Crusty Rusty Leaky Squeaky 67 Step

[swamp rat]

Eyes glued!

[Vic1947]

Chopped up the unneeded donor frame and worked on the rivets some. Also removed some tabs I'll need to transfer to the new front section. The other day before I made any cuts, I measured the distance between the body mounting pads as 38-1/16" on both sides. So now I've marked 8" from the rear pad and 30-1/16" from the front for my cut lines. I ran into a minor issue with my cut line selection and will need to temporarily remove the reinforcing plates on the bottom of both frame rails that are riveted to the mid x-member. Once the plates are out, I'll bolt the rail back to the x-member good and tight with grade 8 hardware before making the cuts.

[sduckworth13]

Awesome Vic! I'm excited to see you get your frame situated out.
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[jeh]

Looks like you making some good progress

[snipescastle2]

Vic,
I can get you some large button head socket cap screws if you like, to replace those Rivits .......I can get them in zinc finish or black oxide, better than
grade 8. Let me know,
Ben

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[Vic1947]

Continued the prep work on the two halves today and finally got all the rivets out and the cuts made. I have a couple of issues to address on the driver side rail. Being old and slow and forgetful, I failed to measure the width of the rails at the bottom. Top is right on the money, but the bottom is about 3/8" too wide. I'll have to cut the x-brace loose and draw it in for the side to line up properly. According to the "N" measurement shown in the chassis service manual, I also left the donor frame a tad too long on the driver side so I'll have to trim it back a bit. That will help the overall alignment as well. The preliminary laser line indicates the front needs to go to the driver side. I hope the tooling they used to punch the holes in these frames was somewhat consistent between plants and years. Wishful thinking!

Thanks go out to Scott Duckworth for coming over today and hauling off the scrap frame pieces. It made a big difference in the available space in the shop. He PM'd me to say someone had already loaded it up and hauled it off from where he set it out in front of his house.

[mooseknuckles]

nice job!

[jlsanborn]

Looking good Vic! Powder coating will be super tough too.

[swamp rat]

Wondering if this will require a reinforcement plate on the back side of the frame? Or are you of the school of thought that the weld is stronger than the surrounding metal? Guess I'll find out soon enough.

[Bennett68C10]

Looks great Vic

[knomadd]

Nice work Vic. I knew you'd get it sorted.

[Vic1947]

Originally Posted by mooseknuckles

nice job!

Thanks!

Originally Posted by jlsanborn

Looking good Vic! Powder coating will be super tough too.

Hey John, since this whole thing has morphed into another dimension, the powder coat will fit right in.

Originally Posted by swamp rat

Wondering if this will require a reinforcement plate on the back side of the frame? Or are you of the school of thought that the weld is stronger than the surrounding metal? Guess I'll find out soon enough.

Yep, reinforcements top, bottom and inside. Too risky to depend on just the welds, IMO.

Originally Posted by Bennett68C10

Looks great Vic

Thanks, Keith!

Originally Posted by knomadd

Nice work Vic. I knew you'd get it sorted.

Wish I could say it's sorted, Duane, but I have a ways to before it's ready for the powder coater.

Today I gently tweaked the driver rail on the donor frame to pull it in where it needed to be and re-welded the brace to hold it. Then I got busy trying to get it all aligned. To make a very long story short, the issue may have been more in the rear section than the front. To get everything square, I'd need to remove about 3/8" from the donor rail on the driver side. This made the laser happy, but screwed up the other measurements.

So I went back to basics and measured the X where the bed mounts to the frame. Way off. Now mind you, this has been to two different frame shops and both specifically stated the X measurement was on the money. By my reckoning, one leg is 77-5/8" and the other is 76-7/8"... a full 3/4" difference over a very short span. If I could squeeze it back to square, the 3/8" I need would be right there. Now the $64K question is how to do that, if it's even possible.

[swamp rat]

Whats the chance that the angularity of one or both forward bed mounts are off?

[jeh]

Vic, you are a man of skill and patience!!! I would of went off the deep end by now.

[Vic1947]

Originally Posted by swamp rat

Whats the chance that the angularity of one or both forward bed mounts are off?

I thought the same thing, Mike, so I measured from multiple points. All were off by more or less the same amount. If the rear section is tweaked like the measurements indicate, it would fit what I'm seeing elsewhere.

Originally Posted by jeh

Vic, you are a man of skill and patience!!! I would of went off the deep end by now.

I'm starting to wonder how much of either I possess, Jason. I've chased this for over a year and a half and seem no closer to a resolution than when I started. This latest development seems promising, but I've convinced myself I had it figured out before and been wrong. We'll see.

