MTFCA Forum

I bought a touring body two years ago, but after installing it I realized the passenger doors won’t close. I tried shimming the body up, grinding the door to make it smaller and several other remedies without success. After reading all the posts on frame straightening, the horrendous big and complicated job it is, I dreaded taking on the job. Now that I am getting back my rebuilt motor in a couple days, with the front end open, clear sight of the frame, I decided to bite the bullit and get the job done. Went out and bought a 12 foot long 4 x 6, and bought a 12 ton bottle jack. Showed the beam under the frame on the ground, tied chains in front and back to the frame above, used a couple of 4 x 4’s on either side, top and bottom of the jack. After measuring the sway on the frame, I jacked up the frame an inch higher than needed, let it down and measured. After four or five repeats of pushing upwards with the chains not allowing the frame to move in front and back, only under the passenger door where the sway was, the frame is straight. The whole procedure from start to finish took forty five minutes. After my successful attempt, I was wondering what I did wrong. All of what I read sounded so complicated and days and days of crawling around under the car, measuring, pushing, repeat. What did I do wrong that is going to bite me later? Why was it so easy that I was dreading to tackle for two years. Please comment. Frank

Sounds like a home run to me. Whatever works is generally the best method and solution. Did you put a block in the channel to pinching together? Just a question from the peanut gallery.

You found the area which usually sags. The torque on the engine tends to pull down at that location and transmission brake also tends to pull that way. Only other thing I can think of is to measure diagonally from front to rear of the frame in each direction to see if it the 4 corners are square.
Norm

Sounds good to me. A lot of such repairs can require two to four hours of fiddling around, getting what is needed set up and ready. Followed by ten to fifteen minutes of actual repair time. The repair is easy. It is the dread and setup that is difficult.

Good Job Frank, another way to to this is to load it on a trailer and tie it down. How does the doors fit now?

I have a 21 Touring that I restored and had some body issues also. What I finally did to get the rear doors to close correctly and fit was to straighten one hinge and countersink the hinge area just a bit on the other side. I removed the hinge I thought might be bent and straightened it to where it would close tightly. I also shimmed the body on each side at the front body to frame bracket. The doors close pretty well now.
I checked the frame before the body was put on it but maybe not close enough as I thought I did. Anyway its OK now.

I hope you documented what you did with pictures that you can post here for those who are also dreading such a undertaking. Sounds as if you found the ideal method that we can all benefit from. Jim Patrick

Good job Frank. Did you leave the body bolts undone during the jacking? That would allow it to be free from stresses during the bending. The only thing I might add as a caution is placing the chains at the ends of the frame. Concentrating the forces to a short section of the frame may be a little fraught. It might mean inducing a sharper bend at a single point.The rails tend to sag over the whole length in my experience.

Allan from down under.

Question, if the motor is installed, do you need to unfastened the wishbone ball before jacking? Bill

Can you post some pictures of the setup? It would help visualize what you did that worked.

Well, a lot of good ideas, thank you. I did forget to put a wood piece between the rails but got lucky. Did tie the chains to extreme front and back, figured the sway would be on the whole frame and not just the part under the front door section. The body was on and I did not remove the bolts to the frame. But, no I did not take any pictures since this topic has been dealt with many time. The beam I have no more use or room for so I took it back to home dump, and the bottle jack would not crush back down and had to beat it out from under the rail so took that back to harbor freight. All evidence gone but the frame is straight and I am putting the motor back in today. Frank

Frank,
Can you do me a huge favor?
Would it be possible for you to mock up your process and post a picture?
Possibility just draw a picture?

I am about to go through a frame striating project and am doing some researching.

Thank you for the thread.
Little things like this give me hope that even a caveman like me can do it.

Several previous posts many more out there
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/33 ... 1364403935
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/70 ... 1495333835
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/70 ... 1498475134