What does everyone think of body swaps?

Which somehow disqualifies me from recognising a poorly designed and finished car when I see it?
All your experience with dirt track cars is wonderful, but clearly they're purely functional. I'm sure weld it where it touches is fine when all it has to do is not break when it hits something. You're comparing chalk and cheese.

 

Here's my perspective on it...........

Many Hot Rods have been poorly built whether they used a different frame or not, so poor decisions and poor workmanship don't just happen when a different frame is used. A lot of cars and trucks have had a front suspension known as "front clip" installed. Some done well, some not so well.

My recommendation is to choose a frame which has the needed width in the front suspension and a longer frame than needed. That gives a chance that it may work ok. The longer frame length allows you to shorten the frame by cutting the side rails till the rear wheels are where you need them to be. Thats the process my son and I used for adapting an 89 Chevy truck frame to work for his 56 Chevy pickup. It allowed us to have stock 89 (89-98) Chevy steering and suspension up front . This particular style of frame actually widens as it moves forward from the rear end. While we were shortening the frame we just made a heavy duty crossmember and then pulled the rails parallel. Very easy to do but takes some sweat equity. In our case we modified the frame to hold a rear gas tank to get it out of the cab and added a hidden trailer hitch. When we set the body on it, 4 very simple mounting brackets were made by cutting some box tubing on a 45 degree angle and welding them to the frame. The truck sits low without using dropped spindles and we may actually raise it a little. So the frame swap worked great for our truck. Most suspension stuff is stock and new. You just have to do a little research to find a suitable frame to work with the vehicle of choice.




This is before we cut the back crossmember out and made new box tubing for the gas tank and hitch.


This is similar to the main crossmember we fabbed up. Once in place holding the front part of the rails, we joined the now parallel rear part of the rails to it.


The actual crossmember in place and you can see the simple cab mounts we made.


This worked out well for us, so I can only say that if you make good choices you can get good results. If you don't............you don't.

 

Some additional thoughts..........Trucks and truck frames tend to be straighter and flatter by design whereas car frames tend to have a lot more gyrations in their shape in order to conform to the cars underbody. If using a car frame, it might be better to cut the underbody out of the donor car and reweld the whole thing into the other vehicle. Welding around the perimeter of a floor pan and bending and hammering a little could provide a better fit than trying to adapt to the frame. Its going to vary with the vehicle of choice. I remember seeing a 40 Ford once that someone put Mustang bucket seats in. He cut the floor out of the 40 (probably rusty) and welded the Mustang floor into it. Then the seats fit perfectly..........and he had a good floor too.

 

Years ago there were more than a few 49-51 Mercs done that way on Oldsmobile chassis and floor pans, I'm old and can't remember what Olds they used but was a popular swap. Found a 2012 Hamb discussion by 1badrat about using a mid 80 GM for the Mercury swap.

 

this is a friends car it's on a G body chassis. The drive train and rear end is in stock location.