To get a low sports-car look, we took 10 inches out of the then-standard car height." The four-seat 'Bird was a huge commercial hit, too, far more successful than the two-seater ever was.įor model year 1960, Ford Styling had proposed a number of revisions to the now-two-year-old Squarebird design. The Squarebird sat 52.5 inches off the ground. When we were working on it, the standard automobile sat maybe 61 inches off the ground - shoulder height. "Take that car and stick it in front of your house today. Though all of these were considered, all were rejected.Ĭhief Thunderbird body engineer Bob Hennessy claims the "Squarebird" was revolutionary. Furthermore, it earned this honor without relying upon the technological dead-ends of the era: air suspension, fuel injection, supercharging, and retractable hardtops. I have the width of the axle housing at the mounting flange for the backing plate (50"), and assuming 2-1/2"-wide drums that should make the overall axle width somewhere around 55" from face of drum to face of drum.In fact, it may well be one of the outstanding American automotive achievements of the decade. One key dimension I don't know is the width of the axle across the face of the brake drums. Feed me the dimensions and I can start to draw up what you should expect for clearances. Then, drop the bob one more time on the inside of the wheel tub on each side, just in front or to the rear of the axle tube, make another pair of marks and measure the distance from the outside wheel opening lip mark to the mark for the inside face of the wheelhouse tub. This will also help in establishing if the axle is centered to the car. Measure the distance between the first and second marks to establish clearance between the brake drum face and the wheel opening lip, and write down the measurement on both sides. Make another set of marks (one each side) on the floor. Next, drop the bob at the wheel opening's inner lip at the axle's center line. Can you do me a favor? Put the car on jackstands, and with the wheels off, take a plumb bob and drop it off of the face of the brake drum on both sides, and make a couple pencil marks on the floor (one on each side) to establish axle width at the mounting face for the wheel. I'm trying to get dimensions for wheel clearances for a chart I'm working on to put in VTCI's Thunderbird Scoop as well as answer questions like this when someone asks in the VTCI Forum, but I don't have a '58-'60 close by to measure. The stock 800x14 tire had an overall height of between 27.02"-27.58" and section width of 7.65" (just over 7-5/8") - subtract the 14" rim diameter at the mounting bead and dividing by 2 leaves a tire height of 6.51"-6.79" a 215-75R14 tire typically has an overall diameter of 26.69" (shorter than the stock 8.00x14) and section width of 8.1". With the stock wheel being 5-7/8" wide at the outside of the flanges, that would leave a distance of 4-5/16" from the mounting face of the wheel hub to the outside face of the stock wheel. I figured a 5/8" offset from the center line of the stock wheel to the mounting face of the wheel center and a 3-9/16" backset from the inside face of rim to the mounting face at the hub. To establish a baseline/starting point, I have attached a drawing showing the stock wheel dimensions for the '58-'60 T-bird wheel, but don't know if you can open or download it from here. I apologize - I didn't get a chance to respond to the message you sent me back in May when you started asking about backset.
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