359 Pete - What would you do?

@Hogleg yours isn't this bad, In my opinion.

 

Well my truck did a couple different jobs over its lifespan so there were already a lot of extra holes in my rails. I figure if I'm going to be spending a decent amount custom building the truck I may as well ditch the swiss cheese frame rails. I wanted to use a cutoff but I couldn't find anything decent that had frame rails that matched my truck's rails.

 

In 1991? I repaired a three rail AutoCar rolloff container frame. One rail was full length, one stopped about the back of the cab and the other stopped about five feet farther back. The full length rail was available for $5,000.00 and came with all the holes drilled from the back of the cab forward. Both sides were cracked.
A small trucking company I did some work with cobbled many trucks together. He tended to buy KW's with torsion bar suspensions or single axles. He had someone he could get good deals on cut offs and another that would put them together. Frame height and width made no difference to that guy. He could put anything together mostly at the frame ends with a cross member there. Never met him or saw one crack.
I prefer to have as much frame overlap as possible. Then the overlap and bolts distribute the load instead of a butt weld joint. I thank NM did the buy the book three angle splice, time consuming. I would use an inner or outer section with that.
All said for the small guy had a program worked out to buy cheep trucks on the cash basis and be profitable trucking.

 

I would put a Pete low air leaf cut off on it. I do see your point about later down the road, but done properly it will be a permanent solution. It's a cool truck and well worth putting a little money in. Just be prepared to drive your money back out of it lol. Naturally you will always have the omg it's got a cutoff run crowd. With a cutoff you could update to hub pilot wheels, later brakes etc all in one swoop. With patience they can be found reasonable priced.

 

I agree. My truck was stretched, it was done nicely. The only thing they did that would not have is they left the welds showing on outer frame. The only mention I ever hear is a random remark that they did a good job on the stretch.

 

what mine looks like. i'll be welding over and grinding down those outside welds. i have a filler panel for between the frame rails made up,so you won't know it was stretched unless you look under.

 

The guy who did my rails did a great job. Welds were ground flush and blended in. Can hardly tell its been welded apart from the marks from the grinder, which sandblasting should clean up when I get around to primer and paint. I'm putting a step on the one side and the air dryer on the other side. On top I'll either have a headache rack or a custom bulkhead for my air lines and power cords, so no one will ever see where it was spliced anyways.

 

Cut the cancer out of the frame until you get those tandems back to the original locations per factory. When rewelding the frame rails, have a double diamond plate welded onto the frame rail welds on both sides of the weld line. That way no matter what, that new weld with the diamond plates backing them up will be stronger than the actual original frame rail itself. It's harder to describe in words.

You need to find a welder who has a set of baawls to do this work right. Big swinging deep set without making mistakes or worrying about drippy weak welds. This is the one job you don't want screwed up.

Good luck.