1967 Chevrolet C10 Custom Chassis Fabrication - Picking Up the Pieces

The Front Suspension
1. Scott's IFS is built from 2x4x1/4-inch rectangular steel tubing. The sides of the crossmembers are notched for whatever framerails they'll be mounted to, and the tops are capped, welded, and ground smooth for a nice, finished look.

2. Next, the crossmember is drilled, and solid steel bungs are drilled, tapped, and welded into the member. These bungs will be the mounting locations for the control arms.

3. At this point, the power steering rack mounting points are also attached. We chose a Ford Thunderbird-type rack because it offers a good amount of travel for the tie rods.

4. With the crossmember in one piece, it's placed into a new fixture that holds the appropriate spindle in place the exact distance away from the center of the crossmember that the customer ordered the track width for. This is done so that the control arms can be custom-built perfectly. We went with Mustang II-type 2-inch drop spindles because they are fairly common and will be easy to find brakes for, later.

5a. The control arms start life as short pieces of -1/8x1/4-inch-diameter DOM steel tubing

5b. The tubing is machined and tapped on one end that is threaded onto Scott's polished rod ends. The rod ends are bolted into the crossmember and offer camber adjustment for the arms

6a. Since the fixture holds the spindle and ball joint in place, Scott's is able to ballpark-estimate the length of the arm, cut it in a vertical bandsaw

6c. And then set it up against the ball joint mounting cup for a perfect fit.

7. The arm is then expertly TIG-welded in place. Scott's uses press-fit ball joints, which enables the shop to weld the tubing to the cup without ruining the ball joints that come with your arms. Look at those sexy beads!

8. Once everything has cooled off, the arms can be permanently assembled. We recommend coating the threads of Scott's stainless steel rod ends with some form of anti-seize compound and running a tap through the tubing before trying to install them.

9. Scott's will set up your front suspension with either coilover shocks or airbags. We wanted airbags but didn't have the shop build upper mounts for us, because we needed to mock up the suspension with our frame to determine the best mounting location for the 'bags. We plan on getting the most suspension travel possible out of our chassis to make driving this truck easier, so we'll wait until the chassis is ready before tackling the 'bag mounts. The bung on the right side of the lower control arm serves as the mounting location for the shock absorber.