5 Things Nobody Tells You Before Buying a Chassis

Five things nobody tells you before buying a chassis for a classic truck, straight from the shop that builds them. Jason walks through the decisions that cost people real money on a chassis purchase, then takes one out for a drive to show what the difference actually feels like.
Most chassis on the market use 10 gauge rectangle tubing that gets mandrel bent into shape. That works, but the outer bends thin out and no two frame rails come out identical. FF Chassis are made from 3/16 flat sheet steel that gets laser cut, formed, bent, and rewelded. That's 39 percent more steel and up to three times stronger than a mandrel bent or laser cut chassis. It adds a couple hundred pounds, and that's on purpose. When you're putting a Coyote, an LT4, a Whipple supercharger, or a Godzilla in a truck that barely hits 3,900 pounds, you don't want the frame flexing. You want the suspension doing the work.

The other four are the ones that catch people. Your wheels determine your axle, not the other way around, and getting that backwards has cost customers thousands in rehooped wheels and shortened housings. Engine fitment goes past the block itself, oil pan, headers, steering shaft clearance, brake booster room. We had one truck come in with about 3/16 of clearance on the booster. Our motor mounts and body mounts bolt on instead of welding on, so a motor swap five years from now doesn't mean cutting up your frame.

Then Spencer, our head of sales, breaks down what should actually be on your quote. Front sway bar, rack and pinion, disc brakes, ball joints, spindles, upper and lower control arms. A lot of companies charge separately for all of it. On our 4x4 chassis you get front and rear sway bar, engine mounts, engine cradle, skid plate, and billet RPM steering linkages standard. A fully loaded chassis like that saves a shop somewhere around $6,000 to $8,000 in labor before the build even starts.

See chassis options and get a quote: https://fatfender.com/pages/chassis
Chassis questions or quotes: [email protected]
Everything else: [email protected]
(480) 621-6072

More classic truck builds and shop content on Instagram and TikTok @fatfendergarage, Facebook facebook.com/fatfendergarage.

#FatFenderGarage #FFChassis #ClassicTruck #F100 #CoyoteSwap