fabricated frame rails(oem terror in street trucks)

I have a question about the rear frame notch sections you fabricated for the awd denali(or whatever it was). In the pics in street trucks you had the sides there and were putting gussets in btw the two pieces before you welded them into a notch. In the pic you have about 5 or so gussets welded on the one piece, but there are about 15 lines drawn on it, did you put gussets where every line is? I'm building my frame like that with lazer cut notch sections, I was going to put about 7 gussets in btw the 2 pieces, is that enough? I was going to make my all perpindicular to what would be the top/bottom of the notch, but it looks like yours were kinda all different angles, is there a reason for that? Thanks a bunch!

I fabricated those and the reason for them was to put the two sides in the car, clamp them in place to follow the contour of the stock frame and tac the gussets to each side to hold the shape it needed to be so that it could be pulled out of the truck to fabricate the top and bottom and fully weld everything before putting it back in for good.  The sides of that were 3/16 plate and the tops and bottoms 1/8 inch.  It was designed to have a lot of mass where strength needed to be, so the internal gussets really aren't doing much but holding everything in place while finishing.

Edited: 4/14/2010 11:05:06 AM by huskerdually

Edited: 4/14/2010 11:04:38 AM by huskerduallyThanks. I'm using 4x2 tubing but then using my lazer cut pieces over the axle to make it look mandrel bent(or at least flow nicer). So I'll just go with the plan to put 5 or 6 gussets in to hold the sides the right distance apart.  I'm glad you mentioned the difference in the plate size from the sides and the top/bottom, my sides are 1/4" but I was going to use 3/16 for the top and bottom, mostly just to make it easier to bend the shape.  

I've done a couple sets of rails like this now. For the dually, I used round tube to connect the side profiles.. It adds some stiffness for sure but also helps to align the 2 profiles.  On my datsun, I lasered internal plates that are tabbed to locate into slots on the side profiles. Again helps keep everything aligned when forming the top and bottom sections.        

Mine look a lot like the second set(I can't remember how to post pics), and are for my dually. If I could I would redo them with holes for round tubing to go through, I thought of that afterwards. I programed the lazer and my brother ran it so there was no cost. But he don't work there no more, so I will have to do with what I got.