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Old 10-13-2009, 12:21 AM   #15
Imperial Kustom
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Boise, Idaho
Posts: 313
Re: School me on front crossmember swaps

Yes. You can simply remove the A-arms and suspension pieces from the donor and bolt them to your original crossmember. Later suspensions will NOT bolt to the '60-'62 crossmember though. They require a full swap. In either case it's pretty basic.

'63-up only needs the A-arms out.

'60-'62 needs the whole crossmember. I will describe the process. If you swap a later member into a '63-up, there are some similarities with the oblonging and drilling of holes.
The framerails on the '60-62 are also one inch shorter than the later frames and requier drilling new holes in the crossmember for motor mounts. But the motor sits down that extra inch, which is kinda kewl. Anyway, first thing to do is slide the donor crossmember in and align the FRONT holes on the bottom of the framerails with the fromt holes on the top of the crossmember. Put bolts in these and tighten. Then oblong and re-drill the other holes as necessary. that's it. Really. It's that easy. But it's much easier to just use the A-arms from the donor. Later crossmembers use larger u-bolts on the lower arms too.
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