NOW we’re getting into the good stuff! I’d like to introduce you all to one of my pride and joys: The Shoebox.
Few quick facts:
– Year: 1949
– Motor: 8BA Flathead v8
– Trans: Original 3 speed manual
– Trim/body: Custom sedan
– Suspension: Fully airbagged
The Backstory
I bought this car, in stock form, in 2018. My good friend and hotrod mentor found it in CT, when we were still living in NH. I had been looking for one for a while, but was hellbent on finding one with the original 8ba flatty. This one popped up late in the evening, mid week… and the next day i had to give a presentation at work. My buddy convinced me to call out of work and we ran down the next day – with no trailer, no temp plate, no plan… but a pocket full of cash.
After some panic at handing over the money, i bought it and quickly found out there were no uhauls trailers anywhere near by… and the dmv was closed. After some creativity on the plate, we decided to Roadkill it… all 181 miles home.
After a minor electrical fire in the dash (which shut down power when i was in the 4rd lane of a 6 lane highway split… is rush hour traffic), she preformed awesome and got us all the way home. The only major issue was a flat tire on our chase truck… which came from a bolt that dropped out of the hood ornament on the shoebox!
When ‘Low’ is not Low Enough
I drove the box for a few years as is, slowly working out minor bugs (swapping our points for Pertronix, rebuilding the carb, rebuilding the carb again, rebuilding the carb a 3rd time, buying a reman carb, etc. The box came with 4in blocks in the rear and front coils that had been heated to hell and back… so needless to say, it road like absolute shit. From day #1, the plan was to bag it.. but i was planning on going at it slow. Maybe some air-over-leave at first, etc. However, after i found my rear axle diff was sloppier than a pig in shit and NEEDED replaced… i figured i may as well go all in.
So with help from my good friend, we located an old for Maverick rear (favorite for shoebox guys, as its a direct bolt in swap) with 2.70 gearing, aka hillbilly overdrive, and got to work.
I’ll likely do a whole writeup here on the suspension/bags, so i won’t go into crazy detail here. High level, i went with a 2 link + parnhard bar style rear. The links are ~5ft long and go from axle spring perch back to a x-member i added behind the trans. The setup works amazingly well for how simplistic it is.
The front is… well… people are gona shake their heads here… i just swapped bags in place of the springs, keeping the stock kneecap suspension. Someday i’ll clip this car… but that takes a lot of money.
All and all, it works great, with only some minor issues… which i’ll document when i fix.
Whats next for the Shoebox?
Well… a lot.. but for now, brakes. The next few posts are going to be about upgrading the leaky single pot master to a new, flashy Shoebox Central duel pot kit. I’ll post all the steps, with as many pictures as i can. Their directions are good, but never hurts to post up some with a few more images.
For anyone interested in a dump of all the pics of the air bagging process, here ya go!