I think Jerry is on the right track. When I removed the '52 crossmember I cut it back about 3" to get it out of the way. Then I took the rivets out and stored the ends for later use just as Jerry suggests. In the meantime, until I have everything together, I "lost" the two end pieces...and still lost. I replaced some rivets with grade 8 bolts.
I still plan to fab me a cross member. It is currently doing fine but I don't want to get under the panel later and see damage I could have avoided. I will fab one up.
Quite simple really, I like "insurance" when I'm tooling down the road and all over the country side!
