Car in Tow

Duplicating the forward chassis was not complicated but was very time consuming. Tight weld joints make for easy, clean work when the welding begins. I worked on this assembly for many, many, many hours:

In the morning I would set a cup of coffee on the assembly and ask “How am I going to do this?” After the day’s work had concluded I ‘d set a cold can of beer on the frame and congratulate myself:

Behold the interlocking rings of Cogitation & Self Congratulation!

This is the complement of pieces I eventually ended up with. Things did not proceed in a linear fashion. I floundered around quite a bit before the plan came together. Initially I thought I would not need a substantial internal support structure. Ideally a welded joint should be as strong as the metals being joined to one another. After carefully cutting and fitting the joints from the new steel to the existing I realized I couldn’t attain the ideal. I’m a good, certified structural welder but joining the old to the new without some reinforcement would not work.

Frame rail step cut

Same joint, frame flipped, new piece tacked in place

The easy fix for a bad joint is called a splice plate. You would weld the joint up, grind it flush and then weld a piece of plate over the joint extending well into both the old and new steel. This is standard practice in steel fabrication. On a restoration of a high value car it wouldn’t fly. I had to contrive some form of interior support.

That’s where the 3″ x 5″ rectangular tube came in:

3″ x 5″ tube steel inserted in frame rails

They fit very nicely, snug. I needed to drive them in.

Now they had to be cut down:

Before

After

Once the pitch was established I trial fit some of the new assembly:

Things should work out. Now to concentrate on the tube stubs:

Raw tube to desired profile

Step one

After trial fitting a few more dozen times I welded them up:

Close enough for iron work.