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Bending a Healey frame to fit.

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Visited with a fella and his brother this weekend. They were showing his Big Healey. As usual, most of the Big Healeys I ever see at the shows are knocked-out gorgeous. We chatted at length about how he had to change the floorboards and how, with the help of a friend, the floorboards caused the whole car to warp to the point that his doors wouldn't close. I, of course, chimed in on how maybe they hadn't braced the body properly and asked what he did to fix it. His door alignment at the show was perfect, as was his paint and everything else. He told me an old Healey mechanic performed an easy fix - he put it on a contraption and chain bent the frame till the doors aligned. I couldn't believe it. His assertion was this is an accepted fix for Healeys with this problem. I guess he would know, he is part of a large Healey club.
Is this so or was he pulling my leg.
 
Is it possible? Sure. I've heard of worse, and remember reading an article in Classic & Sports Car about a guy who rebuilt a Turner or something and had both frame rails bannana'd to match. In this instance it sounds like the bending was done to the floors themselves, and not the frame rails.

Is it accepted practice? Does it sound like accepted practice on any car? I don't quite see how floors could "warp" a car that was properly braced and jigged to begin with.

-William
 
This sounds like something that used to be done in the old days to fix accident damage. But of course then the idea was to straighten the frame back to the original shape, not force the frame to match the body.
 
When BCF-member, Michael Oritt and his friend were on the Targa Newfoundland vintage race last month, they found that the big Healey they were driving had bent the rear axle.

They used a post-type car lift to bend it back straight! And won in their class. I think there will be a write up about it in the upcoming AH magazine.

A lot of our old Brit cars can be fixed with "blacksmith-level" technology. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/jester.gif
 
Braced or not, it is easy to warp a tub while welding the floors in, even body on frame. (that's why I got to do my first floor job twice, TRF loved me). It has more to do with the welding technique then anything else. But to "bend the frame to adjust the doors"....I don't think that was in the factory manual, if true then my admiration for the Healy has dropped a bunch.
 
James, to me "blacksmithing" is not a technology but rather an art. and yes there was an old school body shop in queens n.y. that would put a big healey on a steel rack and "re-arch"/"straighten" the sag out of the frame rails to align the doors properly but only if the sills, floors, and rails were sound, worked great and lasted a long time, he did a friends 5 week old bj8 after he went off the road traversed a 4-5 foot high mote landing flat on all four wheels onto wet compacted beach sand resulting in the rear of each door being 3/8" - 1/2" lower then the top of the rear fenders other then a three week long back ache and a gash in his upper lip from the trafficator both he and the healey survived. lost contact with him and the healey in the mid 80's knowing him if hes still with us hes still got the car. i had a conversation with a healey restoration gent. on this very subject a week ago he told me they still use this technique. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/savewave.gif
 
Thanks, Anthony. Kinda waiting to hear that response from a true Healey nut. The fella that told me the story seemed awfully honest and straightforward. Didn't feel as if he were pulling my leg. I was just taken aback because it just seems that every Big Healey that I see a the shows is a work of art and just had a hard time imaging them being subjected to a medieval form of being placed on the rack!
 
Stretching cars on the rack is still being done today.

It is the insurance company's accepted method of realigning unibody vehicles after a crash. The manufacturers provide shops with measurements between key body points to insure the body is correct.

The racks today are hydraulic which is a big improvement over the older hand operated body racks.
 
I had the frame of my '70 GT6 stretched by a body shop that specialized in collision damage.

After restoring about 90% of the car, I was surprised to learn that the front of the frame was slightly bent in a long-ago collision. The front and rear alignment was correct, however, but all suspension adjustments were adjusted to their extremes to compensate for the bent frame. I couldn't believe I didn't notice it before, but again, the alignment was correct!

A body shop in Harrisonburg, VA pulled the frame on a hydraulic machine that measured results with a laser/computer system. Then, they reinforced key weld joints.

Was not cheap, cost about $1,000. But, it was very nice to know that the frame was in top condition. I didn't want to drive knowing the frame was whacked, and the car would never sell with a warped frame, anyway.

Antique LBC restoration: ain't it fun??? /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cry.gif
 
TR6BILL said:
... We chatted at length about how he had to change the floorboards and how, with the help of a friend, the floorboards caused the whole car to warp to the point that his doors wouldn't close. I, of course, chimed in on how maybe they hadn't braced the body properly and asked what he did to fix it. His door alignment at the show was perfect, as was his paint and everything else. He told me an old Healey mechanic performed an easy fix - he put it on a contraption and chain bent the frame till the doors aligned...
Click to expand...

Straightening a damaged frame is one thing, to bend a frame to fit a 'repaired body' and align doors is something else again. Perhaps it was the body that was twisted to fit the frame, something we do on the TR6 with shims.
 
This technique is as old as the hills...and not just on "furrin cars".

A local shop did a resto on a 1958 DeSoto ragtop last year and the two shop owners explaiined how they put the car on their frame machine and bent it so the door gaps would be close before doing the final fit and finish...and the car sold at Barrett-Jackson for $285,000!

Think of it as jacking up a slab or foundation on a house so the floor sits flat...you could shim the sill plate or move the foundation to fit...either one will work.
 
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