I have a 79 Cutlass with a 77 Buick 350/TH350 combo that I just bought and dropped in. The engine and trans have only 44,000 miles on them and the car has only 65,000 on the body--it is in great running condition and the paint and interior are in very good condition. The reason I'm stating all of this is to qualify my real question. The car is a Minnesota car and has sufferred the usual udercarriage abuse that comes at the hands of Minnesota winters and the salt that is used on the roads such that the rear ends of the framerails on either side of the car are very badly rusted and are in need of replacement. However, the body, floors, trunk etc. are in good condition so somehow the rails seem to have taken most of the beating. I know rust in the frame is generally when most people would say drive it till it dies then junk it but the rest of the car is in such good shape and I have managed to get all new running gear for next to nothing. Of course I jumped right to adding on a bunch of performance parts (I got bit by the bug!!!) as soon as I got the engine and trans and am really wanting to hang on to this car. So the question is--how difficult and expensive is repairing the frame going to be? What things should I look for in terms of how the job is to be done correctly? The area in need of repair is from directly behind each rear wheel to the rear bumper. If the affected area was just the straight piece of frame immediately behind the bumper I would have just cut some boxed steel tubing and welded it in myself but because of the extent of the damage the tubing needs to bent--something which I am certainly not able to do. Sorry for the long post--thanks for any and all input regarding my options for how to fix this. Also if anyone knows of any good shops in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area please email me.
Up North its illegal to do frme repairs unless your qualified. This may be a moot point unless you want to sell the car. For my money the strongest repair may have to be fabricated so its best left to the pros anyway. I'd get a couple of estimates.
does anybody else have any info for doing this kind of work? I do have the ability to remove the frame from the body and was thinking that this might be the way to go if I am going to have new frame sections welded in--otherwise I don't know if it would be possible to weld around the entire perimeter of boxed steel tubing with the two still united. Then again if I did separate the frame and body it would be nice to possibly find another frame that I could swap in--does anybody know anything about frame interchangeability on this kind of car? I would assume that any G body frame would be same--are there more cars that share a similar frame? I do know of a guy about fifty miles from me that is selling a solid frame from an 81 Cutlass for $250.
