Dumb question about stock floor body drops

[noahwins]

I was looking at Sergio's thread about the crossmember hitting the ground after he bagged his truck. I have a dumb SFBD question:

If the object is to hide the frame to lay the body down, why not just throw the truck up on a lift and cut away the part of the frame that peeks out the pinch weld and then plate and reinforce the bottom, cut away portion of the frame. So everything is flush. If you can visualize it, if the frame rail is 2" wide by 3" tall, shave off and inch so it's 2" x 2". And then do the same with the crossmembers. Basically shave away the excess bottom of the chassis and plate it with 1/4" or whatever would hold. Instead of raising the tranny tunnel and moving the engine mounts which seems much more difficult.

What am I missing here?

This is the truck and thread I was referring to:

7209

http://www.mightyram50.net/vbulletin/showthread.php/1622-Laying-frame

[pennyman1]

that is the wrong side of the frame to cut - if you want to narrow the height of the frame, you section the top half of the frame rails. If you cut the bottom of the frame, it would require much more work to make it strong and safe, and more work to make the cross members work. Plus it will not close the gap between the wheels and the wells.

[DroppedMitsu]

Yea you could do it like that but you would want to cut the top portion of the frame down. If you cut the bottom down you will have problems with crossmembers hanging way down below the frame/body and other issues.

[Sergio T]

In theory, that is a good idea, but I would have to agree with PennyMan. I was talking to a friend and and I think we're just going to rebuild the frame from the firewall back using 2x2 square tubing.

[noahwins]

Your truck looks SICK as is, but I understand how you start fiending to get it lower and lower. Do you have any pictures of the underbody of your truck? Do you know what kind of bodydrop you're going to do?