i'm 30, first car was 68 mgb and it was all easy from that point on, owned too many to list drive an 08 trd tacoma now or one of my 7 beater shop trucks, usually the 93 beater deisel dully(got a thing for beater trucks) some of the most recently i have built have been
-38 packard v12 convertable coupe(current project)
-58 cadillac eldorado bairitz (current project)
-67 mustang fastback
-61 cadillac convertable
-55 chevy belair convertable
-67 rs/ss camaro
-69 olds cutlass
-57 chev belair
-58 impala
-69 ford torino fastback
-55 mercury sunvally(currently has 7 aaca first place trophys scored 397/400 first show.not bragging just proud.
-69 couger convertable
-31 chrysler coupe
-68 mercury montego mx
-66 buick electra conv

the backing plates are formed which gives them alot of strength and they don't really have any load, i've had 1/4 and 3/8 deflect (twist from hard braking and rub full time) i'd either go thick material and machine it or go 1/4 but box the design so all your edges are flanged and boxed, wouldnt hurt to toss in a rib or two if you have a friend with a decent sized press(100 ton or so)

i have been very pleased with everything i have had from abs, they do some amazing things for such a small shop

well if you still have conections in the industry i'd sugest getting you th get someone to whip out rough dies from 3 inch plate on a decent waterjet cutter(any good ship yard should have one) ant it should make short work of making the buck. as far as dimentions it looks to me like the end radius is about an 1/8th inch larger than the center line to edge measurment of the fork and pivots from about an 1/8th lower than the centerline of the hole. the fork radius from what i can see is equal to half the width of the shock arm with rubbers, all the pics look like it flows in and out of the radius smoothly. most chalenging part looks like it would be shaping the two dies for the dip at the bottom. but a fun and challanging afternoon project none the less

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looks to me if you measure the width of your shock end with the rubbers in you should be able to print that picture and figure out the scale of it and use one of those triangle scale rulers to determine the right dimentions of the rest of the part., now as far as making a set you might be able to cheat a bit and make it easy by taking the shafts from a set of old worn out tube shocks which will have the washers rubbers and nuts and will no doubt be strong enough for the rod end. then one could hand form the fork end and tig them together. or if your short on hammer forming experience it wouldnt be that hard to build a u-shape female die from some heavy bar and a corrasponding male die and press them out of flat bar or thin plate in an average shop press.looks like a bit of a cup shape on the bottom so you would probably want to make the end of the male die on a lathe and free-style the corrasponding bowl in the female die with a die grinder.

good job

I spoke with bob about a week before he went to hospital for near an hour discussing packards, mostly I just listened. I feel honored to have been able to learn everything i did in that short hour.

well i have located a spare 38 v12 rear axle complete drum to drum so i am heading over to the mainland next week to go get it, hopefully the thrust washers are in good shape. if not i was getting pretty close in that the side gear thrust washers can be made by any compitent machine shop and the pinion thrust washers that go under the spider gears are almost spot on to ford nine inch pinion thrust washers.

if you are refering to the electric/hydrolic units from abs power brakes, they work slick, i have used them recently on a mustang i built and another on a 37 teraplane. they are quite compact and i belive it would be easy to alter the linkage and make it work. the mustang is running a 3:1 pedal ratio and it is hooked to 13" 6 piston willwoods in the frond and 4 piston in the back. does the one you were looking in to look like this? this is a 10 inch frame mount unit but i used it on the firewall because of space constraints with the engine. the pollished canister on the passanger side is the resavoir which must be mounted above the master naturally, and the pump acumulator assembly we mounted behind the spash sheld between the fender and cowl. it is aproximatly the size of a larger rattle box. there should be a pic of it and more brake pics in the mustang build thread, i gotta head off right now but here's a link for the mustang build , pretty sure it's about 2 thirds in.

http://www.blackflag4x4.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13759&page=11

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i made a set for the 38, do you have pics of what they are sposed to look like?