Quote:
Originally Posted by brillo_76
The chances of you getting a 2 and 1/16 OD pipe to go through a rusted tube cross member is extremely unlikely.
I actually had to pound my pipe in with a sledge to get it in as they rust and rust expands the rotting steel.. hence why I dropped the size slightly.
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I ended up getting a piece of 2" outer diameter steel pipe from a local steel supplier. Are you ready for this......the walls of the tube are 1/2" thick! They had it laying around and I paid $30 for it. Like you said the frame was in bad shape inside and there is no way it was simply going to go through. So I reamed out the frame with a 2" diameter hole saw to clean up the rust inside. Then I greased up the new pipe and rammed it through. I also had to use a sledge to get it through. I didn't have to pound on it as hard as I could but it definitely needed some force. I put a couple small welds on the end, probably didn't even have to do that.
So in the end a 2" outer diameter pipe would probably go right through if the existing frame wasn't already that damaged from rusting on the inside.