shop to the Chrysler design.

The floater assemblies do not interchange with Holman Moody parts.   The external parts do not even look alike. 

Lower control arms are reworked big car items.   I don't think any other part in the front end is production based. 

[Mike DC]

   
Why did they need such big parts on the spindles?  Was it because the speed & G-forces were cooking the OEM wheel bearings?  I can't imagine the snouts themselves breaking off.  Those things were forged from the factory. 

I would think step#1 in development would be to just use C-body front end parts.  Guess that stuff still wasn't big enough. 

[odcics2]

   
Why did they need such big parts on the spindles?  Was it because the speed & G-forces were cooking the OEM wheel bearings?  I can't imagine the snouts themselves breaking off.  Those things were forged from the factory. 

I would think step#1 in development would be to just use C-body front end parts.  Guess that stuff still wasn't big enough. 

C body stuff is crap.   You answered your own question.   Even truck stuff wasn't good enough.   

[Aero426]

 
I would think step#1 in development would be to just use C-body front end parts.  Guess that stuff still wasn't big enough.  

The first step in development (1963) was to adapt Nichels Pontiac front end parts to work on a Mopar.    

[surmanajaja]

I read somewhere, maybe 30 years ago, that all nascar cars had a suspension based on 1965 ford galaxies design. dont know if that referred to geometry or front frame-

[odcics2]

I read somewhere, maybe 30 years ago, that all nascar cars had a suspension based on 1965 ford galaxies design. dont know if that referred to geometry or front frame-

I'd question that, since the old MoPars were frame-less unibodies and the suspension used torsion bars, based on production style suspensions.     

If you're talking the GM/FoMoCo cars, I know the old Galaxie stub frame did carry over many years. At some point, though, there was rear steer vs front steer
and different drivers preferred  each style.   The rear leafs disappeared  and the cars became 4 coils.   

[Mike DC]

               
Everything Ford ran had fullsize Galaxie-based stuff by the mid-60s.  They downsized to the unibody Torino in about '66.  Holman & Moody kept the front clip from the earlier fullsize cars and mated it onto the unibodies. 

By the later 70s or early 80s all the GM stuff was built that way too.  The rearend (GM and Ford) has been 1960s GM truck arms on everything for decades too.  In the later 80s/early 1990s everybody switched to front-steer stuff because it eliminated the center steering link running through the oil pan (HP loss).  I think the basis for the front ends since then has been 1970s Camaros. 


Mopars never ran Galaxie or Camaro stuff until modern times.  They stayed with torsion bars & leaf springs until Mopars disappeared from the oval tracks in the 1980s.