Cutting open this frame, also let me know that Whitey's frame is still in fantastic shape. Not a sign of rust anywhere.   Oh... and just as a point of interest.... the inside of your frame is painted black (weld through primer?). Apparently the frame rail sub components are painted BEFORE the parts of the rails are assembled to make the rails. A dissection of the welds (of the parts cut out) show the paint between the sheets where they are pinch welded to build the box of the rail.  

    Moving the cross box (spans the frame rails just behind and below the rear tranny flange) was perhaps the biggest hassle. It was REALLY a pain trying to cut it out. So after countless angle grinder cut-off disks being trashed, a brand new Sawsall was purchased.  What a COOOLLL tool!  It made VERY simple work of ALL the frame mods. Inst4ead of just cutting on side of the frame box at a time, I was able to quite literally carve an 'orange wedge' out of the frame. (top side, and inner frame wall cut at one time)

    The front 'curves' clear the bell housing. The rear tranny mount area was reinforced on the inside walls with a slab of 1/8" x 2" stock. This formed the vertical wall that supports the flat area the tranny mount plate fastens to.  AS usual, everything was kind of 'cut-to-fit'. A lot of test fitting, trimming and finally welding it in, then a lot of grinding to 'pretty it up'.

You can see the new box section on the outer 
side of the rail to the left in the above photo.
(raw unpainted metal at left)

    Ok...back to updating these pages. 

    After test fitting the engine and tranny again, I realized the exhaust system was not going to clear the frame rail. So I figured I'd simply go to a muffler shop and have them rebend the downpipe a bit. After a whole LOT of study...I realized that would be a no go as well as hte pipe would have to stcik out too far below the frame rail. 

    My only other option...modify the frame rail...again!  Having already eaten up a bit of space in the right side foot well to clear the starter with the new firewall, I figured out a simple fix. I cut out the now boxed in bottom front left corner of the right side floor pan, which gave me space to the right, of the right side frame rail. I simply cut out a chunk of 14 gauge steel, bent it into a 'C' 3" x3.5" x 3" (around the 'C' and) about 14" long. I then split the 'C' at the top and bottom and slightly folded it along it's length. This 'C' became the new right side wall of the frame rail. I then simply cut out the original left side of the right hand frame rail, to clear the pipe. So in simpler terms, I used the original right hand side of the right frame rail as the new inner (left side) of the frame rail and added a new outer right side to the rail.