When I first started building stuff I never bother to check if something was square.I would tell myself its "good enough" or that it "doesn't matter".But as my projects continued to evolve "good enough" didn't come even close to how I envisioned the idea in my head.With some projects I have considered cutting out everything I did and starting over when I found out just how out of square it ended up.I built a tubular front end for my gambler dodge and instead of having the frame on jackstands and having stable reference points on the concrete.I measured from the concrete with the truck sitting on its tires.After jacking up the truck to check something those points of reference were lost.One error stacked on top of another and when the front end was done one corner was 2" higher than the other  when measured to the ground.The truck looks fine because everything is based of those measurements and the only giveaway is when its parked on something halfway close to flat. I stupidly ASSumed the front end of the truck was square even though I got the truck after it had been nose-rolled in a ditch that mangled the fenders,hood,and doors but left most of the truck "straight" so all my measurements came off the ground for the tubework.I built a rear bumper for it just recently, and I knew that the truck wasnt even remotely square so I based all my measurements off the truck itself.While the rear bumper is not square to the ground its square to the truck so it works out.

A project that seems to occupy most of my thoughts even though I haven't even turned a wrench on it yet is my 1973 plymouth scamp.Like it or not I will be turning the scamp into a car that I can use to go camping ( not inside it) so its gonna be driven down rough gravel roads, at speed.In order to give the car a bit more of chance at surviving the abuse it will be lifted 3" and will run LT tires 29-31" tall.After 46 years the front suspension mounts are tearing out of the sheetmetal, and the factory torsion bars can not provide that much lift while keeping the all important suspension travel needed for dirt roads.So I am going to graft in the front frame and suspension off a 2wd dodge dakota and set it 3" down away from the body relative to "stock".Unlike my other projects this one can't be more than a 1/16" off in any direction.So I plan to measure everything before I start cutting or removing anything.I am also planning on using the nice concrete floor in my new shop to fullest so I plan on transferring measurements from the car to it.

First off how do I make sure the car is as square and straight as possible before I do anything do it?

How can I make sure the car is square to the floor?

When I use a plumb bob and lasers to transcribe measurements to floor what should I use so that they stay intact for the duration of this project?Its gonna take time to get the car done and I'm gonna have to sweep under it from time to time so I dont really want to use chalk lines because I'll have to redo the measurements every time I roll under the car and my shirt just happens to brush against one of the lines.

Once I do have those lines how can I measure vertically straight up from those points to locate the new suspension geometry?

Granted in the 70's mopar didnt really pay that much attention to making things straight,square,and true but even then its probably better than me holding out my thumb and saying "eh,good enough".I'm the one who will be driving it and I want my vision of it to match how it actually turns out.Whats the point of spending alot of effort to make something look cool if the suspension geometry and chassis alignment is so far out of wack that it cant even be driven at 25 mph without out being a white knuckle experience?

find an old auto body shop that had had a "frame machine" for a long time . he would of had charts for the unibody showing where to measure from to check the "square"

I thought about using an entire dakota frame.It would certainly be easier than welding subframe connectors and torque boxes after the fact to make the chassis as stiff as it should been from the factory.I had a old rusty 93 dakota that I took its 4 cylinder and manual trans and its front clip for another project then I cut the frame off just behind the first cab mount because the frame after that was swiss cheese.Now I can't seem to find any parts dakotas. So right now I have the just the front frame section.

Setting the car on  a table would be nice but I'm gonna struggle with just getting the car on jackstands high enough that I can work under it.So lifting it high enough to be on a table and high enough off the table to do anything under is kinda impossible.So if I can't use the floor what else could I do to get the new suspension in square?The factory set the suspension tolerance at within 1/4" of square.At the very minimum I could settle for 1/8"

If only you weren't clear across the country. 4wd dakotas a much more common out here too, although the 2wd swb dakotas are also common,I have one sitting in my driveway but I'm not taking it apart...

So Ive noticed that extended cab or long box dakotas seem to be more common than regular cab short box dakota.So most likely I will have to shorten the frame for it to fit the car.What is the best way to deal with the frame shortening with respect to the car body?Its highly unlikely that the body floor pan and the truck frame rails have the same raised and flat areas in the same place.I'm thinking that even if I found a regular cab short box dakota to canabilze that the frame and the body wouldnt sit as close together as they could.To get it to sit right would probally require sectioning parts of the frame and altering the wheelbase along with channeling the body.So what about if the frame is longer than what I need?

The question you really need to ask yourself is, is this really worth it to do? With the amount of effort this project sounds like it will take, you'd be miles ahead by selling the Scamp for parts and buying something else, like maybe a running Dakota or maybe something like an old AMC Eagle 4wd, or do a van.

Ed

I'm not going for a monster truck or hardcore 4x4 vehicle, its just the factory front suspension is unsuitable to the abuse it will take.

I'm looking to make something like this but with commonly available LT tires and enough ground clearance to not worry about all the the football sized rocks that the roads around here seem to grow.

