[flamedfordbronco]

Hey everyone,
I'm writing to ask you guys a question about doing a body drop. I know essentially a body drop is cutting out the floor and dropping the body down to re-weld it to the floor, but how do you drop the front end? I mean, if you just drop the body down won't the the fenders, grill, and bumper be at normal stock height? how do you lower these down to be in line with the body? Thanks a lot for all your help guys.

~Frank~
http://www.sounddomain.com/id/flamedfordbronco

[poncho62]

I don't see the purpose of all this. You will lose head room, the door area of the floor will have to be heavilly modified, same with the tailgate area.

Why not just lower the suspension?

Would that not achieve the same thing?

[Centerline]

In most circles its called "Channeling" and yes you have to do the same thing to the front sheet metal.

Centerline

[flamedfordbronco]

Poncho,
Thanks for your post! Well I'm not sure if I really wanted to channel my car, I've just seen this done and I was wondering how the front is made to line up with the body. But, I'm putting my car on airbags, so that would take care of the suspension end. And I want my car to look real low, but I can't lower the suspension too much, the exhaust, oil pan, and a few other things hang down below the rockers. So if I have 10 inches of ground clearance at the rockers, and 8 at the exhaust, I could drop the suspension then channel another 2 inches so that the body is at the same height as the exhaust. If I just used 2" drop spindles, that would bring the exhaust/oil pan/other parts dangerously close the the ground. I wouldn't be dropping it anything crazy like 5 or 6 inches (like I've seen on some mini trucks), if I even do go with channeling, it'll only be an inch or two. I suppose I could get new exhaust made for it that is up higher, and trim the oil pan down, but I was just wondering how a body drop is done.
Centerline,
Thanks to you too for your post. I know you have to do the same thing to the front sheet metal, but how do you do it? The fenders aren't connected to a "floor" the same way the body is, do you have to take them off, trim a couple inches out of a section in the engine bay, then reweld on the top part of that same sheet metal so that the fenders will bolt back up? Also, how do you fix the bumper problem? do you have to make new bumper brackets? or just fab some that will drop your stock ones? What about the radiator, how do you lower that down so that it's not stickin out the top of the hood?
Thanks you guys for your posts, and sorry about all my questions. Like I said, I'm not sure about doing this to my car, but I've seen it done and couldn't figure out for the life of me how they finished the front end, and thought that a couple of you guys probably have done it! Thanks for your time with this.

~Frank~
http://www.sounddomain.com/id/flamedfordbronco

[cadillacart]

don't even do this if your going to drop it a couple of inches, it's not worth the effort,

If your going to put bags on your truck, why not just lay frame with those and raise the car when you drive like most do. I think the biggest reason for people body droppin their trucks is so they can drive around looking like they're an inch off the ground with out (too many) worries

[flamedfordbronco]

Cadillac,
Thanks for your post! I'm not just dropping my car a couple inches. I'm putting it on bags, and I'm not going to do the chanelling. I figured it was too much work, but the whole reason I wanted to do it was exactly the same as the truckers: I had it lowered, but it wasn't an inch off the ground, and if I went too much lower with the suspension I'd start scraping stuff I needed (oil pan, exhaust, stuff like that). When I was thinking about doing a body drop, I was never that serious about it, I was just really wondering on how they did the front end. I'm trying to learn all that I can on how to customize a car, even if I'm not going to do it to my car (I've read a bunch of articles on chopping a top, but there is no way I'm going to chop the top on my car, but I just want to know how it's done). Thanks again for your post, i'll keep you all updated!

~Frank~

[corona jon]

ive got a 3-4" body drop on my station wagon so i can lay the body down with my bags... basically you cut out all of the fenderwells... i even had to knotch the fender suports... you also need to get rid of them because the wheels tuck so high to keep the wheels from bottoming you out... pretty much i dropped the frame as low as i could then layed the body (with the floor cut out) on the ground and built the floor there so when the suspension is down the body touches the ground...its not really all that difficult but it does take time welding and some fab work... you can do a body drop using the existing floor or make a new floor... what you would do is just cut the floor out next to the rockers move the body down and weld it back, then fab some metal to fill in any holes. b