Re: Bent chassis
The average U-shaped frame rail will have metal compression on the inside bend flange of the rail and stretch on the outside bend flange of the rail with some buckling of the vertical wall of the rail. How much deformation depends on how much bend deflection there is from true. Compression can be stretched with hammer work and stretch can be shrunk with heat and quench application. If the bend was concentrated in one spot then the one spot is all that needs to be worked if necessary. If the rail has a longer bow in it then the straightening gets a bit more complicated and will require several spaced bend points with the I-beam and jack or whatever is being used for the straightening process until the rail is closer to true. There will always be spring back so straightening force has to go beyond the true point till the rail is getting back to the desired shape. A person just has to apply force progressively in order to prevent going too far.
All this can cause more fatigue so it's not a bad idea to weld a reinforcement on the vertical wall in the area of the bend.
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