(Updated)Need some help on my i beam flip(Plenty of pics)
 

I am in the middle of my i beam flip here is what i got-


http://i822.photobucket.com/albums/z...h_GEDC0342.jpg

everything was coming together until i found out that the beams were not that easy to "just heat and bend"
You can see where i have tried to do so on this pic-

http://i822.photobucket.com/albums/z...h_GEDC0341.jpg

I am trying to heat and bend it at the first bend in the beam. As it is right now the beams are flipped and swapped places. i left the spindels on there original sides.
Here is another pic of how bad it is out of line. Any help on how this can be corrected i greatly appreciated.
http://i822.photobucket.com/albums/z...h_GEDC0340.jpg
here is a pic of how much lift can be had if i just got it aligned.
http://i822.photobucket.com/albums/z...h_GEDC0335.jpg

uh, that looks scary.. you know they had specail tools to bend these beams in line back in the day.. my service manuals show a bottle jack mounted on a steel beam chained to the beam.. these are suposed to be cold bent it says, not heated as that weekens the i-beam...

Like '79 f-150 guy 'said they should be bent cold. A shop that works on big trucks can do it. Heat is not good,I did bend one with heat on an old chevy , then drove it 10 years every day with no problems, lucky i guess .But I would recomend not to use heat.

You can heat and bend them, but cold bending is better. Problem is it takes the right tools to do it cold. Desert guys heat and bend them all the time and it works. You just need to know what you are doing.

I would not bend them where you are, but that's just me.

It's funny that it is coming out now that you sill need to bend the beams when doing a beam flip. I seem to remember all the guys here saying that you don't need to bend the beams when flipping them - just turn them over and go. I didn't think this could work, but I've never tried it so I had no real grounds to argue.

If you need to bend the beams when doing the flip it just gives me one more reason not to like this idea...

Thanks for the help, guys. I guess i am going to put it back together the stock way or heat and bend them. I tried heating and bending but i just can't get them hot enough. I will update this thread to let yall know what i figured out. The guy down at the alignment shop is pretty cool, so i going to see what he says about it and see if he can trie to align it for me.

If you put them back on the stock way I can give you a little help with how to bend them

Well that is the project for tomorrow, so what do you got to help me, because i am definately open to suggestions.

I'm too lazy to re-type it so I dug up a thread on another site where I posted it. Here's the link. Spend some time reading - you'll learn a bit...
DIY Bent/Extended Beams. Just a few questions

From post #21 in the link above:

"Bend on the beams is based on clearing the frame rail at full bump. See the pics below - it's usually 3 or so inches inboard of the shocks.

I have covered much of this "write-up" before and is in those threads I posted. You seem a little too lazy to read/learn, but since I'm feeling nice today - I'll write it again...

A good way to do it is make the brackets and mount the beams on your truck. Then set the truck at desired ride height and secure on jack stands. With the tire off the beam/rotor assembly loop a ratchet strap around the beam end and up around something solid above it. Having an engine cage already in the truck makes this MUCH easier. Tighten the ratchet strap to hold the beam in place. You then grab a piece of steel tube or plate (.120 wall or thicker if you are going tube). Cut a piece that fits snugly between the frame rail and beam - but taper the end to give the beam room to bend if you use tube. Weld it to the inside edge of the frame rail.
You then heat the beam with a rosebud tip. Throw a magnetic based angle finder on the rotor and ratchet up (make sure it's going straight up - so as not to effect the caster in the beam end - change that later) with the ratchet strap. This will pull the beam against the plate or tube and bend at the contact location. Go slowly and ratchet up until the angle finder reads zero. When it does - leave it there to cool. When it's cool you're done with that side and can plate the beams. Now is the time to heat the end of the beam (beyond the radius arm attachement point) and bend back if you want to change the caster.

Repeat on the other side."

Ok I made some head way to day. You dont have to heat and bend nothing. All you have to do. Is put the spindle/knuckle that was originally on one side put it over to the other side. I will have pics up tomorrow maybe, if not then on friday. But on my truck i took the spindle/knuckle that was on the drivers side on to the passenger side and then flipped it over upside down. Now the tire is straight.

To get the tie rods right you have to go through this process. For drivers side you just loosen the adjustment but and turn the tie-rod over and then through its hole and your good.

