No Drill Modern Gas Shock Installation on a 1931 Ford

No Drill Modern Gas Shock
Installation on a 1931 Ford
Model A Coupe
Today we are not going to cover something new but just a
little insider info in to what we do during our time off at
Apex Tool Company. I purchased a new to me 1931 Model A Coupe
just after the first of the year and on it’s maiden voyage
home, I hit a dip in the road. You know the kind – one of
those ‘they can replace the pipe across the road but never
seem to fix the road again’. Well, the car jumped sideways
about 2-3 feet so I knew even before getting it home that my
internet purchase needed some work on the Houdaille shock.
Much to my surprise it did not have any shocks mounted on it,
so this was a perfect excuse to upgrade to modern gas shocks.
My deepest apologies to the purest, but this car is going to
be a driver.
First, I ordered a shock kit off of the internet. I liked
this kit a little better as it came from a small machine shop
and the kit is a ‘no drill’ and uses gas shocks.
The first step is locating the 2 holes in the frame where the
original shocks should have been mounted. If you have old
rusted out Houdaille Friction shocks, they will need to be
removed.
You will have to forgive my poor photography skills but this
is the top bracket installed. I did add loctite medium
strength to the bolts. The instructions did not call for it,
but let’s err on the side of caution.
Now that the top bracket is installed it is time to install
the lower bracket. It is held on by just a couple of U Bolts.
Really this is a clever way to not mess up the front axle.
Grind off the excess U Bolt. Just a note – Â these really need
to be as flush as you can get them. I left about 1/16”
thread showing on my first one and had to remove the shock and
grind totally smooth because the shock bound against it.
Just a fast shot of paint on the U Bolt and mount the shock. I
found it was necessary to slightly jack up the body a few
inches to allow the shock to slip in the holes. Once again
this is very tight clearances on this very small shock. Now as
they say:  “Wash, Rinse, Repeat”– Do the passenger’s side
and then we move to the rear.
To install the lower shock mount, you must remove two of the
brake mounting studs. For those of you not familiar with Model
a brakes, the inner band is your actual brake and the outer
band is the emergency brake. Being that they are purely manual
brakes and not very great, I have thought about a adding a
parachute or an anchor to throw out the window. This reminded
me of the old saying: “Henry Ford’s Model A will run all day
but not stop for nothing.” Never knew what that meant until I
got the brakes hot on one of these. Perfectly clean now.
The lower rear mounting bracket is installed. Make sure you
tighten this well. On the ’31 the bolts were a little
oversized for the holes. They fit my ’29 perfectly. They did
manage to pull tight and seem to work ok.
The upper bracket goes in the bumper mount holes. Forget it if
you have a pair of meat hooks. This side of the car had a
little tweaking in it and I think I spent more time getting
these two bolts replaced than the rest of the job. Absolutely
no access would be a polite way to describe this procedure.
The bore scope came in very handy.
Once again repeat on the passenger’s side and we are done.
It is a night and day difference on how the car rides and
drives. My 1929 Ford Model A Pickup had half working friction
shocks and what a difference it made on it. This coupe went
from almost unsafe to drive to as much as a pleasure driving a
car with manual steering and brakes can be.
All in all this was a fun project. It was accomplished with a
hand full of Genius hand tools, cut off grinder, bore scope
and tapered punch. If you are wondering what all the white
specks are in about every photo, come out and drive up and
down my ½ mile gravel driveway and the underside of your car
will look the same.
Fred Neff