Ford Blitz Restoration/Rebuild

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Private_collector

Tony, I have read through your post several times now and it has FINALLY sunk in I'm a bit worried now about the shortening of my chassis. Do I understand that the two rails narrow together as they travel back to rear portion?

No, they're perfectly parallel all the way. When I spoke of "tapering" I was referring to the profile of the chassis rail itself, not the distance between the two chassis rails. Apologies for the lack of clarity.

You'll have no trouble shortening the chassis, it's just that you'll have to make up a new rear crossmember. It has to be fatter than the original one, so it will fit snugly inside the chassis rail. By that I mean fit vertically - ie. inside the chassis rail not between the chassis rails. You're inserting the crossmember into the channel of the chassis rail, and the end of your chopped chassis rail is wider than the end of a full length chassis rail. The channel is wider, so you need a fatter crossmember to fill it.

Hopefully that makes a bit more sense than my previous post. It's all about the profile of a blitz chassis rail, which tapers from the midsection towards the rear section. Or as Anne Elk explained on the Monty Python show: "All brontosauruses are thin at one end, much, much thicker in the middle, and then thin again at the far end."