It is for people who's mother and father are brother and sister......
I am wondering..... are you for real...
Do a search on Tempering in Metalurgy ...
If you atempt that chit on the I beams ....you will only weaken them and cause a serious mechanical failure.... HUGE mistake

 

Agree. I've been on this forum for 4 years and everyone mentions it, but no one does it.

arent they cast iron? Cast iron doesn't bend.

 

Yes, this is for real.

I've had it done on vans that were in the era of the king pins, prior to 1992.

All 70's and 80's era vans needed to have the I-beams heated and bent to do a proper front end alignment, to correct the camber.

In that era, it was hard to find a good shop that would do the heating and bending correctly. I got ripped by one "National" brand shop once, picking up the van after alignment, and the right wheel still was cocked, top leaning out really bad, and no sign that the beam was bent, no marks on the beam, and oil residue still on the beam. At that time, it was common to pay over $125 for a correct alignment, where most shops were doing 'normal' alignments for $39.95.

Since the 1992 model, "Do Not Bend Beam" is embossed in the I-beams.
Ball joints achieve the adjustment of caster/chamber in this case.


Im50fast wrote-
The front I-beams are Forged *steel*, not cast iron, that's why they can be heated and bent.

 

Single beam truck axles throughout history were bent to align them. Some of us who were here when dinosaurs walked the earth remember this.

Likewise, if you changed springs on an older Ford pickup or van in the Twin I-beam kingpin days, bending the twin I-beams was the way to do it. They were forged steel and hot rodders who wanted to raise or lower the front end of a pickup or van had to bend them; there were companies that were in the biz of selling pre-bent I-beams. Problem was matching the exact loaded ride height with different springs, etc, with the right beams for camber.

Here's an interesting patent application for a device to bend straight front axles: Patent US6499332 - Wheel alignment apparatus for bending front axles - Google Patents

The "do not bend" era twin I-beams may have been switched from steel to cast nodular iron for some years from what I remember.

George

 

Good Info !!!

 

Yeah, like me. It was common back when BIG trucks (KW, Pete, etc) ran bias ply tires and radials were first becoming available for big rigs. The front axles had to be bent for proper camber.

 

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...tml#post800409

before the stamped steel radius arms

 

Sounds to me like beam bending WAS a real thing.

Not IS.

 

May still be,, on some automobiles. As you know once ford started installing ball joints on the i-beams, there is a cam adjuster to set the camber. Now ford does not recommend bending the beams in my manual. They recommend replacing them. I have also read on the ranger site that some i-beams are cast and others forged, I am still checking into that to see what I can learn.

BUT here is another example of how the camber on solid axles were adjusted.


Camber-Caster Adjusting Defined

Also

http://faridv8.proboards.com/thread/...jes-beam-28-al

 

Ford I beams can be and have been successfully adjusted. Read this as "bend to adjust". I bought a new 1965 F100, first year for the twin I beam. (Yeah, I am an old guy) It drove poorly and was wearing the tires. The selling Ford dealer pissed around with it a couple times and said they could do nothing. Ford finally sent it out to a real truck shop, the truck shop adjusted the camber by bending the I beams. End of front end problems with that truck.
And to the OP, I have no idea what the truck shop parentage may have been.

 

that would depend on what you are driving wouldn't it?

 

I saw this thread the other day and then this morning I ran across an ad on craigslist for an old axle bending setup:

Ford Twin I Beam Alignment Tools

Kind of a weird coincidence.

 

WRONG. Lifted vans are still aligned by bending. Truck alignment shops are some of the few places that still have the equipment to do so. Some places (WeldTec among others) sell beams they bend for this purpose. Shouldn’t be misinforming people...