[azbryan]

allright folks, i know that some of my other posts have been rather helter skelter. i was still researching and deciding on what i want my project to come out like. after much deliberation, a few red eyed, up till 3am internet crawls, and a frenzied attempt to get my hands on every hot rod rag i could possibly procure ive made up my mind. ive decided to really rat this bi*** up. ive settled on a 35 ford 3 or 5 window coupe, whichever i can dig up first. however all im really interested in is the cab and fenders.
heres where all you hot rod geneuses out in the internet wonderland come in. i have two questions, the first of which is as follows. . .
what vehicles that are easily obtained and affordable have a frame that would work with the ford body. preferably something with a nice fat rearend to start with as the 350 sbc rebuild currently in progress will be comin close to 400 ponies plus the hundred shot of bottled stupid.
secondly, how creative were the engineers back in the thirties? what i really mean is how many vehicles of that era have the same if not similar frames? in case the 35 is unavailable around the time i need to drop the dough on it, will other bodies from that era have similar dimensions that would work on a frame originally purchased for the ford. if anyone knows of any rescourses on the net that might be of use to me ide love the help as ive been stuck at home the past few weeks having just recently had surgery. otherwise ide be at swap meets and book stores and the like. as it stands im just glad i have a cell phone that gets internet.
anyway, im cutting this obcenely long post off, otherwise ide be ramblin on forever.
thanks in advance everyone
bryan

[trees]

35-40 Ford car and pickup frames are dimensionally the same. Body mounting points are slightly different between years and between pickup and car of the same year. The 35 and 36 bodies are basically identical and the rear fenders will inter change as well as the running boards. The front fenders, grill shell and hood of the 35 will marry up to the 36 for sure as the 36 front fenders, grill shell and hood will marry to the 35 body. You can not mix the grill shells and hoods and front fenders since they are basically designed as a unit.

Trees

[Henry Highrise]

The best frame for a 35-36 Ford coupe is a 35-36 Ford frame. Then put modern suspension and brakes and rear end on it.

[azbryan]

as far as the ofiginal frame goes, how solid are they? do theyneed to be boxed or are there other recommendations as to increasing their stability and resistance to the stresses the motor will invariably put on it?

[F&J]

Double post

[F&J]

Those frames are pretty good as they have a nice long X in the middle. But the front of the X sometimes gets in the way of certain transmissions.

The front part of the frame would be good to box, and also you may want to box the rear also, depending on what type of springs you use; single stock Ford transverse, twin parallel leafs, or coil-overs.

[azbryan]

what sort of transmissions have an issue fitting in the frame. my chevy 350 is mated to a turbo 350 tranny but im pretty set on going to manual trans. any recommendations on which would fit the best. also im going with coilovers, what suspension would you guys use?

[Youngster]

As it's already been posted, the frame is beefy enough but the boxing described is a good idea As for the 'X' member mods, the one I did, I just opened up 2 existing holes to clear a 350 turbo pan. Used a 3/8" plate bolted to the bottom 'X' rails for the trans mount. Just aft of where the "x' comes together, I added a 10g plate with a notch for the driveshaft. If you go to a stick set up, depending on the shifter, you can build a box toward the outer rails to clear it. Pretty straight forward frame mods. This car has a stout 300 horse 327 in it and there haven't been any problems for 5 years.

Youngster