Look what followed me home -- 61 American convert!

Time/money progress so far:

13 March – 2.0 hrs – Designed front disc brake brackets (11” Honda Accord rotors and calipers)

26 March – 2.0 hrs – Worked on front disc brake brackets and “Shelby Drop” upper control arm brackets

31 March – 2.5 hrs -- $66.19 – Tweaked “Shelby Drop” brackets. Made adjustments to front disc brake bracket drawings. Ordered rear disc brackets in 3/8” steel, ordered “Shelby Drop” bracket sets for both sides.

66 hours $4548.67 (as of 31 March 2024)

I'm using 1999-2010 Honda Accord rotors and calipers. The rotors are 11.10" in diameter. There is also a 10.25" rotor, which would be better for the little American -- the 11" just does fit with the suspension. I might have to grind the front arm a little on the lower outer end, but not enough to worry about -- maybe 1/8" off the corner. The 260mm rotors (10.25"... actually 10.2362") are for manual trans cars, the 282mm (11.1024") are for automatic trans Accords with V6. Four cylinder models use a four lug rotor. I decided to try the Honda front brakes when researching a good caliper for rear disc brakes with the correct bolt pattern. The outer edge of the drum hubs need to be turned down slightly to fit the Honda rotors, but only a little.

Tweaked the drawing and made another plywood mock-up. Fits perfectly! Will be sending the drawing to Send-Cut-Send to have some 3/8" steel plates made.

Average weight of a 1999-2010 Honda Accord V6 equipped sedan is 4,000 pounds. Curb weight (no driver or passenger) of the 61 convertible with auto trans is 3,000 pounds (2866 with manual trans). So yeah, the brakes are going to be overkill! The 10.25" rotors would be way more than needed, really. 79-83 AMC rotors are 10.82", so the 11.10" aren't much bigger.

About the air springs.... how does your car ride with 35 psi in the front? Is it stiff? I know you rally the car. Is that the pressure you race at or the average pressure you try to keep? I don't mind if the ride ends up a bit firm, but I don't want it to be hard. I may have to re-think the air springs...

Got another Send-Cu-Send package!! Shelby drop brackets (for 58-63 American) are on left and right, and the four spacers go behind them. There are two 1/4" thick and two 3/8" thick brackets, spacers are 1/4". The original spacer for the upper control arm bar is 9/16" thick. A 3/8" and 1/4" bracket will be stacked and spot welded together. The upper hole is drilled to bolt onto the car where the original bolted in (upper is the larger hole). I'll need shorter bolts. The lower holes are 1" lower (center to center of holes). They will be tapped for a 1/2"-20 (fine thread) screw to hold the bar to the car. There is 5/8" of material to tap. which is more than enough. A 1/4" spacer goes between bracket and body where the original spacer was. There is a recess in the body for the spacer. A short spacer makes it easier to install the bracket flat like the original bar was. I might tack the spacer in place also. I'll run a bolt through the holes and tighten to make sure everything is properly aligned before welding. 

For those who don't know, the "Shelby drop" was discovered by none other than Carroll Shelby of Ford Cobra and Mustang fame. He discovered that dropping the inner pivot of the early Mustangs greatly increased handling by raising the roll center. This places the upper arms at a slight incline rather than parallel with the lower arm(s). This moves the roll center lower and greatly improves handling. See https://www.ramblerlore.com/AMC/Suspension-1950-1963-small-highperf/index.html#GEOM for a detailed write-up by Tom Jennings of the affects on the 58-63 American chassis (and 50-55 Nash Rambler) -- scroll down to "Shelby drop".