frame rails

351w_swap

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May 23, 2004
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Anyone ever have custom rear frame rails bent up? I have been having a heck of a time finding someone that will do it. It seems like the companies that have the capability to bend 2 by 3 tube want large orders only. Any recommendations? At this point I am contemplating putting some together with a lot of welding and grinding but would rather just have some bent. If you know somewhere that will do it for a reasonable price, let me know. Thanks, Austin
 
who is art morrison and did you have some bent by him?

Ok, got the Art morrison part, but did anyone get anything from there. Im thinking I like the idea of just buying bends and fitting it to my car. I will just tig the whole thing together and then smooth it out.
 
Take a look at autoweldchassis.com or swracecars.com they both make madrel bent frame rails for the old mustangs. Auto weld makes them for the early falcons but they are the same. I have seen other frame rails by
S and W and they looked real nice they went in with little modification. Im planning on moving the rear frame rails in on my 65 fastback as well. Just havnt goten time to do it yet. If you need more info I have done all the reaserch for this mod already.
scott
 
My chassis builder is a dealer and used to get his stuff from them when he started out. Pretty much builds all his own stuff now, but Morrison can bend it exactly as you specify it. You don't have to get a rear clip, just order the rails. Morrison is the only one I knew of that had the multi-axis rectangular tubing bender, if you're just wanting straight, plenty of others can do it as well.

You didn't state what is custom about them, what year the car is, where you're located, and your definition of "reasonable".
 
Alright, custom in that they will not be multi axis, they will just be bent the "hard way" as I plan to do something along the lines of the Qa1 coilover kit in summit and some fourlink setup. I dont want to spend a ton of money, this is one of those necessary repairs (my framerails are no longer safe, shocks are shot, and springs are stock and sagging). I have about 1000 dollars figured into this which leaves around 3-400 dollars for the rails (dont want to spend that much if not necessary). I may contact Morrison tomorrow about getting some bent tubing sections to weld up my own, im going to check out the places scottspence9 mentioned first.

scottspence9- if you have that info readily available, post it, I would love to see what you have on that because I think I want to move the rails in as far as possible while retaining the stock style tank. Im going to minitub out of necessity because i have a hole in the trunk where the inner wheelhousing and trunk floor meets; that and when I buy rims and rubber I dont want to be worrying about rubbing. Moving in the framerails will facilitate the minitub so any info would be great.

Thanks
 
First what is the car?

I have come up with two types to move the rear springs in.

The first is to take the original frame rails off and install new replacement frame rails in the same location but put the left frame rail on the right and the right frame rail on the left of the car. This will move the leaf spring to the inside of the frame rail and move the rear of the frame more inward which is whrere the tire starts to hit first. The other way is to use one of the prebent frame rails and move them in till they meet flush with the subfame conector. This would be if the conectors were inline with the front frame rails. This would give a good attaching point for the front leaf spring mount and then you could box in the torque box. As fas as using the stock gas tank you would be limited to how far you could move the rear frame rails in. Im going to take a stock tank and cut about 2 inches out of the center so it will be a narrower tank. On my car im going to take out the original shock crosmember and make a new one out of round tube to mount the shocks. Once you intall the the frame rails you could mount the link arms for your four link off the frame rails with some type of crossmember and mount the coil overs off of another crossmember behind the diff in front of the gas tank.

thats all i can think off untill i get more of an idea of what you are trying to do.
 
that kind of suspension is designed to be istalled in like a back half form more for drag racing and really big tires. Check out cachassisworks.com
they installed that type of suspension on a 65 coupe in there "how to section" If you want somthing like that you will have to do a lot of cutting to the floor and will need a cage as well. Its not going to be an easy task to install any type of 4 link system in that car without cutting out the entire back half of the car and using your gas tank is probably not possible. Check out martzchassis.com they make a link style coilover suspension that is kind of what your going for.

Are you looking to drag race the car?
 
gailahan- that car is crazy, I would never go that indepth on my car, but I like that cage.

I am not really looking to drag race the car, it is more of a street car, but I like to drive fast and my engine currently overpowers the rest of the drivetrain so I want to be able to hook up on the street or track. I really am looking for handling and acceleration in this but I dont really want to change the lines in the car, just minor changes and hopefully drastic handling improvement.

The cachassisworks is a good article but that is much more drastic than what I want, the martz setup is much closer to what i want. I want to stick with something similar to the stock frame rails and a fourlink setup on a crossmember between the rails. Then a coilover setup on a crossmember over the rearend.
 
you're right, if the frame rails weren't shot, i wouldnt be messing with them, I would just be replacing the suspension but since they are, im looking for the best way to just replace the system, and now I got it in my head that I want a fourlink and coilovers.
 
Well, there's drag 4-link and there's road race 4 link and they're totally laid out differently. It sound like you're more of a road race guy which is why I suggested the corner-carvers site. Several guys that are members there are members here also, but since they're all thinking in that vein, you're liable to get a more congruent answer. I tend to ask a lot of questions from a lot of different sources and then compile them all together for the most common solution. Works pretty well if you give out good information.