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Old 02-19-2008, 02:57 PM   #38
GreaseDog
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Member ID: 21917
Location: IN
Age: 27
Posts: 6,892
Re: How to identify if your 73-87 was repaired by GM's fuel tank recall
its called pre-bending, some of you may refer to it as practice. basically, just taking 2 trucks and smashing them together. the front ends get stronger when you wrap the front of the front fenders into the core support (into the "cavity" normally occupied by the headlights/trim/grille, and then wrap the front of the hood down around it all, the beds hit harder with the tailgate flipped upside down with the "top" even with the bottom of the frame rails, corners kicked up under the truck, and the lower rear quarter panels smashed tight over top of them. we've tested some different crush cage designs, as well as some "tricks" which explore the gray areas of the rules. rather than completely strip and build a truck, then prebend, we generally pre-bend, then build. pre-bending often leads to a little bit of playing around, in mostly stock trucks, often with stock tanks.

why do we even bother pre-bending with another truck? because its against the rules to bend it with a sledge hammer, but when you show up with a truck that already looks like its been through a derby, that rule no longer applies.

ironically, when building 2 identical trucks, one can bend the corners of the tailgate under on one truck, while packing the front fenders of another with one hit.
1977 Chevy K20 - 1980 GMC K2500 - 1992 Chevy C1500 SWB - 1993 Chevy C2500 SAS - 1994 Chevy K1500
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