Frame Modification?

[WilliamW]

Has anyone here replaced this lower connecting beam with tubular steel before? I'm planning on cutting this bar out completely, and welding in my own tubular piece. I wanted to know if this has been done before and what you guys think of the idea. I figure this will give me a lot of room for my intercooler eventually and reduce the amount of cutting I will have to do on the next bumper along with being all together stronger than the original piece.

[F22Turbo702]

A former co-worker of mine did that to his Del Sol a few years back. It really stiffened the front end, and provided quite a bit more clearance.

I've never seen anyone do it on a CB before.

-Kyle

[sulimed]

make a few a sale em

[Shag Wagon]

Confucious says dont do it.

[mj213]

make a few a sale em

Sale them. LOL

That'll learn ya.

[steelbluesleepR]

make a few a sale em

um, how is he going to ship a welded-in tube? this is something you have to do on your own or have someone do for you.

to the OP, i say go for it. if it gives you the clearance you need and whoever does it has the skill, there is no reason not to.

[cb9wagon]

if you have the skills all the power to you.

old skool hot rod builders do this type of modifacation quite often. throw in a couple temporary braces and take some good measurements to keep it all square when you chop it off!

good luck

[WilliamW]

I've already hacked up the front end of my car a ton. What I'll do is I'll take the lower radiator mounts and cut them off the old bar, then get the new bar into position with clamps and hold the radiator in place with a jack from the bottom. Holding the radiator in place, I'll mark where I need the lower mounts to go and weld them on to the new brace. Once that's done the lower brace will be easier to put into position. Simply install the radiator and support with a jack, then I can clamp the brace to each side of the frame and while it's all supported, tack weld the brace onto the frame, remove the radiator and finish welding up the rest of the support. Easy as 3.1415926535... that's all I can remember of that.

[drummersteve7]

whats this piece good for? got rid of mine for intercooler.
of course not running a/c so no condensor in the way.
I dont think this piece is needed, especially once my ESP Traction Bar comes in.




and yes I know I need to fix Intercooler piping to fix lower fog light/bumper issue.

[WilliamW]

LOL I love your radiator hose. It's just sitting there going "what am I suppose to go to!"

I don't know about getting rid of it completely. in any collision we are all pretty much F-ed but replacing it with something stronger and smaller could save your engine in a minor collision. On top of that how will / did you support your radiator? It kinda looks like you cut out the metal just in between the radiator supports. I think that's only kinda getting rid of it, you still have this awkward protruding tube of steel coming off of the body that restricts how you can run your intercooler and piping. I'm cutting mine clean off and making everything work with the maximum amount of room for goodies.

[drummersteve7]

car is going to be driven mostly on track.
so not to big of a deal for me.

[mondojackal]

Properly done, that welded-in piece will most likely be a lot stronger than the stock stamp-welded piece anyways. That should actually help stiffen the front up a little bit. I would actually look into doing more struts between the front framerails (obviously not directly, but to stiffen the flex that they have). Speaking from experience on 240's (which are also understeer-prone) that helps add quite a bit of stability under braking and also helps make the front end less likely to "plow" really badly.

[dbales]

I've thought about doing this since mine is fucked up right now from a previous minor accident and I need to chop one out of the jy to get my radiator to sit in both mounts. When you finish it up post some detail pics of it all. I'd love to see how you pulled it off.

[WilliamW]

Actually I'd love to post up some pictures. I'd actually like to make this pretty thought out, take my time, and do things right and keep all you in the loop. I'm working on editing images as we speak to be posted of me getting rid of the old cross piece.

[WilliamW]

AH, as requested. Here are pictures of the front cross brace removal.

This is the brace before I started cutting, you can see the tabs I welded on for the intercooler. I supported them with smaller braces welded inside the main support.

Here you can see where I accidentally cut up the passenger side of the brace a bit when I was installing the intercooler and piping.

Finishing off that mess up.




I finished the passenger side but left just a hair still attached to give some support when cutting the drivers side.



And now it's just hanging on by a thread.

The only thing left is to kick it.


After cutting off the main parts, I went back over where the bar ends were welded onto the frame and ground off as much of the base material as I could. There is a raised spot under the tubing so I took a ball peen hammer and carefully flattened this area a bit and then took a wire wheel attachment on my grinder and cleaned up the ends where I cut off the welds.

This is the plate I'm going to cut in half, then notch out a part in the plate on each half so the square tubing will sit in the notch. I'll clean it all up first of course so there is no orange paint left on it. After I do that I'll brace the ends of the square tubing with a short L bracket made of 1/4" steel so the entire steel tube is adding to the support.


The nothing-ness.



SO there is the removal of your front lower cross brace. I would recommend welding all the pieces of metal you cut that have two parts to them. like cutting a sandwich, weld the two pieces together on the tip and paint it when it's all finished to prevent any rust from forming in these areas.