How To Fabricate A Chassis - Building a Model A Hot Rod with Eastwood

everybody mad from eastwood here there isn't much to building a traditional hot rod you pick a nice body your drivetrain and your suspension and you're on your way to me the stance of a vehicle is equally as important as the wheels and tires that you pick and the chassis is the foundation that gives a hot rod that iconic profile that we all love behind me i have the chassis table that we built in another video with some tubing on top that will become our frame rails follow along as we build a simple hot rod chassis and we show you some tips and tricks along the way so let's get started first the front of each frame rail was marked so that we could slide the original model a front crossmember in place yeah the original frame horns narrow as the slope down so we needed to relief cut the front of our frame rails to pinch the height of the rails down to match with the front of the frame rails modified we slid the original cross member in place and set the width of the frame at the cow and clamp the rails in place next the front crossmember was clamped in place and we checked our cross measurements in the frame rails and set our desired caster we then welded the crossmember in place using the big 175 the frame horn sections were then clamped in place and welded to the frame rails yeah yeah we then marked out lines to make a series of relief cuts in the frame just in from the front cowl and cut through the frame rails from the top leaving the bottom side intact using a floor jack we lift it up on the front crossmember compressing the relief cuts and gradually sweeping the front portion of the frame up to our desired angle yeah each seam was then prepped and slowly welded shut letting them cool in between welds next a pie cut was taken out of the bottom of the frame rails just behind the crossmember to bring it back to level and we welded the same shot yeah yeah yeah alright so what we've been doing here is sweeping the front of the chassis this essentially lowers the front end of the vehicle and gives it a nice profile so we've already put a bunch of relief cuts in the chassis here lift it up about five degrees and then in the front here what we need to do is compensate for that five degrees to get our alignment of our front axle correct so we've taken a pie cut out of the chassis here just behind the front crossmember we're going to press down on this which will bring it back down to zero and will be level with the back portion of the chassis then we can weld it up we're ready to test for suspension and start setting over your ride height the frame was then cut free from the table and set on the ground so we could build up our front suspension yeah the Versa cut 60 was used to cut out the original floor from the body so it could be channeled over the frame yeah with the body set on the frame we rolled the rear axle under the body and cut notches in the wheel wells so we could set the rear ride height the engine was temporarily mounted in the frame to load the front suspension so we could take our final measurements height measurements were then taken from the floor to the top of the rear crossmember and from the top of the frame rails to the top of the crossmember to determine the size of the rear frame step we also measure the distance from the center of the front hub to the center of the back hub to determine our final wheel base for the car the chassis was then locked back into the table and a rear fixture was made to hold the rear crossmember at the desired height we then dialed in the wheelbase and use mechanics wire to cross measure and make sure the crossmember was straight and aligned in the frame yeah all right guys let's give you a little update on where we're at with the chassis build the last couple of shots he's already set the body on we test fit the drive train to get some weight into the chassis so we can take measurements to figure out exactly how high our ears he needed to be so what we've gone ahead and done at this point there's a built-in rear fixture here the sets the rear crossmember exactly at the height that we need it to be we've also squared everything up on the chassis table here so we noted straight and true it's going to go down the road street so now what we need to do is cut up some pieces here to finish off the rear z well everything up our perimeter frame is done yeah yeah the beginning this video we started with a pile of old Ford parts in a bunch of box tubing and now well look at it we've got a pretty killer rolling chassis and it's very strong all i have to do is dress up a couple of the welds and a center crossmember we have a completed rolling chassis next we're going to build a floor for the body so that it sits down over the chassis and bolts on like factory if you want to follow this build or any of our other builds make sure you subscribe to our youtube channel and visit eastwood.com to get the tools you need to do the job right yeah yeah yeah hmm yeah yeah

Channel: Eastwood Company

Views: 988,134

Rating: 4.9005737 out of 5

Keywords: Chassis (Invention), Auto Show (Event), eastwood, eastwood company, metal fab, metal fabrication, Eastwood Company (Business Operation), fabrication, Ford Model A (Automobile Model), Ford Motor Company (Automobile Company), hot rod, Hot Rod (Magazine), video, how to, how to build chassis, how to fabricate chassis, building a chassis, car chassis, versa cut 60 plasma cutter, plasma cutter, weld, welder, welding, MIG wel, MIG, MIG welder, MIG welding, cutting metal, angle grinder

Id: LnFxH68T6cc

Length: 12min 0sec (720 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 07 2015