Looking for your expertise and experience. I've come to a fork in the road on my frame & floor repair. Up until now, I've seen no real advantage for my situation to pull the shell, because all of the areas that need fixing on the frame are easily accessible with the floor out. However, pulling the last piece of flooring just in front of the axles might be changing my mind.
I have some outriggers that appear to be sagging- mostly fore and aft of the wheel wells, but some slight sag in others. I'm not quite sure the best way to fix (or if I even need to for that matter).
Check the pics attached for instance. This is the street side, just in front of the wheel well. This particular "wheel well outrigger", seems to be 90 degrees, but the 1 or 2 in front of it must have sagged because the C channel doesn't line up with the wheel well channel for the flooring. Pulling the flooring out was a pain because it was pinched in there.
Soooo... getting the sagging outriggers back to 90 seems difficult because there is quite a bit of weight on them from the shell. Do I jack up the shell near each outrigger, cut and reweld at 90? Seems like jacking up the shell will tweak, torque, bend and NOT be good... and could even weaken the rivets where I'm moving this too much.
Now that street side in front of the axle has a 90 degree wheel well outrigger, that is not lining up with the rest of them. BUT ALL of the others "wheel well outrigger fore and aft appear to be sagging right along with the rest of the outriggers along the side, so I could technically just reinstall the flooring with a sag and everything should go right back the way it was- with new flooring.
Are yall following this
?
So it appears my options are to:
1. Jack up the shell above each outrigger and straighten it/ re weld to 90. OR
2. Lift the shell, bring the entire frame to straight, level and 90.
3. Sag them all to match
I'm to this point, so #2 isn't SO bad, BUT it is definitely adding another step. If I dont have to lift it, then I'd rather not. I want to do this right, but I dont want to do things that arent neccessary just for the sake of doing it.
Another thought going through my mind is how difficult it will be to get the new flooring back in. I definitely did not realize how much weight was on those outriggers over the C channel. I was originally thinking that most of the weight was being carried on the man frame rails front and rear, where the sides were simply "lateral stabilization". But getting that last piece out made me realize that I can't just pull/ push/ wiggle that wood into place. Might make life easier in the long run if I'm gently lowering a shell onto C channels instead.
All input comments, suggestions encouraged and welcomed- Thanks!
Micky
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