Who makes the best C-Notch Kit

[chevyrestoguy]

Originally Posted by creep

Those notches (the ones on the truck) look like they are home made and there isn't enough frame at the top of the notch. I don't know what that thin strip of metal is supposed to do. It could just be the angle of the picture but I don't know...

Yeah, I thought the same thing. The metal strip helps ever so slightly, but it's not enough to compensate for the lack of frame at the top of the pipe notch. A piece of thick walled rectangular tubing that extends about 10" forward and aft of the centerline of the pipe notch would help greatly. Because of the shape of the frame in that area, you would have to make it out of plate and weld it all together, but you could add internal gusseting and make it even stronger. With a pipe notch, you HAVE to box the inside of the frame, and that's still not enough. The top of the frame becomes the weak point, and a circular pipe notch with an open bottom isn't strong enough to keep the top of the frame rail from wanting to flex.

Fortunately, our trucks with the trailing arms aren't as prone to frame flex at the c-notch as a leaf spring truck. On a leaf spring frame, the spring in theory is trying to kink the frame at the centerline between the two spring mounting points.