grea235

Thank you!

Decided to make my own fender skirts for my work-in-progress 1952 Plymouth Concord. The price of 350ish for a reproduction set is too much and, from my experience with VW repop parts, they probably wouldn't fit. I tried fabric from a dress and drove around with it. I liked the pattern but it flapped around too much. Boy, was my granddaugher mad when she found out I used her dress!! Just kidding. The real skirts are made from fiberglass from a wood \foam mold. I flatted out the fender lip in two spots at the top and on the sides and drilled them with 1/4". I molded in locator pins for the top two holes and holes for the sides. So it pins into the top holes, then bolts in at the bottom. I embedded two flat bars horizontally to give the skirts some strength and a round rod at the bottom to keep the curve and provide a rolled lip. They had to curve sharp in the front bottom corners to get around the tire and arc around the hubcap. I think it looks gangster. I used the same fender beading as the fenders to give it some consistency, so I had to keep a consistent, more like tried to keep a consistent gap\reveal all the way around. The passenger side has a little deformity in the gap, but I'll get that straightened out. If they were perfect, they would outshine the rest of the car. Pictures.lnk

Could you split the difference and put in 2 inch lowering blocks in the back and stiffer springs up front to get it higher? I have a 52 Concord and I recently tried some moog cc850 springs. About $60 on ebay. They were shorter than the originals, but after putting them in, it sat about 2 inches higher because they were stiffer. For reference, the moogs were about 12" high. Increasing the height in the front may make it 'boat' in front. I resolved my boating by putting in 'F1 Shock mounts'. I got them from Speedway Motors - 1948-52 Ford F1 Forged Upper Shock Mounts, 6-1/2 Inch. They were 84.99 plus shipping/tax etc. You drill holes in the frame and bolt them on. They replace the upper shock mount. The bottom stays the same. It really stabilized it out. You will of course need different shocks for it. There's some posts on the forum, if you search for 'upper shock mount relocation'. If your back leaf springs are really weak, you would have to watch for bottoming out on speed bumps and such. Mine wallowed quite a bit, so I put in new leaf springs and then 2" lowering blocks for 1 3/4" leaf springs.

Thank you for that Mr. Buchanan. It is working ok at the moment, but I am pulling the motor in a month or so to do some work on the motor and I will be changing the front motor mount. A new front mount may affect the reverse, so at that time I will more than likely need to adjust the rod. I really appreciate the diagram!

I have been experiencing the same issue with mounts on my 52 Concord. I was changing them because it wouldn't go into reverse on a decline. Got uppers and lowers from Bernbaum. My car had no lowers...don't know if they were removed or not. Put them in and got a lot of vibration, but got reverse back. I had to slacken the bolts to where they were just barely tight to get the vibration to go away. I wasn't comfortable with the barely tight bolts and figuring that the rubber was too hard, I ordered the A2014 Marmon mounts from Rock Auto. I received them yesterday and what I got was extremely hard plastic. I don't think they are rubber at all and really hard, I mean probably a 7 on the Moh's scale of hardness. They are so hard that they are chipped at the top. The ones I got from Bernbaum were way softer than these. I ended up removing the lowers and keeping the Bernbaum top mounts and don't have any vibration and I have my reverse.

I used a 6 1/2 inch one from speedway motors and gabriel 81676 shocks. Thanks for the info on the springs, at least I won't be too high.

