36 ford truck frame, rails not level, rusty rear kick up, ideas? I'm kind of stuck at this point in my first build. I tore the truck down to the bare frame and I was hoping and hoping that the frame would be ok to just be stripped, painted(POR15'd) and go. But no. The front crossmember has a big chunk broken out, the rails are not level with each other (I think as a result of that x-member, the drivers side is 9 stacked pennies lower than the pass side), and the rear kickup is rusty. I wasn't so worried about the kick-up, I think that is common, I will just cut out and replace the lower lip of frame and then box it. Question is now, should I drill the rivets and take the frame all the way apart, set the rails parallel and try to reinstall everything? Or take it to a frame shop and have it fixed? Or eat up more of my budget and just buy a new 35-40 frame? All ideas and suggestions are welcome and needed. Thanks, ken
Is your garage floor prefectly level? I know mine isn't I didn't see any shims or leveling under your jackstands. Your frame may not be as crooked as you think, or it may also be worse. Set the level on the floor and see if there is a difference.
Just my opinion, which will not buy you a cup of coffee, take the front cross member out and throw it away. Remember the front cross member would not have been installed with the caster which you need. Cut the rear off as you stated, level, square the frame and take measurements (triangulated).... Put the money back in your pocket and enjoy building the frame yourself as this is probably the most satisfying aspect of the whole build. The frame doesn't look all that bad, take your time and you'll do a great job....
That front crossmember looks to be the perfect candidate for flattening....C-notch the frame and use the stock axle
Maybe you should put it on jackstands closer to the middle area of the frame, and shim it so that the beefy middle area of the frame is level side to side. Then keep checking with a long level all the way down the frame every few inches and figure out where it's starting to warp. If it's been in a wreck, you'll probably find a kink (or a bunch of kinks) . in the lip of the frame where it starts to go crooked. I straightened a frame before using a 4 foot long piece of railroad track, some huge chains, some long 5/8" bolts, and a 12 ton bottle jack. It was kind of scary and dangerous though. The chains were rated for the job, but when you stretch chains that tight, it's pretty scary. It took pretty much the entire strength of that 12 ton jack to do the job. If you can figure out some way to pull on the frame while simultaneously using a little heat and a big hunk of steel and a large hammer, you can straighten the waves out of the frame and pull it back straight again. I think if you spend more time trying to figure out where it's straight and where it's not, and locate the points where it bent, you'll have a better idea of whether it's worth saving or not.
Also take a lot of diagonal measurements between body mount holes in an X pattern. Sometimes if the frame has been hit hard on one corner, the whole thing gets cockeyed so that one rail is more forward than the other one. That'll tell you if your crossmember is all out of whack too. I had that sort of a problem in my Plymouth too, so I used a winch to pull diagonally on my frame to help pull it into shape as I welded new crossmembers into mine. Once the new crossmembers were in there, it stayed straight. The only original crossmember left when i was done, was the rear one that also serves as sort of a shield for the gas tank on that car.
Hey Ken, First off, don't drill any rivets or remove anything from your frame. Frames, from the factory, were riveted/welded in a ficture/jig and taking one apart, especially a bent one would become a nightmear in short order. The sidesway and mash frame damage to the right rear rail/crossmember could or would explain your "nine pennys" dimension. You could also, have twist damage to the center cross member. Level the frame, as mentioned above, to the floor on the stands. Your best bet would be to get the frame specs. from an old Ford web site, or maybe someone on the H.A.M.B. has the frame specs ya need. If ya can't find those specs. you could measure diagionlally each rectangal area to figure which area is off. You could get into some tall coin taking this to a frame shop this time of year. Most frame shops in SoCal get about $300. a pull, maybe half that in the off season. These old Ford frames are kinda soft and will move easy with a porta-power a fire wrench and a bfh. Swankey Devils C.C.
Wescotts auto restyling in Boring, Or. have pics and very detailed frame dimension factory specs in their catalog.
I saved the rails and front crossmember out of this heap of an old drag race frame. There wasn't enough left of the K to save once I cut away the hacked in stick welded truck leaf spring tranny member and galv pipe roll bar uprights. I have access to a jig so my work may be a little easier than yours, but at this point its not costing you anything to give it a shot. How much is your time worth? I'd take lots of measurements and go for it, but I'm cheap. "Cheap" may bite me in the ass when I go to straighten the rails and put it back together, but my time goes by just as fast whether I'm sitting on the couch watching TV or in the garage.
Thanks for the advice. The pictures are kind of crappy, I don't know what the camera was doing, so you can't see the shims on the rear jackstands. I did level the frame independent of the garage, which has a noticible slope. The frame starts to come out of level around the middle of the center crossmember and continues to the front. That led me to believe that replacing the broken front x-member would help many of my problems. I don't think this was in a wreck, it was still fully fendered when I picked it up and didn't look like those fenders had ever been removed. This was a farm truck, used very hard as evidenced by the back of the bed caving into the cab, they must have been moving rocks or something. But that's another story. Roadrat eddie - do you mean install a new flat x-member or somehow pie cut the old broken one and flatten it out? I plan on using the stock axle and I have some 55 truck juice brakes to put on there. This is just going to be a parts chaser and my first attempt to build a driver, so it doesn't have to be in the weeds. I have the wescott frame diagrams, but I haven't checked the diagonals yet. I jumped the gun after I saw that the rails weren't level. I'll head out to the garage and check tonite. Is this common for the front x-member to be broken? I got two 36's in the deal (both pretty complete) and both front x-members are broken like this. Just for more input, I'm planning to put a y-block backed by a t-5 in the truck.
Ok so I checked the frame for square and it is pretty close. 1/4" long from front x-member to rear x-member toward the side that is low. So it seems like it wasn't hit from the front, maybe rear if at all. Also, the very rear of the rails are pinched in 1/4" due to that destroyed far rear x-member. Any more thoughts? Should I just start with the other frame? it has a little more rust through on the frame beneath the cab, but the rear is in better shape. At this point, I am leaning towards finding a new front x-member and working the frame. Thanks, ken
Hey, I'd rather deal with bent metal than rust, but that's just me! Start by straightening the rear cross member, looks like a job for a couple of bfh's and a rose bud tip on a fire wrench. Once that's finished, since the damage to the right rear rail looks slight in the picture, you could, lacking a frame machine, straighten this by drilling out the rivets and bending the rail ends with a large pipe wrench, a torch and a bfh. Now, do the same to the rear cross member prior to reriveting it back to the right rail. To remove the twist to the center cross member you may half to get real creative to hold down one side of the frame, wile raising the low side, up to level. I once did this by parking another truck on top of the frame i was trying to straighten, wile raising the low rail with a floor jack and a length of chain, like I said-creative. You'll find a way, if you're lookin hard enough! Swankey devils C.C.
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