I love my life. It keep throwing me curveballs. I've written about the turbo diesel RHD to LHD conversion I bought a couple of years back at auction, and we got it up and running and it has passed inspection. This year more chickens have come home to roost. The inspectors found cracks in the frame up on the driver's side near the power steering:
The inspectors want the entire frame to be replaced. Ordinarily, I would be pushing for a repair, but there are other problems with this conversion which causes me to favor going ahead and doing a complete replacement. I need some collective wisdom from the forum on these topics:
First question:
I have access to a possible donor vehicle:
Here is the driveline for the donee that would be getting the frame:
Are there any material differences in the frame between these two types of chassis that my guys would have trouble with?
Second question:
I've never done a frame swap, and this truck is eventually coming to the US. Should my guys cut out the stamped frame number and weld it over the same place in the new frame? Should they weld it next to the stamped frame number so both are visible? What do the DMV's expect here?
Third question:
At some point it its life, the donor truck has had its automatic transmission replaced with a manual:
Is it likely that the PO made problematic changes to the frame to accommodate the manual? Put another way, are there material differences between the frames of a manual transmission and automatic transmission late model 80?
The inspectors want the entire frame to be replaced. Ordinarily, I would be pushing for a repair, but there are other problems with this conversion which causes me to favor going ahead and doing a complete replacement. I need some collective wisdom from the forum on these topics:
First question:
I have access to a possible donor vehicle:
Here is the driveline for the donee that would be getting the frame:
Are there any material differences in the frame between these two types of chassis that my guys would have trouble with?
Second question:
I've never done a frame swap, and this truck is eventually coming to the US. Should my guys cut out the stamped frame number and weld it over the same place in the new frame? Should they weld it next to the stamped frame number so both are visible? What do the DMV's expect here?
Third question:
At some point it its life, the donor truck has had its automatic transmission replaced with a manual:
Is it likely that the PO made problematic changes to the frame to accommodate the manual? Put another way, are there material differences between the frames of a manual transmission and automatic transmission late model 80?
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