[Xeen]

Yeesh so it's still has a diamond shape after two shops measured it and swore it was right on the money, nice.
I guess 3/4" passes for on the money these days and here we thought the 1/8" that GM let slide was bad.
So one side needs to be pulled forward to take the diamond out of it, ok sounds simple enough, now where did I put that tractor and log chain, lets show them what an imprecise pull looks like, I mean hell if you are going to do it do it right!
Seriously though you have a lot more perseverance than I do, I'm pretty sure I would have junked the frame by now.

[knomadd]

Thinking out loud here...
I'm sure you've already checked this, but does your overall length match on both sides of the frame, and width of rear and front? What about the rear of the frame rails to the bed mounts where you've measured the diamond? If all of those are equal, it sounds like you might have some binding/bent cross members pushing the frame to unequal positions (one rail further forward than the other), causing the tweaked diamond shape.

It might be good to pull the cross members out and fix your rails, then put the cross members back in with bolts. I seem to remember hearing the rivets aren't exactly tight in there anyway, so cutting the old frame may have allowed the back half to relax, giving you the skewed measurements.

[Vic1947]

Originally Posted by knomadd

Thinking out loud here...
I'm sure you've already checked this, but does your overall length match on both sides of the frame, and width of rear and front? What about the rear of the frame rails to the bed mounts where you've measured the diamond? If all of those are equal, it sounds like you might have some binding/bent cross members pushing the frame to unequal positions (one rail further forward than the other), causing the tweaked diamond shape.

It might be good to pull the cross members out and fix your rails, then put the cross members back in with bolts. I seem to remember hearing the rivets aren't exactly tight in there anyway, so cutting the old frame may have allowed the back half to relax, giving you the skewed measurements.

You know, that's a really good idea, Duane. The factory measurements out of the chassis manual agree perfectly with the cuts that I've made. If I removed the x-members and welded the frame rails to the front half, they would be exactly where they need to be. As it sits, something has shoved the left rail forward (or the right rail back) and the x-members are holding it in a diamond shape. You're also right about the rivets not being very tight. When Scott was over the other day, I showed him how flexible the rear half was compared to the front. There's only a couple of x-members left that are riveted anyway, so what's a few more cycles with the cutting wheel and air chisel?

We'll give it a shot and see what happens... what the heck, Columbus took a chance!

[Low Elco]

I like it- kinda float the whole thing till you get it where you want it, then lay a bead on the crossmembers so they don't walk.

[7dee2]

Your on the right track now by just making it work, you can do it Vic!

[Hogshooter]

If you put a come a long diagonally across the long side and pull it shorter that will take out the diamond in that section. I wouldn't think the height would get messed up, and if it didn't work you could always proceed with cutting out crossmembers. I do find it weird that the frame shops had such a tough time with this job, I have several years experience using frame equipment on truck frames though.

[Vic1947]

Originally Posted by Hogshooter

If you put a come a long diagonally across the long side and pull it shorter that will take out the diamond in that section. I wouldn't think the height would get messed up, and if it didn't work you could always proceed with cutting out crossmembers. I do find it weird that the frame shops had such a tough time with this job, I have several years experience using frame equipment on truck frames though.

Way past that now!

Here's a shot from last Friday before we headed out of town for a three day weekend. As you can see, all the rear x-members are out and the rails are mocked up getting ready for final measurements and welding. Just got home, so will be back at it tomorrow.

[Vic1947]

Just a quick update this evening. I've made some progress over the last few days, but don't have much in the way of photos as I accidentally deleted them from the camera card. They wouldn't have been all that educational anyway, as I had to abandon Plan A and Plan B.

Turns out the front half of the donor frame was slightly twisted and resisted my efforts to get it square. So I ended up cutting all the support tubing out, removing the rivets from the manual trans x-member and loosening the bolts in the front suspension x-member. At that point, it settled down and came together perfectly. I was able to level the frame side to side at a half dozen places from front to back and level both sides lengthwise. I had to trim just a small amount off both rails to get my 70" measurement between gauge holes.

I measured the "X" in the front and the back and both were right on. Using eight of the vertical measurements end to end out of the chassis service manual, I determined I needed to shim the rear of the frame up 1/4" higher and I'd be right on the money. Setup the laser on both sides and the intersect points on the front x-member were exactly the same side to side. So as the old saying goes, there was nothing between me and the next step but fear and thin air. I tack welded both sides, checked my measurements one last time and then ran a solid bead around the outside of both rails. I let it cool down and removed the front suspension x-member and took an overall "X" measurement from the front to the back. It's only off 1/8" and I'm pretty sure when I bolt all the cross members back in, I can hold it to even less than that.

So long story short, I think we're the downhill run. I just need to weld out the inside seams and then grind the welds flush.

[sduckworth13]

That's awesome news Vic! Glad you got it worked out.
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[swamp rat]

Glad your getting it done! Man i haven't done vertical welding in such a lone time, not sure if i could have succeed.