I've driven the car around town and on the freeway after the shock mounts and shocks were installed for a month or so and it really stopped the boating of the front end around the corners and is a lot more stable. It had a sway bar, so I couldn't tell you if a sway bar helped or no. I had previously put on new rear leaf springs because they were flat, new shocks and 2 inch lowering blocks because the back sat a little too high. If the springs relax some, I will take them out. I am very happy with this part of the suspension changes. I do have a little problem with speed bumps and vibration but I doubt it's anything to do with the shocks or mounts. If I slow roll over a speed bump, it is just fine. If I hit them a little harder, the front end bangs a little. It has what looks like the original springs and with the amount of crud on the suspension parts, it looks like they haven't ever been changed....ever. The right side is a lot worse than the left. The crud will come off soon...it will probably decrease the weight of the car by 100 lbs. I have a set of moog cc850 springs coming in. I'll put those on and see what happens. If it sits too high, I'll either cut the springs or swap the lower spring mount, then move on to replacing the suspension bushings. The vibration could be motor mounts, which is a little bit of a story. It started because it would not go into reverse after I would crest the peak of my driveway and go down hill into the garage. It would go into first just fine, but once it was nose downhill, it wouldn't go into reverse. No amount of nudging, clutching, pleading or praying would help. I would have to open my garage door, and get it into the garage to get it level, then it went in to reverse just fine. Thanks to your forum, I attributed it to the rear motor mounts and got a set. I didn't realize that the top ones had sleeves that went in from the top, so I couldn't change the top ones. (I will pull the motor this winter for this, a re-ring and clean up). I noticed though that there were no lowers motor mounts installed. So I put in the lowers and it significantly helped it to go into reverse. Here's a couple pics. It is a work in progress with the intent of a somewhat daily driver and keeping most of it stock. I have a list of things to do on it and am trying to keep things with in scope. It has been converted to 12v, but I've had to do some electrical work to straighten it out. Since the picture, I put on a better hood ornament, front emblem, tail lights and door handles. I put in three point seatbelts from Juliano's which went in pretty smoothly. I had to do minimal fabrication for the B pillar mount. I got it with a split exhaust manifold and dual exhaust. It sounds pretty good. The sisson choke was shot so it had a manual choke setup, but it wasn't well designed. I got an older carb with a manual choke top and it works a lot better. It will slowly turn black as I fix body parts and rust and then it will turn another colour. It's great to run around town in it. I get a lot of compliments\comments on it, even though it is pretty rough.

I recently put in F1 shock mounts on my 1952 Plymouth Concord. I'm not that good of welder so I wanted an approach that was minimal fabrication/welding. I ordered a set from Speedway Motors - 1948-52 Ford F1 Forged Upper Shock Mounts, 6-1/2 Inch. They were 84.99 plus shipping/tax etc. I didn't have an extra shocks to help locate where the mounts would go, so I make a shock simulator by cutting 2 short steel tubes the same size as the eye in the shock, then slid them on to the upper and lower mount studs. Then I welded a rod between them to simulate a shock. I put in a sleeve on the rod so that I could adjust it up and down to get the top located in a position so it wouldn't hit the control arm or be too high or too low. I mounted the fixture to the lower mount and bolted in the F1 mount at the top. I tighted the bolts and got it into a good position. The mount itself ended up hanging about 1 inch from the frame, so I used that measurement as the spacer, but subtracted for an 1/8" backing plate I was putting between the mount and the outside of the frame, so the spacers ended up at 7/8". I cut the spacers out of steel spacers I got at the local Ace Hardware that were pretty thick wall. After marking and drilled the holes in the frame, I make some backing plates out of 1/8" by 1" steel. I drilled one set with holes and welded on nuts to go inside the frame and one set to go outside the frame with the intent of sandwiching the frame between the plates. It was a bit tricky to get the backing plate up through the triangle slot in the bottom of the frame up into position on the frame. I fed a string through the mount\washer\spacers, then through the top frame hole, down through the slot in the frame, then into one of the nuts on the backing plate and tied on a nut, then pulled. It pulled the plate into position and I could get the bottom bolt in. I tightened it and then spin the top of the plate into position...if that makes any sense. I made a wag at the shock length and got Gabriel 82607's, but unfortunately they bottomed out. So I make a swag and got some Gabriel 81676 shocks. They are working fine and I was able to use the 82607's in the back. The whole thing went pretty easy, but I had some issues, like my shock simulator was off a little, so the top shock mount stud wasn't parallel to the bottom, so I had to redo the bottom hole. I was thru bolting the shock mount, thru one plate, then the frame then into the backing plate. I was off a little and had to adjust the holes a little with a file. It has a sway bar, I think it's a stock one, so with the shock relocation and the sway bar, it really stopped the boating of the front end. I hope this helps. FYI - The string is temporarily there because I have some clean up to do and if I take off the shock mount, I don't want the inside plate to fall down in the frame and be unretrieveable.