I managed to get a photo of the spot we're referring to. Ron says the axle has been lifted via the insertion of a teflon "block," which you can see in the photo.
He identifies this as a torsion axle, but says he does not see a place to make a height adjustment, which would possibly explain why the block was inserted?
I asked him how the rest of the frame looked, and he answered "old." But we don't see signs of cracks or stress... at least so far!
Also, you can see the "rat's nest" of wires he was referring to in my question elsewhere about
brakes. Someone has fooled with that also, there are no blue wires, and the black wire has been disconnected and just wrapped around.
Anyway, I'm still wondering if a weird mod has been done that we should check into?