support bar cut out

[FEDNV]

So after 5 years of driving this car after dropping a motor and trans in it I have taken it completely apart to redo the chassis color and go over the whole car.  Found that one of the support (diagonal bars) was cut out at some point.




I currently do not have anything in the car that would be hindered by this bar.  Could it of been taken out for flex in the chassis as it is really close to the middle?  Should I put another one back in?

Anything I should really look out for while inspecting the chassis?  I was going to have it media blasted so I can really see all the welds.

On another note, what does everyone feel about powder coating the chassis? 
thanks
Scott

[dreracecar]

As a shop that does repairs on chassies, you pay more for me to repair it if it has been PC'd and it takes considerable amount of labor to get the repaired area finnish to match back up

[FEDNV]

This is on both sides of the chassis if that was unclear.

[rooman]

A couple of questions---first, is the car moly or mild?    Looking at the photos the welds look a little like MIG.
 
                                    second, have you had any chassis flex problems running it the way it is?

Roo

[FEDNV]

The chassis is mild and I don't think we have had any flex problems.  I have not broke any transmissions (have stock case glide) or any other parts on the chassis and I do not see any visible cracks as of now.  Kinda why I wanted to have the chassis media blasted so I can really inspect the whole car and welds.  Most of the welds on the car look very cold and look like MIG.  The cage has some updated bars and you can tell those are TIG.

Are there any tell tale signs of a chassis flexing?  Something to look for?

[rooman]

If you have been running the car for five years and you don't find any cracks after blasting it I would leave it as it is.  Some chassis flex is usually beneficial at the hit as it helps avoid shocking the tires.   From your comment about not breaking the Powerglide do I understand that you have a transmission mount as well as front and mid plates. Again, don't mess with success but two mounting points are the norm.

Roo

[FEDNV]

Yes the car does have a tranny mount but we never ran any bolts into the tranny so it was just sitting on the mount.  We were going to cut it out.  I asked about it on here awhile ago and the consensus was to not have one.  The car does have a mid plate and front plate.

Does anyone have any opinions on powder coating the chassis or just paint it?  I have heard pros and cons.

[dreracecar]

I gave you mine, PC (powder coat) is fine if you dont plan on any repairs or changes that require welding

[FEDNV]

Thanks dreracecar, my plan was the get the chassis media blasted then do a few changes to the chassis and inspection then get it powder coated. 

[hotrod316]

we magmaflux all  the welds 

[dreracecar]

Wow, Never saw a Magnaflux booth that big that would handle an entire chassie before

[BK]

I've had 2 powder coated chassis. And I will try to never have another.

[FEDNV]

I've had 2 powder coated chassis. And I will try to never have another.

Can you expand on your experiences?

[JrFuel Hayden]

We have a powder-coated chassis since 2004, and it sure holds-up and looks great. Yes if any cracks show-up from tire shake, we had to grind the PC off where we needed to weld. Also if you are planning to media blast the PC off, in my experience that doesn't work, when we front halfed the chassis, so we just needed to strip the back-half. It just makes the coating mushy, so we had to use strong paint stripper. My powder-coater tried to just powder-coat over the old stuff that didn't work either. But we sure like the way our all orange chassis looks and doesn't chip easy. Our 1'st powder-coated chassis was in very good shape after 6 years, and the only reason we re-powder coated was we put new tubing from the motor forward  to go from 200" WB to 225" WB and set-it up to run our early Hemi or  SBC. One reason we went with orange PC is that is our team colors AND we can see any cracks easier, black chassis are hard to see any cracks. And of course allot of teams just leave the chassis bare, so they can rust ?

Jon 

[FEDNV]

Jon thanks for the response.  My friend and I looked your car over at the Hot Rod Reunion and it really is a beautiful car and the attention to detail really impressed me.  The only real negatives I have heard from people is the crack issue with powder coating.  My frame is currently painted and looks to be the original color from when it was built in the early 90's.