Link to Ball joint question

[GreenMeanie]

I was wondering if I could just take the face plate from a ball joint head and cut off the face plate of the Linkpin head and replace it with the ball joint one? Or will the bolt holes in the backside of the head not match up?

[Ol'fogasaurus]

This is a partial view of a BJ frame head. The pan is on a home made rotisserie so I can’t show you the whole head so below are photos based on a K&L frame head that might help.



The K&L frame head. The two reliefs are spaced to fit the K&L beam width to hole it in place on the frame head. Notice that there are locaters on the frame head that ride inside the two mounts and help keep the access hole free of being infringed upon.



A side view of the frame head. I am not sure how deep the reliefs are.



This is a shot of a K&L beam located on the frame head (sorry about the tootsies being shown but that’s life isn’t it). Notice that everything fits nice and snug (not trying to talk down to you here).



This is a BJ beam sitting on the same frame head with the bottom tube in the relief for the bottom tube of the K&L beam. The upper beam does not ride in the relieve bug quite a bit above it.

If you were working with a BJ frame head the picture would be opposite and you would have to trim the beam around the access hole to bring the bolt hole and upper relief into a location that would fit the K&L beam. It can be done but it is a lot of work.



This is not the only way to do it, you can whack the old frame head assembly off and weld in a K&L frame head assuming you trust your welding skilles… I don’t trust mine.

I’ve reposted the next few photos many times but for sake of discussion here they are again. They were posted by a STF’er quite a while back but I don’t remember who as I snagged them several years ago. Apparently the K&L bottom piece is the same or close enough that the top piece can be swapped over.



The cap so-to-speak.





The finished swap.

Some people who are going to be more aggressive just rebuild the whole front end w/tubes or go to a whole tube frame. The stopper is usually the title number on the rear of the tunnel by the access to the shift linkage coupler to the transaxle.

I hope this is what you were asking.

Lee

[GreenMeanie]

I didn't think there was that much difference between the two WOW.
Thanks for the POST.
I was thinking of just moving over the very front piece but I can see that isn't happening.
Have to think of another PLAN I guess LOL.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I tried to find a pix of the complete frame head cut-off and change over conversion but couldn't find it. I have contacted someone to post theirs but it won't happen (if it does) until later this evening.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I almost forgot, one if the Australians (Smiley: viewtopic.php?f=28&t=140647) has cut further down on the tunnel and will use it to extend his frame head. We might as well get as much into this string as possible. There was nother string on the Manx club where they did this also but the sie seems to have gone away.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Mods, think this is stinky... I mean sticky material?

[Clonebug]

Here is my framehead replacement.

I had a professional welder do it for me and he free hand cut the old one off the existing pan....then went out and free hand cut the replacement off the spare pan.

All he did was take a piece of welders chalk and mark a line approximately 2 inches from the firewall and the took a 7 1/2 inch grinder with a thin cutting wheel and zipped it off for lack of a better word. It was AMAzING to watch him do it.

He then welded the new one in place. It all took about an hour from pulling the grinder out of his car to driving off when finished.

[Steve Arndt]

Don't rush it. You need to take a lot of cross measurements to get things square with respect to the beam relative to rear torsion housing.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

For some more information or more ways that have been done using tubing you can peek at some of the build off STF the Leatherneck collected.

viewtopic.php?f=28&t=136758

More information on and off this topic: viewtopic.php?f=28&t=105315