Figured out why my Cuda's front bumper was an inch lower on the drivers side.

stretch said
You would be surprised just how few spot welds hold the frame rails in these cars! I changed the left front rail on my buddies '69 Valiant in my garage in a couple of weekends. It isn't hard to do at all. Once you have the old one out the new one kind of drops into place. The factory tolerance measurements are + or - 1/4" in all directions. (Add those numbers up and it's easy to see why Dougs and TTI headers don't fit every car exactly the same). Once you are happy with the rail placement its just a matter of plug welding the welds you drilled out.

When we found the bad rail in his car the look of disappointment on his face was staggering to say the least. I looked at him and said "It looks like we are going to learn how to change a unibody frame rail. If the drunken auto workers could build it on a moving assembly line I'm sure two sober guys can replace it on a hoist in my garage." and we did. Keep in mind neither one of us had done any body work at that point. Since then we replaced the floor pans, repaired the left rear frame rail, did a spring relocation and installed spring sliders on that car.

I'm just saying any of us can do whatever we set our mind to. Keep your eye on the prize and enjoy learning as you go.

I have a complete inner tub from a Dart that's going in it. I parted that out last summer for this. I spent all last summer with a spot weld cutter, so I know how these things go together, and it is kind of amazing! My father-in-law, who helped out from time to time.."you mean that '68 Charger I had, was just held together with a bunch of spot welds?!?" Even more when we dropped the k-frame, and he saw the whole suspension, brakes, engine was held on place by 4 bolts, lol.
I got a welder a month or 2 back, just need to get a gas bottle for it, and do some practicing. I'm in the same boat you were, I've worked on cars my whole life, enough to keep them running, but never anything like this. For now, I'm looking at it as a learning experience.. just to kind of keep the pressure off to 'make it look like new and get it running tomorrow' thing.
Hearing your story gives me encouragement (which I get a lot on here, which is great!). Thanks man!