Being the loud-mouthed sort of guy, I'll tell you all about it. We unloaded it from the delivery truck and moved it to a pickup truck. The frame is narrow enough that it fit in the back just fine. All the extra bits were packed beneath a piece of plywood where the fuel tank belongs. I could tell by looking at the front of the frame while it was still on the delivery truck that the driver's side of the crumple tube was a speck higher than the other side. Once we got it out I could tell that someone either dropped it on that part or maybe had most of the weight of the frame balanced on the nose while hoisting it into the truck. The damage is limited only to the crumple zone which on this frame simply unbolts. So straightening it will be easy. What the frame looks like: It looks just like the one we saw at the Memphis show only without suspension pieces on it. If you weren't at Memphis, check out the photos posted at: http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/DMCForum/lst and then click the folder "Memphis 2002" and then "Pearce". The engineering looks excellent, but the welds holding it all together could look better. I'm not going to badmouth the work. The opinions I heard at Memphis were varied from, "It isn't safe" to "It doesn't need to be pretty, and it won't be visible anyway." I'm going to take it to a stainless steel fabrication shop that I've done business with before and have them go over it. There are areas I want to polish such as what is visible in the engine compartment and maybe even all of it if it isn't too much of a hassle. I was disappointed to see that they used American threads on everything. I would rather see them use metric like was done at the factory. The front lower control arms look excellent! Whoever welded those is qualified to make jewelry. For the price, they are going to give the other aftermarket ones a run for their money. This frame also has the stainless steel trailing arms that do away with trailing arm bolts. To make toe-in adjustments to the rear wheels, you move spacers from one side of the joint to the other. This is incredibly superior to the OEM way of doing it. My only concern is that the plastic? spacers (washers) they used are rather thick. I haven't measured anything yet, but it looks like one of these spacers is about twice as thick or more as an OEM alignment shim. Unless the frame is made dead on the money, I would expect to need to find some thinner alignment washers for fine adjustment. I feel this way because when I had my car at Sears for a 4 wheel alignment, they said that the OEM spacers were too thick and instructed me on how to make thinner ones at home which I later installed. If my new frame is like the others that PDC makes, it won't need any adjustment (according to them). I can't find the receipts off hand, but so far I have around $10K spent on the basic frame, all the options and having it delivered. I will probably spend a few grand more installing it. I want to repaint all the parts that are being reused, replace the refrigerant lines with R-134a barrier hoses, maybe replace the hard brake & fuel lines with SS, etc. But for now I have too many other projects in the works that I need to finish first. Then I need to find a lift that can take the body off the old frame. I'm considering making a set of trusses out of wood supported by 4 bottle jacks. I'll know if I can make that work once I've done the math. Maybe I'll just get one of those in-home lifts that you can park a second car under. Walt ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Sell a Home for Top $ http://us.click.yahoo.com/RrPZMC/jTmEAA/jd3IAA/HliolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: DMCForum-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
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