wishbone

Pa Joe

Pa Joe

Senior Member
Being fairly new to Model As I thought I would ask about this. In order to get to the bottom clutch cover bolts I dropped the ball end of the front wishbone (radiur rods) and I found cup shaped pieces of rubber I guess to pad the ball in the socket. I looked in my Les Andrews book and Snyders catalog and I'm not seeing anything to resemble the rubber parts. I'm thinking one of the previous owners put them in there. I'm sure one of you guys can shed some light on this.
 
There are no rubber parts in the wishbone ball connection. Check Les Andrew's book or the Judging & Restoration standards. Correct parts are available Bratton's, Snyder's and most other Model A parts supplyers. If the wishbone ball is not round, weld the low spots and file it back to as round as possible.
 
You might find most any sort of material clamped around the radius ball to shim it up. Most common is a large fender washer that has been deformed to comform to the ball.

The original installation is two heavy stamped plates with springs and spacers tht hold the ball in place.

There is an aftermarket assembly that is entirely different which has castings and a rubber ball that goes on the radius ball and goes into the aftermarket assembly. If your parts are cast, this is what you have.

Richard
Anaheim CA
 
In the Winter 2005 issue of the Model A Times we did an article on the front end geometry of the Model A. We showed the reasons not to use the cast radius rod socket and rubber ball.
 
Thats the first time I took one apart. The rubber ball seemed like a good idea to take up the slack of a worn steel ball end
 
I had front end shmmy problems and attributed it to the radius ball being out of round and rubber jacket that was on it. I built up ball with weld and rounded it to get to the 1 1/2" dia. ( If I remember right). No shimmy now.
 
i use the cupped spacer to keep my ball tight . no rubber ................ steve
 
I would imagine the rubber ball setup would mimic a loose front end which I seem to have on my 29. Any other symptoms that would isolate the problems to the radius ball rather then the front end?
 
I got the engine out of the car getting rebuilt right now but when I did drive it, I didn't notice any shimmy problems. But, then again my A wouldn't go over 40-45 mph. I was just curious about the rubber spacer, wheather to put it back in or not.
 
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