Sure. I bought, I installed...
Actually, I had originally planned on old fashoined Ladder Bars. But after gettin them and laying under the car, I decided it would take cutting into the floor for clearance...and didn't want to do that on this car.
So...what else is out there..? After laying there for a few minutes, I thought about a truck my brother had and its arm configuration...hey, just like the NASCAR guys I thought...!
I bought a used pair from a wreaking yard, bought a new pair of "spring" (arm locator) pads for welding onto the axle housing and begun that task of laying it all out.
I played with the positioning of the arm locators vs. the frame and clearance's for everything. I wanted the arms mounted as far apart as possible for good support. My plan was to use coil-over spring/shocks, because with the short frame height of the Studes, full size coil springs were basically out of the question.
After tacking the pads in place, I set the angle af the arms basically per the way the pads were designed, angle wise on the housing (the same angle on both sides). Found the center of the Stude chassis and measured the distance between the arms.
Then with a hand full of 2" x 4" x .125"w tubing, I cut and welded up a crossmember. It's got a drop for drive shaft clearance and two mounting pads for the arms. I measured the frame width and cut the width of the new crossmember.
After welding the crossmember in place, I welded in two angular supports because in either case of accelerating and stopping, ALL of this load goes into the crossmember and out to the frame. I didn't want any bending moments right on the new welds. And being that the Stude frame is so wimpy both in thickness and in cross section...I felt it really did need the extra support.
Locating height for the crossmember...I just set the bars level to the ground and made a mounting hole in the brackets. Then I drilled a hole higher in the bracket for a "little" adjustability. The pinion angle is set to 2 degrees down in front. But that's adjustable at the arm to pad interface with angled shims that are easilly found.
I did have to play with the springs a bit. All of the spring weight charts are setup for the shock being mounted straight up and down. I used the stock shock mounting point on top and right beside the arm mount on the axle. I had to put a stronger spring (that my original spring purchase) in to compensate for the shock/spring angle.
I also welded in a support of sorts (upper closeout) onto the stock crossmember to frame rail for more support and stiffness. I also did some welding of the crossmember to the frame rather than using just the stock rivits to hold it all together.
I bought a nice big "wishbone" assembly to locate the axle. While a Panhard bar would have been much easier to assemble, the bigh wheels and tires FILL the stock fender wells, and there's not much room for any side to side movement that happens with even a long Panhard bar.
While this sounds like a lot of work, it was pretty straight foward and fairly easy to do.
Here's some pictures of it all.
http://public.fotki.com/-Mike-/my_studebakers/Any other questions, let me know.
Mike
P.s. - Oh yea...forgot about the big notch in the gas tank. Luckilly a friend is really good with welding thin materials...!