Model A frame straightening

rhinodaddy

rhinodaddy

Member
I'm looking for a shop in the Phoenix area to straighten my frame. It's really not bad, but a little bit tweaked in front of the center cross member. Sure appreciate the input. Thanks in advance.

Mike
 
Do you have any pictures? Are you interested in possibly doing this yourself? If the rails are straight and there are some slight buckle, you might be able to straighten it with a jack or two.

Another way would be to ask a couple of body shops who does their heavy frame work, they might do it.

Based on what you said, it would probably be an easy fix.
 
If it's just the typical frame sag near the rear motor mounts, it's an easy fix if you can find something to tie the front and rear of the frame to. Just tie down the ends of the frame and jack up near the bend, which is probably by the rear motor mount.
 
This has been discussed here before but maybe bears repeating again. Any bodyshop who has the capability of straightening a car or truck can likely do it.

The biggest thing that is always controversial is whether you are doing any good by using a jack to stretch the 'already-stretched' frame in yet another direction, ...or whether heat & shrinking the stretched rail is more effective. I embrace the "heating the stretched chord and shrinking it back where it originally was" method.

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I straightened my frame cold 8 years ago. I didn't have a torch handy and I figured I would not be driving on such rough roads as they had in 1931. Mine has done ok so far although what Brent says is probably the best way to go. If you jack under the frame, cut a hardwood block to go in the frame at the jack point to help keep from bending the bottom of the frame. You have to jack more than you want because it relaxes a good bit . Take out the floorboards and pull a string to measure off of.
 
Thanks for all the info. I thought about doing it myself but I wasn't too sure I'd be happy with the results. I had seen a couple of articles where they basically tack welded it to a layout table, applied a little heat, and used pipe wrenches, crescent wrenches and a small 2-5 lb pursuader. What concerned me was heating it and changing the temper. I'm guessing this has been done many times by people a lot smarter than me, with success.
 
I should have added it's sagged down about a 1/4 inch per side, immediately after the center x-member. Side-to-side the driver side is almost dead on, but the passenger side is flared outward. At the horn it's about 3/4" out from true alignment, possibly cause or effect of the fact that the front crossmember is missing. There are a couple of buckles evident that I figure will need to be relieved to return the rails to true.
 
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