Building the '49 Ford/Chevy S-10/Jaguar XJS Frame

Pulling the '49 Ford/Camaro front clip...frame out.

Ahhhhhhhhh !

The old Camaro front clip that's going away. And that bitch is HEAVY. I'm guessing about 350 pounds. Anybody know exactly? Also, notice the 114 inch mark on the concrete for the c/l of the front wheels.

Just hooked up and ready to take it across the street. At about 350 pounds and about 4 foot extension, that makes for about 1,400 ft.-pounds of torque on the hitch connector.

S-10 Truck Frame, (if you can believe this, I paid $100 for it off Craigslist) complete with master cylinder and anti-skid. Will be cutting off the front end of this and welding it to the Ford frame, but about 6" higher than the Camaro front clip. Won't be using the "anti-skid" features.......ahahah

S-10 Frame that will be butchered and welded to the Ford frame. After plotting the width distances of both inside and outside the frame, it appears that at 27" behind the wheel centerline, the frame widths are most coincident, which is 1/2" to the right of the far left mark (front) in this photo. Cutting this afternoon unless something comes up. April 3, 2012

She's cut loose at the 27inch mark from the centerline of the wheels. Kinda tipped over.

Getting ready to take it across the street to my little garage (neighbor's car port) with my Caddy Crane.

Easing into place. Dang, it got dark on me....

LOOKY ! It pretty much fits ! Well, not really, the width works, but the frame ends will be about 7 inches apart front to back and zee'ed to lower the frame relative to the front clip..

This is the passenger side.

Driver's side.

Used a laser level to get everything level and straight.

Measuring levelness.

Getting everything lined up and level. Plumb bob lines from ceiling line. The red strap at the rear is to widen the front end for correct width.

KEY POINT HERE ! ! ! ! The second body mount holes are 37.5 inches apart on the body and frame.. Since there is no front end at this point, it wants to move around a lot.

Checking Ford frame for centeredness. Is that a word?

Clamping for first weld.

First plate is ready to weld. Calculating the "ride height" dictated that I give the frame offset about 6" of a "ZEE" .

Passenger's side while hanging sideways to get to the bottom side. Bolt screwed into hole to protect the threads. That's a body mount, and yes, it's kinda close ...April 12, 2012

Welding of front clip is done. This pic is upside down because this is the bottom of the frame.

After welding all I could from the top and sides, the Caddy Crane came in very handy so that I could weld the backside of the welds and the underside plate by turning the frame completely upside down..

Right side up, front clip welded on, time to grind and sandblast

Rightside up again. All bottom side welds complete, blasted, painted. Time to finish up the topside.

Started sandblasting. Doing bottom of frame first. MORE than messy.

Sandblasting the bottom. Will paint with Truck bed black paint. Strange electrostatic phenomena .. when you vacuum up Aluminum Oxide blasting sand, and the air is fairly dry, a static electricity charge is built up in one's vacuum, hose then it goes BAM and it makes you want to let go of the vacuum hose !

New rear crossmember welded in to strengthen the frame just a little, and to correct a slight twist in the original frame. All is nice and straight and parallel now. She's upside down here. The "rusty part" behind the old spring perch will be narrowed about 3 inches on each side to accommodate the Diamond Back III 255/70R15 wide white wall tires I just bought.... boy they ain't cheap. The Jag rear end will be cut down 4-1/4" per side..

Front view looking straight down the frame rail. The axis of the upper arm is at about a 15 degree angle from the centerline, and tilted back a few degrees.

Taking measurements to draw up the front suspension in 3D to try to figure out my Roll Axis .(Added note...I abandoned the exercise)

Notice the large angle difference between the upper and lower control arms. The lower center of rotation of the arm is about 2 inches more inboard

Mid part of frame is ground, smoothed (burned/melted off the undercoating, sandblasted, leveled, cut new hole for dual exhaust in mid-crossmember and painted.

Frame is all done, except for rear mod's for the Jag rear end. Decided to make an X- frame out of it. Notice the 2 inch pipe and fittings for the driveshaft to feed through. Stiffer is better, they say. On second thought, hell, forget it: No X-Frame.

The Camaro center cross member will have to be located by bolting in a spare block and the 700R4 transmission to pinpoint that center hole in the cross member.

MASSIVE TIP!!! SINCE I GAVE IT A 6" ZEE, DO NOT USE THE READILY AVAILABLE 2" DROPPED SPINDLES. YOUR TIRES WILL HIT THE UNDERSIDE OF THE FENDER FRESH AIR DUCTS WHEN YOU HIT A DIP IN THE ROAD. HAD TO REVERT TO STOCK SPINDLES...I did not clean and paint the very front end of the S-10 frame, because it will be trimmed off and new mounts welded in place for the front fenders.

Initial design sketch to coordinate clearances with actual wheel well, wheels, tires, and Jag rear end. It all turned out that everything fit just as planned. This also told me that I probably would not be able to remove the rear wheels just by jacking up the car. It's necessary to disconnect the shocks to allow the axle to drop down far enough to remove them. That's why there is an removable (Zeus fasteners) panel in the trunk, so that a lot of the rear end parts can be accessed from inside the trunk. See page 2 of "The Interior" about 3/4 of the way down for pictures and assembly of the cover plate.

10/10/2012-Just got my Snow White, Ltd rear crossmember and mounting hardware for the Jaguar rear end ! Top to bottom - thrust bars to go from the lower control arms to the frame, cutable, have to weld on the two bushing mounts just below that, then press in the bushings: center section torque mount that goes on the lower front of the Jag center section, with the two "side bars" that will mount with 4 of the welded on brackets to the sides of the frame. These counteract the torque of the driveshaft so that the bushing mounted center section takes a minimum of torque (the part with the red bushings on it). Notice that the shock mounts slide to the left and right for adjustments to the angle of the spring loaded shocks to adjust ride height.

Top to bottom - torsion bars to go from the lower control arms to the frame, cutable, have to weld on the two bushing mounts just below that, then press in the bushings: center section torque mount that goes on the lower front of the Jag center section, with the two "side bars" that will mount with 4 of the welded on brackets to the sides of the frame. These counteract the torque of the driveshaft so that the bushing mounted center section takes a minimum of torque (the part with the red bushings on it). Notice that the shock mounts slide to the left and right for adjustments to the angle of the spring loaded shocks to adjust ride height. Showing the slide shock mounts and the top plate mount and bushings that the center section bolts to. Notice that the top mount plate is mounted at a 3 degree angle so that if the cross member is mounted on the horizontal, the angle of the driveshaft will be correct (maybe, cause it depends on where the ass end of the transmission is).

Getting it in position. C/L of axles came out perfect at 14.5 inches off the ground. Drawings work! It's actually hanging by the straps and barely resting on the frame.

Initial cardboard mock up to narrow the frame.

Taken from driver's side, of frame mock-up. The same pieces of cardboard will be used to cut the steel for the other side.

Passenger side cardboard mock-up of frame modification from the rear. These two pieces on each side will be welded in first to hold the geometry, then the frame will be cut out and two more pieces welded to outside and bottom.

Same side, in order to narrow the frame by about 2 inches so that those big-ass tires will clear.

Those old cardboard boxes come in handy !

Getting everything in position. Lower control arms installed, height adjusted, tires installed, measured all dimensions to move tires inward to clear the insides of the wheelwells.