OK I have known for a while that my frame is slightly tweaked. / bent.

I am going to take it to a frame shop, and to me it looks easily fixable, I'd just like to know if any of you have been thru this and what is your experience?

It takes a 1" socket to level the front spring towers. Driver side tower is too high.


This is the high area. All six body mount brackets are dead level within 1/16". The bent area is all in front of the #1 driver body mount.



There has obviously been some ugly welding & previous repairs done in this area dead center.

It is the original frame to my 72 BB. But the car will never be numbers matching anymore. But it is a really solid frame and needs no other repair. I just plan to have this welded area cleaned up, and the drivers frame horn spring tower area straightened.

Thoughts?

 

Agreed that for a proper frame shop it's totally repairable. Some might argue to just replace it.
I'm thinking sometimes your better off with the devil you know. Depending on cost of course, but I'd fix it.

 

Check with some local shops. They might want it to be a roller instead of a bare frame. Then again they might preferred bare.. doing trailing arm bushings? Or are you sending the arms out? NO POLY!!!

 

Easily repairable on a good frame machine but it would have been better to leave it as a roller.

 

[QUOTE=4-vettes;1601709821.... I'm thinking sometimes your better off with the devil you know. .....[/QUOTE]

Yeah that's what I'm thinking. It's OEM, really solid, just surface rust, even the bolts all came out, and it's not "kinked" it is just a mild bend in that curved section, and under the engine.
Many replacement frames I have seen need more work than that.
The car was all together,it just had a few obvious clues something was off, main one being a really large shim stack on the left a-arm only.
The chrome bumper brackets were at different angles left & right.
Oh and the one piece aftermarket front end.
Stuff like that.

The car did not sit level at all, so I figured they would be better off bare.

The lower center crossmember will never look stock & pretty like a show car. Maybe I'll add another plate so I can actually jack on it there!

 

pm sent

 

You can purchase a repair section for that center piece. Weld it in and it'll look good as new.

 

I had a similar issue with my frame. I don't know what a "good" frame machine is, but I took it to a local guy who had a massive steel bed that had hydraulic rams that he tied the frame to. No lasers. First, he did not have work points for a frame as old as mine (1973) and claimed he couldn't get them, so I gave him the specs I found on some of the older posts. I have a lathe so I made inserts for the holes in the front and rear cross members and ran a string line between them so I could find the CL of the frame assembly. I also made inserts for the 2 and 3 body mounts with slotted screws and center drilled those so I could measure width and squareness at these points. I set the frame on 6.00" stands on my level garage floor so i could see racking.
With all of that, I had to take the frame back to him twice since the first time he just pulled it so that the body and especially the bumpers would fit and look reasonable. I made him hit all the work points I had after I took it back to him. Even then it was only "close" and I tweaked it at home with chain falls, porta powers and steel beams.

After dealing with two bent frames (this and my pickup) it appears that the frame guys in both instances only pulled the frame so that the vehicle tracked right and the bumpers and body could be mounted so it looked good. You may want better than this so make sure he understands what you want. Stay with the frame when he does it. Make sure he is doing what you want. Reverify everything. Good news is he only charged me $300 and the car tracks true and sits looks right.

 

Nice part about a good body shop with guys that know how to run the frame rack is that they can check all the frame dimensions in case from the previous hit it moved other part around.

 

Apparently can't add pics to pm's..



Could probly pop a mold off some of this guy.

 

Does anybody have dimensions other than the frame specs that are from Blair's corvette for 69-73? It would be nice to have more dimensions than those. Specifically it would b e nice to have a way to locate the engine mounts. Leigh if you need that sketch let me know.

 

I have the 69-73 chart. It's actually from a GM AIM I think. Thanks for offereing.
When I showed that to my frame guy discussing my frame, he mentioned he has way better numbers than that in his "system".
When I go over there I'll see if I can get a look and maybe get a copy if possible.