How can I tell if my frame/chassis is bent?

[Rack]

I recently had my '68 charger (it's nothign but a shell right now) on jack stands, but something bothered me.

I had all 4 stands in the same spot opposite eachother (for another words, where I had the one on the front left of the car, I put the one on the front right on the exact opposite spot. Same for the rears).


What disturbed me is taht even though all 4 stands were in the "Same" spot, the frame wasn't touching the front left jack stand. From where I had it, it was in the same spot as the front right one so I'm guessing if the chassis weren't bent, it should of been touching? THe car and all 4 stands were on even, level concrete so that isn't the issue.


How would I find out for sure if it's bent? ON the holes of the frame rails, there is some "Damage". At first I thought it was cuz the towed the car using those holes but now I think the used those holes to try and bend the chassis back into place.

If it is bent, can it be fixed? How would I go about doing that?


Here's a pic to show what I"m talking about...



This isn't the only place where the frame rails are "Torn" open through the holes like that.

[Mike DC]

 
You can check the whole thing for square at home if you're willing to put the time/effort into it.  Levels, strings, etc.  I've done it.

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It's true that these cars had some real sloppy tolerances right from the factory.  Very sloppy, like 1/2 an inch or more different in some places.  But when there's full-blown tracking/thrust-angle problems, doors won't close right, etc, then it's usually worse than a factory-done issue and it indicates a hit chassis.

The factory was sloppy as hell where they could get away with it, but they also knew exactly the kinds of places where they couldn't get away with it if they wanted the car to drive normally. 

 

[Rack]

Thanks, Mike.


I'll see if I can figure it out. Any guidelines I should follow or anything? Or just measure from corner to corner, side to side, etc... and make sure all the opposite measurements are the same?

How close to equal should they be?

[Mike DC]

Start by figuring out if there's any specific clues to HOW and WHAT is bent. 

If it's horsepower-bent, that's a specific kind of bent in a specific direction.  For example, the driver-side door gaps probably won't match the passenger side.  (The upper gap at the vertical door/quarter seam on the driver's side will be wider at the top than at the bottom, etc.)

If the car got hit that hard in an accident, and the workers didn't bother to straighten out the frame before hiding the damage, then they also probably didn't do a good enough job on the repairs to really hide it from you either.  Start looking for it.

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Bent cars are a lot easier to decipher if you can start with some idea of what happened to it first.  If not, then you can really start chasing your tail trying to figure out what's going on. 

The OVERALL factory dimensions were close enough to keep them rolling straight, but a lot of the specific measurements can be pretty cockeyed even on a non-bent car.

Example:  Just look at how mis-matched a lot of the flanges between two panels were when they were spot-welded together.  The factory assembly welds left half those panels way outta whack by modern standards.  The issue is visible all over the car.  Rockers, doorjambs, underhood/firewall, etc. 

[Rack]

Thanks, Mike.


Hopefully I'll be able to do this. I learn better via the "Show me" method so it's hard to read and do.


I know no one locally that is that knowledgable with cars so I'm on my own here.

Hopefully whatever happened didn't do any major irrepairable damage.