Ok gurus, I need some sound advice on my project. I have a 56 f100 with a terribly hacked up frame (see pictures). My brilliant stepfather hacked up the back half of the frame to make room for larger tires. When he welded everything together, he did so without leveling it all out (the welds are terrible too). The end result is a crooked, UNSAFE frame. So with all of that said, does this frame look repairable, or is it simply smarter to find a replacement? I would be doing the repair work myself, with the assistance of a welder with 30+ years of experience using my power mig 215. Pics are here: http://s838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/jmoriarty123_photos/ John
Man,, your ol' man's work is a little crude,,to be honest,,it's real crude,,, I wouldn't want to invest any time and waste money on that frame. Find a replacement,,it will save you money in the long run! HRP
Nothing is unrepairable with the knowledge that 30 years of welding would bring to the project. You can buy a rear clip from a number of places and repair it. However you will probably come off cheaper getting a full frame if you can find one. Depends on your plans really and how the truck is to be driven. Compare the cost and available options and go from there.
I'd backhalf that bitch with some rectangle tubing and a 4 link or ladder bar kit, but then again I'm a product of the pro street 80s. It ain't that hard really. Good luck.
Your old man must have done the bizzo on my 52 chassis too!!!!! When it arrived in Australia, we had to cut it off at the firewall and added a Camaro (Holden) front end. We cut it off at the back of the cab and made a new rear section - with a 10 inch kick up - from all new box section. We kept just enough of the chassis for cab mounts, running board mounts and ID NUMBER!!!! Check my early posts for pix!!!! http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=255753
Ha!! To be honest, I never really thought of him as my old man. His whole life is just like that damn frame. Cobbled together, and friggin sad. Not to mention the fact that he is a complete ass. You should see what he did to the body for that matter. I have never seen so much fiberglass, bondo, and CARPET shoved into the body to cover up large rust holes.. Anyways, thanks for the advice. What would you expect to pay for a replacement frame, assuming that I could find one in bone stock condition? John
My goal for the truck is to make it an all around cruiser. I'd like to get it as low as possible without going with an IFS (or frame graph), and I'd also like to re-use the 460 that it came with. It seems that I can get about 6-7" of drop in the front with a drop axle/mono leaf combo and with a small frame notch. My thoughts for the back would be to cut it off completely, and replace with the proper size rectangular tubing. I figured that if I match the frame's original measurements, it should be fairly easy to do. The welding would be farmed off to my very nice and understanding neighbor. Then again finding a bare frame for cheap would be much easier, and I happen to be VERY fond of easy...
I with Hotrodprimer.. Ditch the cobbled frame. F-100 frames should be easy to find. You need to consider your time fixing the frame.
Replacing the whole frame might be the rite thing to do but if it were me I would just cut that back end off and weld another one on (properly) I shortened a long wheel base 56 by taking 8 inches out behind the cab and butting the frame back together, then I used the piece I took out (trimed to fit back inside the frame over lapping both sides of the butt/cut for extra bracing) to weld it all back together. sometime you can find these back halfs around here (ky) where people have made trailers out of them for fire wood haulers etc.years ago.........I know of 3 (53/56) that I can think of rite now still in use.
I think 53 to 56 are all the same as far as i know. I would find another one, shouldn't be that expensive. find a basket case and steal the frame and sell the rest or junk it.
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