Heres my progress from last friday. Rear leg done and boxed crossmember at the end.
Then I got cross member happy. I got 3 six foot sticks of DOM or HREW, I honestly dont know what it is but I know it was for a roll cage from a previous car so the other mechanic that was here when they built it said hes pretty sure it was DOM, from work for free. It measures 1-5/8ths with an 1/8in wall.
As a side note how can I tell if its DOM or HREW?
Then I got drill happy. 12 1-5/8ths holes later my cordless drill was pissed at me and I had 3 nice crossmembers.
I like having these crossmembers go through both sides of the frame. Really adds to the strength. I welded them inside and out.
The middle crossmember I added in. The rear most one is lateral support for the panhard bar and the forward most one is the upper link crossmember. I just replaced the dinky exhaust pipe looking crap with real material.
Heres a paint whip up of my bracket layout. The middle crossmember will be for shock mounts and the other side of my coil buckets.
Red is plating for a coil pad, blue is shock mounts, green is upper link mount.
Once the back was done for all intensive purposes I moved onto the front. Im going to finish the frame tomorrow but wanted to get the front riser sections tackled. After some measuring I decided to deviate a little bit from stock and give the frame about 3in more rise over the front axle and carry that height all the way forward instead of dipping down again like the stocker.
This should be me more bumper clearance and shouldnt cause any other complication since my frame will basically be at the height the huge upper control arm mounts were occupying before.
Measured for width and criss cross measured off the middle center rails for side to side reference to make sure they were evenly straight and not just both tilting to one side with the correct center width.
Also an over all project path update. Ive decided to find myself and motor and early trans to put in this frame. After talking with my co-worker we both agree it would be seriously counter productive to set this frame up for a 3.2 just to tear it down later on and put a 3.8 s/c'd motor in it.
So a little searching and I found some good prices. 100,000 mile 3.8L super charged buick motor for a ball park of $800. And thats just was was listed with prices. I need to call some places and see what a full dressed motor is going to cost and whether the stuff comes with ECM and harness or not.
I also got a price of $200 for a rear to make the frame a roller but I really need to call around and make sure Im getting a disc brake rear with a 63" WMS from a fender flare truck and not another 61" like I have.
Once I swap the body over Ill tare my pumpkin out of my rear and probably stick a chinese air locker in it. Got quote a while back for $550 for a locker and setup kit and compressor and Ive read good review from suzuki guys on pirate about them.
