Front Crossmember Modifications
While inspecting the crossmembers for cracks we found a small one in the front crossmember along with a previous repair. Steve and I talked about this for a little bit and I mentioned a aftermarket raised crossmember that is available. While the price in reasonable for these crossmembers it does require a little work to remove the old one. I do want my truck to sit low but I had questions on it being to low with an aftermarket crossmember. What we decided to do was raise my original crossmember one inch.
Raising the crossmember lowers the car because the spring now sits up higher in the pocket. The top center portion of the crossmember was removed leaving the sides and bottom flanges. Some heavly bar stock was used to make the new top portion of the crossmember. This was inserted from the bottom, aligned and tacked in place. The top plate must be level and angled the same as original to preserve your caster. After the top was fitted two side pieces were cut to fill the gap between the new top and original sides of the crossmember. It was then welded both top and bottom along with any small cracks. Actually your cracks should be welded up first before any cutting is done.
One problem I did run into here was the welds on the inside. A lot of grinding was needed on the welds to get them smooth so that the leaf spring would fit in the pocket. The inside looks better that the outside! Now that the crossmeber has been raised a spacer plate will be needed between the spring and clamps to hold it in place. Longer U-bolts will also be needed.
Next up for the front crossmember was adding clearance for a stock Chevy mechanical fuel pump. The passenger side of the crossmember was marked for a cut line and the unwanted material was cut off. Two patterns were made to fill in the void and transfered to some steel plate. At this time it was decided that the crossmember looked funny with only one side trimmed out so the cut lines were transfered to the other side and trimmed to match. I then test fit the passenger side patterns to the drivers side to make sure they fit good and made two more plates. The filler plates were then fit once more and welded in place. A little grinding on the welds finished it off.
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To the left is the stock rear crossmember that was modified in the past. I have no idea why that heavy plate was welded across the crossmember. With that hole in the middle I tell people someone must of used it to pull a 5th wheel! I actually thought about putting the time into it to save it, thankfully Steve talked me out of it.
Once the old crossmeber was removed a peice of 2x3 inch rectangular tubing was cut to fit. I see a lot of the aftermarket frames just using 1 inch square tubing here so mine may be a little over kill. But when it is a free scrape piece that was long enough to fit overkill is fine. The new crossmember holds the rear frame rails together nicely and will be used for the upper shock mounts in the future.
It looks much better than the old one did!
If you spotted the junk small block sitting between the frame rails in one of the photos above you should know the motor mounts are coming next.
