How strong is a K frame? Took mine out today. BIG pics

[Wakko]

If you forgot, I slid my car into a curb a few weeks ago, destroying one wheel, two tires and a lower steering knuckle.  I went ahead and decided to do a full mechanical restoration from the firewall forward and just got the K frame out today.  The OBVIOUS damage to the car is this:  Lower steering arm on the lower ball joint is twisted.  Lower ball joint on the passenger side is loose from wear but the driver side is super tight and won't move easily.  When I pulled the idler arm out of the K frame, I had to use a pry bar and it appears as if the bracket is a little tweaked.  Steering assembly is undamaged, steering box is also undamaged (both are being replaced anyway).  The bottom flat part of the K frame is pushed up a bit, more cupped than dented.  I estimate that I was doing 25-30 when I slid into the curb with the wheels turned to the left a bit.   Sorry I don't have a pic of the bottom of the K frame (can take one tomorrow).  Should I be concerned that there's something wrong with the K frame?  LCA and UCAs both appear to be fine and have full normal movement.  Upper ball joints are fine, other than being worn out.  Spindles appear fine as well.  Any way to verify that the K is undamaged?  Here are big pics so you can see detail.

Edit: Dang photobucket is limiting my pic size, not as big as I'd like. 

[tan top]

i, am not sure if it is my eyes but the driver side strut rod looks slightly bent to me , try the new idler arm and how it fits , check for a any ripples in the k frame around the lower control arm pivet  bolt , also cracks around by the welded in metal tube.  my guess that the sway bar is bent or at least  the bar links, also measure the distance between control arm and the k frame .

[Wakko]

I'll pull the bars out today and see.  Sway bar wasn't attached to the frame  so it's alright, thankfully. 

[suburbanfireman]

Hey Wakko - Shouldn't you be driving the Rosco car instead?  It looks like you were practicing his moves!
Seriously - What do you intend to do with the car?  If it is mainly a driver, I would just find a replacement k-frame from a bone-yard.  You already have the damaged one out of the car, so why take the chance of alignment issues later on down the road?  If you are going for the power-tour thing, or drag racing you should look into AlterKtion replacement K-frame.  It is lighter, stronger, uses coilover or airbags instead of torsion bars.  I hear it will lighten the front of your car by about 400 lbs.  It also has disk brakes for the front, so you can stop before another "pesky" curb jumps out in front of you again!
The only down side to the AlterKtion kit is that it is a little pricey.  Here is a link to the vendor. 
www.reillymotorsports.com/store/home 
  Keep us posted on the progress - I'm sure you will get the General flying again soon.

[Wakko]

Wow!! That's a sweet setup!  3500 is way out of my range though.  The car will be a daily driver type with no racing.  I'm upgrading to the scarebird front discs while it's apart to help prevent such mishaps again.   

Unfortunately, finding a K frame down here in Florida won't be that simple, and buying one to ship might be pretty darn expensive. I simply have no idea though how to check this besides looking for obvious damage.

[Mike DC]

 
Tough call about whether or not it's bent.  Those things are heavy but they can bend. 

The K-frame is actually NOT listed as a factory-approved jacking point, believe it or not!  It's ironic because practically every Mopar on the planet has probably been jacked up there a few times.  I've never understood how the factory would approve jacking up a Charger by its chrome front bumper but not approve the K-frame.

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If it's mostly disassebled, then you can turn the K-frame upside-down and check the four framerail mounting points for "square"-ness.  (I mean like whether the four legs on a table are wobbling.)  The steering box/engine mount stuff on the driver side will get in the way from laying the whole K-frame flat on the ground, but you can still use some 2x4s & carpenter levels or something to see whether the four framerail mounting points are right.

I think I would be most concerned with this issue.  If the K-frame's steering mounts or suspension stuff is "off," then it may wear those things out but at least it will only screw up some bolt-on items.  But I REALLY wouldn't want a severely twisted K-frame bolted to the unibody and holding it up.  That could start distorting the whole unibody over time.

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I also vote to get another K-frame if you have doubts. 

The factory used the same K-frame for both SB & BB wedge V8's in these model-years like 1968 and '69.  And the 4-door B-bodies used the same K-frame as the 2-doors.  So in most cases it usually isn't THAT hard to find one locally.  Yeah, the local yellow-page modern car salvage yards probably won't have it, but if you can find a few decent Mopar connections then I suspect you could turn one up.

   

[Wakko]

That's good to know...there's one old time junkyard down here and I know they had an old Mopar police car, but I don't think it was 60s.  What year range is good?

[Mike DC]

The year range is pretty narrow, I'm afraid.  It's either '66-69 or '68/69.
 
I know if you go as far back as '65 or so, they look a lot like the right item but the engine location is an inch too far forward.
I'm not 100% sure about the '66 and '67 K-frames.  They might work.  I know for a fact that the '68 and '69 ones are the same. 
1971 and up is definitely a different item.

The 1970 K-frames are a strange animal. 
They're mostly the same as a '68/69 one, and they will physically bolt under a '69 Charger and work fine.  But the sway bar layout is a bit different.  The 1970 sway bar runs through the center of the K-frame instead of being bolted onto the front of it.  (This is actually considered to be a bit of an improvement, technically.  The same thickness of sway bar has a bit more leverage on the car body this way.)  The LCA's also got different sway bar mounts for this new sway bar too, so they would also have to be from the 1970 K-frame if you used one.

It should be noted that these 1970 K-frames for B-bodies were also the same one used on 1970 E-bodies, although not many places ever have E-body parts cars anymore.

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If you do end up going on a K-frame searching crusade, DO NOT start thinking that you need to find & pay extra money for a "big block K-frame" for this car.  This is a common mistake to make, and sometimes sellers try to charge you extra for it when the buyer doesn't know any better.

A lot of people may tell you that the K-frames are different between the SB and BB motors.  It's true for slant-6 cars, which all had different K-frames from the V8's.  And the 426 Hemi cars all had their own unique K-frames too.  And even on some later B-bodies in the 1970s, they switched to seperate K-frames for the SB and BB cars with regular wedge-head V8's. 

But on the 68-70 B-bodies, ALL the wedge-head V8 motors from 318 to 440 ran the same basic K-frame.  Only the motor mounts (small, bolt-on, reproduced) are different between the SB and BB motors.

[Chryco Psycho]

it doesn`t hurt to weld in additional supports for the street box mount & box the LCAs as well for added stiffness

[ck1]

firmfeel can really do a number on reinforcing a k frame but it cost around $400 bucks, check out there site, they got lots of picture and it looks like they do a really good job...........

[BrianShaughnessy]

firmfeel can really do a number on reinforcing a k frame but it cost around $400 bucks, check out there site, they got lots of picture and it looks like they do a really good job...........

http://www.firmfeel.com/reinfkfram_b.htm

It looks decent and they come with a skid plate now... add powdercoating for $75 (that's fair).

Unfortunately,   I'm not gonna say Firm Feel is my favorite vendor right now...  I waited over 3 months for a front sway bar...  after calling Mancini back and forth 4 times over it, they decided to cancel the order.    I'll have to go elsewhere for that..  I like the looks of the tubular upper A arms they did send tho.