The owner brought us British Motor Heritage replacement frame rails. We knew we wouldn’t use them as whole pieces, but this option was less time consuming than cutting rail sections out of another car. We clamped the rails to a table and measured several dimensions. We were surprised how inaccurate and twisted they were. Fortunately, the sections we planned to use were strong and straight–the front and rear sections that aren’t boxed are the twisted parts.

With our fixtures mounted to our big table, we could see where the frame rails were out of position. We carefully planned our cuts, drilling out spot welds where appropriate and cutting the rails with an abrasive cutoff wheel. The photos below show how we approached the left side.

We followed a similar process on the right side. Our fixtures made it all go together pretty quickly.

We used some sheet metal screws and brackets to hold the rails in position so we could test fit the crossmember and double check all measurements before welding.

We fitted the crossmember, checked measurements again, and prepared to weld (our camera lens makes things look off-center, but they were spot-on).