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On my 1950 model 3104 the previous owner took a torch and removed the x-bracing. what purpose did this bracing serve and do i need to weld in new bracing.

Shade Baby

GM wouldn't have wasted time and money installing it if they didn't think it served a needed purpose. If they could shave fifty cents off the cost of each vehicle, they'd do it.

Put it back on.

In the 1949 Chevrolet Truck Engineering Features pamphlet, the below information is listed detailing the purpose of the radiator support cross bracing improvement introduced for the 3100 trucks that year.

Basically boils down to a need was identified in earlier models that caused potential radiator stress and failures, so the radiator support was upgraded to change from a single to double lower mount point and adding cross braces to strengthen the unit and prevent potential damage to the radiator.

I'll second Otto's suggestion to put them back on.

Ok, sounds good off hand what size where the rods?

Shade Baby

IIRC, they were either 1/4" or 5/16". Might even be 3/8".

My original radiator support had some pieces of 1/2" thick steel welded along the bottom and inside the channel to just around the lower corners (pic). I believe it was the earlier style that didn't have the cross bracing rods. The extra steel that a PO welded on attests to the need for the cross-bracing. I picked up a better radiator support from Jim Carter's bone pile.

Thank You

Shade Baby

So when in was reassembling the front clip and I asked if i needed to reinstall and weld in the X-bracing, the answer was yes, ok no biggie. Then I found an I had an xtra piece of bracing so I went thru some old photos and found someone made this piece of angle iron and installed it on the grill side of the radiator core support. Please take a look at the photo and let me know if this will serve in place of the x- bracing or do i still need the x bracing? It does not interfere with anything as I can tell. Seems like a lot of I’s. LOL

Thanks
Shade Baby

The straight across brace bar like it is will help a little, but IMO won’t prevent diagonal racking of the core support or radiator nearly as well as an X-brace can.

Just my $.02 on the subject.

I measured mine as best as I could with them being installed and am getting 5/16" diameter.

I'm with Dan on a horizontal brace won't do much. A triangle is the most rigid geometric shape. And 5/16" is probably correct for the size of the rods. I can't get at mine right now to measure, but I did measure a similar rod brace (rear fender) and it's 5/16". That size should work fine.

These X braced radiator supports were designed to withstand the road conditions of the time. Horrific would be an accurate description for the roads in the '50s.
Hauling lawn furniture to car events on paved roads will not cause your X delete radiator shroud to crush your radiator.
If you plan on picking up hay bails out of the field where there are numerous hand dug ditches, then you might need to put some X braces in.

Did the original bracing have a bow to them to allow for X-bracing? Or just clamp them down and weld.

Shade Baby

Not sure what you mean by "a bow to them"???

The picture from the Engineering book I posted above shows both the X-brace and a horizontal lower brace rod that was added to the original non-braced design.

I was talking where the 5/16” braces cross, the first brace installed would be no issue, the second brace would stand off 5:16” in each end unless I am not seeing this clearly

Shade Baby

Here's some pictures I snagged from various places on the web that might help display the set up. Some don't have the lower horizontal brace, for unknown reasons.

I think one overlapping the other works fine, and maybe one rods ends are bent a little at the welded ends to cause it to stand off enough from the other. Hard to tell from the pics I could find.

Thats a big help, and thank you.

SHADE BABY

Thanks, just order 5/16” steel rods from HD, free shipping.

Shade Baby

I agree with 52Carl.

Common practice, it seems, to cut the braces off when pulling engine. In my case, not only were the cross braces cut off, they didn't replace the firewall to fender rods. I added a cross tie across the radiator to help keep the horseshoe shaped radiator support from spreading out at the top. Maybe overkill...
You can see the cross tie in this picture.

Gord. That crosstie you put in definitely isn't overkill. The original radiator supports were a complete rectangle (of sorts) with a cross-tie at the top. You can see that in the pics that Dan posted. Without your crosstie, the front fenders flapping in the breeze would put some serious stress on your fancy aftermarket radiator.