For the passengers side, you cut in the straightest part you can find of it, i think mine will be more towards the radius arm, anyway you cut(with a sawzall or something that will cut straight.) Then you flip it over- sleeve it - then weld it back. I am going to get this done in the next week or so i will let yall know how it turns out. After it is done i will be doing a build thread on because know one really knows whether it can be done, so i wanted to just do it and find out for myself.

post pics..

pics are on the way they will be up tomorrow when i take them.

Me and pro70golfer14 have been trying to figure out how to do this for quite some time. His truck is a 78 F150 and mine is a 75 F250 camper special. I am doing the flip on mine right now too and here is a summary of what I have done so far. I removed both the I beam/radius arm/steering knuckle assemblies from my truck. I have blocks under the frame so the tires were off the ground at full droop. I then removed the brake calipers, hubs and bearings, and caliper brackets from the spindle (on 3/4 ton and up, the brake caliper brackets bolt to the spindle with 4 bolts). I then took out the kingpins and flipped the thrust bearing to the other side of the I beam and put the spindle back on the beam. You have to cut about an eighth of an inch off of the kingpin on the side that is farthest from the notch that the kingpin securing bolt goes through. I had to do this so that the grease fitting caps will go back on without hitting the kingpins. You also have to remove the bolt that holds the radius arm to the beam and put it in from the other side. Before you put the beams back in you must swap the shock mount brackets from one radius arm to the other as they are side specific. Now you put the drivers I beam and spindle on the passenger side and vise versa. The springs, shocks and sway bars will all bolt right back up the way they came off. This is the point I am at now and I can see that the brake lines and steering are gonna be a problem. The tie rods insert through the top of the steering arms on the spindle on 3/4 ton trucks and insert through the bottom on 1/2 ton trucks. I am researching to see if I can use 1/2 ton tie rods on my 3/4 ton to make it bolt up perfectly, since the beam assemblies are upside down and the tie rods are oriented like a 1/2 ton. If this wont work I will have to get creative with the torch and the welder. As for the brake lines, I will have two options to explore. One is to simply add a small hard line extension where the flex line starts and bolt the brake assembly back on like it was. The other is to get creative with the calipers and the way that the brackets bolt to the spindle to get the calipers closer to the brake lines, an option only available on 3/4 ton and up trucks. The caster is negative so it will be interesting how it drives once I get it done but it doesn't look too bad. I pretty much bought this truck to try the I beam flip on and have only seen one on the road in person. I will post pics when I am done as well.

hey boss300, post some pics. i'd like to see what you got going on as i'm contomplating a beam flip..

I will post some pics soon. After doing some measuring last night, it looks as if all I will have to do is use 1/2 ton tie rods on my truck and the steering will work out perfect. So if you have a 1/2 ton, you can use 3/4 ton tie rods. I have a tapered reamer that will make a hole perfect for a tie rod end and I have test fit the reamer in both the 1/2 ton and 3/4 ton spindles and they are the same. I also measured the length of the tie rods and they are the same as far as a tape measure can roughly tell.

Ok I have more updates. I finished everything today except for extending the brake lines because they are too short. The truck is back on the ground with all 4 tires on it. I got 7 inches of lift out of it as well. Now for what I did about the steering, as it turns out, the 3/4 ton trucks used 2 different tie rod setups. My truck is a heavier duty version (camper special) which has tie rods that insert from the top of the spindles. 3/4 ton trucks that are lighter duty have the exact same tie rods as the 1/2 tons. So, if you flip a half ton, you need to change the one piece tie rod on the passenger side (the parts stores call it a center link, not a tie rod end) and change the driver side outer tie rod end. The two part numbers for the center links at autozone are DS807 for the one that inserts from the bottom and DS796 for the one that inserts from the top. The part numbers for the drivers outer tie rods are DS806 for the one that inserts from the bottom and DS794 for the one that inserts from the top. It is nice to know that the parts are out there and they are factory for parts. Now for a note on the I beams. There are 2 different ways you can put it together. One way will give you correct camber and negative caster and the other way will give you positive camber like pro70golfers pics at the top of this thread but correct caster. It is probably easier to correct the camber than the caster because fixing the camber involves bending the beam where fixing the caster requires twisting the beam. I chose the correct camber way and will see how bad it drives with a few degrees of negative caster and if it is unacceptable I will change it up. To make the camber correct you leave the radius arms on the same side so you dont have to swap shock mounts like I did, flip and swap sides with both the spindles and the beams. To make the caster correct, leave the radius arms alone once again and flip the beams, leaving them on the same side of the truck and just flip and swap sides with the spindles. I will take good pics tomorrow and post as it got too late tonight to do it.