The frame is completely apart now. When I was taking it apart I noticed several stress cracks. A couple of them were on the old welds. One was on the left front frame rail right in front of the spring tower. The rear spring mount brackets were also bent inward causing the bottoms of the frame to bend. I was able to straighten them out with a large (three foot) pipe wrench. I am going to box this area of the frame to prevent it from happening again in the future.
Make sure when restoring your frame to check it over real well for stress cracks. With all of the dirt that was in this car when we cleaned it out, I knew it had thousands of miles on the rough rural dirt roads around Kansas.
The frame is ready to be sandblasted. After it is sandblasted I will weld the cracks before we prep it for paint.
Stress crack on the left front frame rail.
This is the left side where the steering box mounts.
This is the rear crossmember on the left side. Both sides of this crossmember were cracked.
This is the rear spring mounting where the lower spring bracket was bent inwards along with the bottom of the frame. Both sides of the frame were bent and cracked in this area. I will box this area of the frame after it is sandblasted.
Stumble it!
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1 Restoring a 1949 Mercury Convertible « Rescuing the husks // Aug 8, 2008 at 8:33 am
[...] a 1949 Mercury Convertible Steve is Restoring a 1949 Mercury Convertible. He’s posted some interesting pictures of stress cracks that he found after removing the [...]
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