Sunday, November 29, 2009

Frame rail, we don't need no stinking frame rail!



Yes, that is my frame rail.

After a frustrating day last Friday, today I made a lot of progress on the car. First I was able to remove the lower control arm bolts that were seized. Heated them up for about 45 second each and they came right out with the impact.

The spring was a little more difficult because the sway bar and slapper bars are still on the control arm and rear end respectively (seized, for now ;-). I eventually removed the shocks and the rear end settled down enough that I could pull the spring out. Five minutes later, the rear end was on the ground.






I then moved to the rusted frame rail. I was able to cut through a bunch more spot welds until finally I broke out the sawzall and cut through the mounts at the radiator support. They were so rusted I wasn't able to find where the original welds were.

As you can see, there was no chance to 'patch' this rail. It is rusted through in several spots.







Here is a shot of the rail over the k member. I don't know for sure if I need to replace the whole rail or just cut out this inner piece and weld some new steel to it. Advice?









It is also obvious I need to replace part of the radiator support.






Next steps are to get the rear end cleaned up, painted and new brakes put on. Then start on so getting it rolling is probably a good next step.

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