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My mechanic told me I should replace the X braces because they are in rough shape and are touching the exhaust and other things. Are these available aftermarket? Can't find them. All the used ones I've seen for sale look just as bad as mine. Can I just remove them and go without them? Should I try to straighten them up? I have a clunking noise and I think its the exhaust hitting the braces. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you.
My exhaust would rattle on the xbrace at low RPMs and the engine was under a bit of a load. The exhaust hanger that was just past the cat was gone. When I replaced it, I put a jack under the cat to slightly lift it, then bolted the new hanger down tight. Rattle is gone.
It's soft metal... you may be able to straighten up the bends with a crescent wrench, hammer, 2X4 and perhaps a torch to help a sharp crease from cracking if it's all removed from the car.
Thanks so much for all your quick responses, After doing a bit of research I'm thinking about installing the No Flex Frame Stiffener Bar System from Vette2Vette. Anyone have any recent or past experience with it? It looks great and would be a direct replacement for my beaten down x bars. Over the years many have had great results both in coupes and verts and the install looks fairly straight forward. If there is any interest I could post my install and impressions here.
The X-braces can be straightened out and unbent, just a bit of a pain. I had to do significant work to straighten out my x brace - the PO must have driven over some crazy stuff. I used a crescent wrench, hammer and a hydraulic press with some creative arrangements of tables and 2x4s (yes this was super sketchy)
91 convertible underbody x braces
