I think I am going to do a combination of clipping the corners and also adding "webs." That should lengthen the joint visibly, and make it look less abrupt. I just wanted to hear that people did this before and it worked. I will clean it up and post another pic as soon as I can. CHAZ
I thought this was a "old" school website!! This is as "traditional" as you can get! How do you think it was done 50-60 yrs ago? Good work, first "true" old school post on here in awhile.looks great, just gusset it. I would rather read one post like this then 10 on "how to hook up A/C in my model A with a S-10 frame"!! JimV
If the welds are respectable, the modified section of the frame will never be a problem as far as integrity goes. My opinion is that the modified section of the frame is far stronger than stock period. I am not an engineer or anything but I have an eye for what is strong and sound... I can "see" the structure of this modification, I see it being in the neighborhood of twice the strength as stock... to me this observation is just common sense. For my statement to ring true, the welds will need to be good, and fish plates in place on the "open" edges to stay any possible future stress cracks. If so, that section will never break or fatigue. Yea, I would have probably rounded or angled the edges and corners,,, but this ain't going to make any difference in the functionality of what you have. As far as what I can "see", I CAN see a cool looking flowing seamless section in place of those square edges, that would have only been a little more work... but so what? If you are happy with the looks that is cool. I am not saying your mod looks bad, not at all, it could have looked better, but this rings true with a lot of stuff, especially when a critical eye is turned to stuff that is already done. There are lots of times when I will look at something I have done and will say to myself, wow, why didn't I do it this way or that way instead? Sometimes I will doctor up a repair, or redo it, and other time I will say well good enough! I will try the "better idea" next time!
I like the idea of fish plating it and adding bolt. If the welds fail the bolt will hold it. If you think about your rear suspension is mounted to the outside of the frame with 8 - 3/8" rivets 4 in the front bracket and 4 in the rear and it held up all of these years. I would just make sure they are grade 8 bolts.
Greetings! One of the unwritten rules of styling decrees that the front fenders must always be at least an inch or so higher than the rear. This means if you "z'd" the rear frame section 6" you must either raise the front fenders 6" to match the rear fenders or channel the bed over the rear frame to compensate, so to my way of thinking you "z'd" your frame a little too deep. Good Luck, Mike
I am going to drop the bed down over the frame as far as I need to so that it looks "right." I have a big pile of bed parts to make one that will work. It will probably end up being very shallow. As far as those 8 rivets holding the rear end, I ground off/drilled out about a million of those things, and I certainly don't doubt their holding power!! CHAZ
EXACTLY!!!! i have an article from hot rod magazine on how to z or kick up your frame from the 50s this is how it was done.. i would have cut it at a 45 angle and capped the ends....when you do that and look at the back side it creates the letter Z you know as in z'ing a frame!!!!
A friend of mine is rebuilding a 32 coupe that was built in the late 40's. Thats how they Zed the frame when it was first built and he is not changing it.
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