The original plan for the cross member was a straight piece of channel from frame stiffener to frame stiffener. The legs where to be pointing up to try to maximize our ground clearance.

With this design we thought we could make it work with a small amount of trimming. Unfortunately, as we found out. Flat was not an option.

No matter where we moved the transfer case and how much trimming was done we still could not get the cross member to clear. So we decided to cut the cross member and add a drop to it just enough to clear.

When we cut and notched the cross member we also added some thick plates to where the frame mounts where to be. The reason for this was now the cross member was not going to be sitting flat. We also decided that by doing this we could inset the bolt heads to make removing the cross member alot easier in the future.

The final product came out very nice. We even left drain holes in the bottom of it so we didn't have to worry about taking anything home with us.

The next step is to fabricate the front control arm mounts which will be welded to the frame and bolted to the cross member for added piece of mind.

Click Here for all of the pictures from the cross member build.

crusarius at google mail . com <replace google mail with gmail and remove spaces>