Many of us who have done a frame off restoration have discovered after removing our body mounts and the tub that the surface on the frame where the body mount sits is rotted away. The metal has gotten scaly and chipped away or the whole surface is gone. There is an easy and cheap way to fix this problem. With really big washers!!!
I used washers that are 2 & 3/4'' wide, 3/16'' thick and had a 1 & 1/2'' inner hole. I got them from a small hardware store locally but you can most likely get them from the big box stores too.(ACE hardware is a better bet than Lowe’s or Home Depot) I laid the washers on the frame and marked them with a soapstone using what was left of the stock holes as a template. I used a die grinder with a metal removal bit and cleaned out all the thin metal back to the point where the metal was the proper thickness. Clamped down the washers using the soapstone outlines and tacked them all in. Then I welded them in using short stitch welds and rotating from one side to the other to keep them from bowing up. I'd go back and forth from one mount to another allowing each one a little time to cool. Once they were all welded in I used a grinder to clean them up and smooth them out.
I only had 4 of the eight mounts that were bad but I did all eight to keep the body level once it goes back on. I think it turned out great and maybe someone else can use this information in the future on their own project. Special thanks to crawln68 and regshawn for the “after” welding pics as mine were too blurry. Both of these guys have done this repair as well and were also very happy with the results. This should cost less than $10 and take about 2-3 hrs if you have a good welder.
Happy wrenching,
|
