At the rear of the crossmember are body mount holes, the distance outside of the frame to outside of the frame over these holes is 40 inch's.
Is there an EARLY and LATE rear crossmember? I know that added reinforcement plates at some time, how did that effect the width? Bob
I think the reinforcing plates that they added were for the rear shocks and did not change the frame dimensions a bit. They were just plates on the inside held on by the shock bolts. At least mine were.
I think 37Kid is refering to the channel reinforcements that were added to the inside of the frame that reinforced the area right above the axle in the area of the rear crossmember. As these would have made the frame thicker it stands to reason they might have affected the width of the frame in that area. I've probably had 20 original '32 frames and only one came with those reinforcements. Must have come late in the build cycle. Frank
I have 2 really nice rear cross members and they are slightly lengths. That's the difference between the early and late. The late one is shorter to compensate for the added reinforcement plates that went inside the frame over the rear kick up. The outside width stayed the same.
So there can be two different lengths of 32 rear crossmembers, huh? Would the later 32 rear crossmember be the same as a 33 crossmember, which kind of looks like a 32?
The frame on a 33/34 is 44 inchs wide at the crossmember which makes it 4 inchs longer than the 32. The 33/34 has a somewhat different shape than the 32 although anything can be made to work with enough effort.
My frame has the added support, and the rear crossmember was 1/8-3/16 shorter than others. Outside dimensions were just like the earlier ones.
Took a while but I found the 1947 6th Edition of Ray Kuns Automobile Racing with the feature on building a California Roadster Racer. Note the part numbers for the two different rear crossmembers B-5030-B and the later B-5030-AR.
The Jalopy Journal
