Full bolt in, actually stiffens the frame and allows for a transmission change. Now includes front frame horn liners and “bolt-in” front split wishbone mounts.
Available now, hit the store!
Tag: Crossmember Kit
Shop update: 10/04/2013
Been a busy few weeks, lots of jobs in and out and progress made on the more long term jobs. The good news is, as we clear out these jobs, the new Dakota Kits are eminent!
Just wrapped up a Vintage Air install on Ron Shives’ 1957 Chevy Hardtop. Such a nice car, we removed the AirTique unit installed a decade or more ago that never quite worked properly and installed a new Vintage Air sure-fit unit. In went a Vintage Air Front Runner package and radiator relocation to the 6 cylinder position so that we had room for a Volvo 850 two speed cooling fan. We also upgraded to a Borgeson Delphi 600 power steering box, Flaming River steering column and did some routine maintenance for him. Overall the car turned out fantastic, very nice daily driver now.
Dr Marvelus is going to town on Tony’s 60 Bonneville, pretty rusty car in all the structural areas, so look for updates on that soon.
Larry Ivy’s 34 PU is roller status, cab goes on and the controls are going in soon.
More importantly, Bob’s 32 5W chassis will be going together next week in preparation for the Deuce Day show. We are doing the second build out of our “Bolt – In” center X-member! These will be available in the store very soon.
And the news you are waiting for, the Dakota kits are in process as soon as Bob’s 32 frame comes off. First up will be the 65-66 frames and the 53-56 and 57-60’s immediately after.
Bell Tech dropped spindles…
Richard D brought his frame in for us to straighten last weekend. He also asked us to install the crossmember kit (006) and hang all the components. With the parts he brought were a brand new pair of dropped spindles from Bell Tech. It looks as if they did a nice redesign of the old spindle. It wasn’t apparent at first whether they fixed the steering arm location issue or not.
Installation confirmed they have not, if anything has changed it is for the worse.
The steering arm has been raised over an inch over stock and shortened. It also appears they have moved the arm location outboard more but have also changed the angle of the tie rod end boss. The machine work is not up to correct tolerance either. All three tapers are bored too deep into the bosses, note how much thread is exposed on the Bell Tech spindle tie rod end vs the stock spindle. This also raises the tie rod up farther causing more interference with the anti-roll bar and increases bumpsteer.
These spindles are still going to need the tie rod drop I detailed on my Dakota Based IFS Tech page.
So close you can taste it!
Here we are folks, #2 is installed and this is #3 and the first one to ship.
Installation is much easier than before and the frame stiffness is unmatched. I have been test fitting parts and making small corrections so that you get a high quality part you won’t have to fight to install and will enjoy for years to come.
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