I'm keeping the scamp it just needs better suspension for bombing down gravel roads…..

Pickup trucks have horrible unloaded weight distribution so handling at the limit sucks.

You're putting a Scamp on a pick up truck frame. You may end up with a better suspension, but you're not going to get good handling. Especially when you consider that any time you mount an entire car complete with unitized chassis on a truck frame, you're raising the overall COG

AMC eagles don't have enough power to get out of their own way,and the single range 4x4 system can't handle snow or mild inclines with out bogging down the already underpowered engine.Vans are too top heavy.

Lest I remind you that you wanna put a car on a a 2wd truck frame, the Eagle's 4wd system although it's actually an AWD system, it's still gonna be better traction-wise then any 2wd, and BTW you can replace the AWD t-case with a real t-case. As for how weak, one word; Turbo
 
Vans still have truck type suspensions which will handle the terrain you're planning to take on. And i would suspect it would handle about as good as a car on a truck frame

I have a running driving 4wd dakota with a 5.2L v8 and an auto tragic. It plows like a tractor through corners until you provoke the light rear end to come around.Corner exit is sloppy because the rear end can't provide enough forward bite to overcome the inertia of the front end so you end up with a lot of tail wagging if your trying to get out of a low speed corner or up a hill.

Those old 40+ yr old A bodies weren't known to be road course champions, especially with a V8 under the hood, upsetting the overall balance, but then again for the desire of a better suspension, how do you suppose a Scamp on a 2wd Dakota frame will handle??

If you want a rally car, forget the Dakota frame/front end and just rebuild and reenforce the Scamp's suspension. Thats pretty much how the Mustang and Javelin were built.

Ed

The factory torsion bars can be made to handle I'll give you that.With the torsion bars I *could* crank the bars up to max to make bigger tires fit but it would kill suspension travel,ride quality,and front end grip.Any ideas how I could lift the front 3" and keep the suspension in the middle of its travel?

I've heard a rumor that dodge van spindles might fit and give a bit of lift any truth to that?

As far as moostang front suspension why not use the dakota front suspension that I have?

The dakota pieces I have are the 6 lug but its easy enough to convert it to 5 lug.

As far as aftermarket support goes how many moostang 2 suspension kits are designed for max suspension travel on rough roads?Eventually I might modify the front suspension for more travel.

okay - I have to chime in on this one .  My vote is to upgrade the Scamp's suspension and run it vs grafting in another similar suspension.  I road-raced my '71 Demon GTS-R for a few years which included several chassis and suspension mods, which I'll review now.

Front end.  I used the 1.14" torsion bars - which were the biggest I could buy from Mopar at the time.  With the adjuster bolts all the way out the chassis was still too high, and with the bars indexed 1/6th is was too low - the bars were so stiff that I had to cut/re-index the chassis mounds under the floor 1/12th of a position to split the difference in the hex-head bar ends.  It was a pain but it was worth it - I lowered the chassis just the right amount.  I also used Magnum Force Racing upper control arms to allow for the additional drop.  I used 'newer' 73-up A-body spindles and BIG 12(?) inch brakes/calipers from a Fury.

The rear was tubbed 3 inches and had custom leafs with oil-lite bronze bushings.  The car handles amazingly well considering the relatively low-tech approach.  I'd wager your Scamp would perform just fine with an upgraded/modified factory setup. 

Here's a video of the Demon - it's a crappy video but it shows how hard I pushed the front end into the turns, and it had an all-iron 440 under the hood.  The chassis never let me down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVM6QidOFbo

If you crank up the torsion bars and modify the rebound bumpers I think you'll get as close to what you're after if not better than grafting in a Dakota or other chassis

- Sam

yes I know - my point was I think an A-body likely has as much adjustment potential as a Dakota...unless it's a matter of ride height to clear tires and 'stacking' a frame under the A-body front end is required...in which case I think I'd do a solid axle swap (SAS) with a basic set of 48" RC springs and a D44 before grafting in a Dakota (or any other) torsion bar frame section.  A SAS on an A-body kinda actually sounds like fun

The later B-bodies, Cordoba, etc, had Isloated K-members. FirmFeel  Possible to space the K-member down a bit to get a little more lift.

Roadkill did an offroad challenger, and Dirt Every Day did a 4x4 roadrunner.

Roadkills offroad challenger was them cutting up an old circle track car to fit bigger tires,and dirt every days road runner had a new "frame" welded under it with aftermarket solid axles,4wd,and a late model diesel engine..Neither option really built new and improved suspension geometry to work with the car itself.

What?

So I'm looking for a 2wd dakota frame and 97+ dakotas are much more common.I was thinking of using a frame from a 87-90 preferably for the 5 lug, or a 91-96 just so I can convert it back to 5 lug.Would their be any valid reason to use a 97+ frame over a 87-96 frame/suspension.I'm not overly thrilled with the weird 6 lug dakota pattern.

Much to far away.