1980 K100 Cabover Project/daily runner

I have sleeved aluminum frames with good success. The company I worked for had 3 tractors with alum frames in a fleet of 74 tractors. Two Freightliners and one K100. After sleeving the frames, we had no further problems with any f them. The company was strickly a flat bed outfit and the house carrier for U S Steel, Pittsburgh. All our trucks could legal 50,000 lbs, some could legal more.

 

A steel insert, a subframe. A piece of steel shaped to fit inside your existing frame rails. you will have to do a lot of drilling. The end result is double frame rails.
Or you can order new replacement frame rails from KW. Support all your components and literally slide one frame rail out, slide the new one in and bolt it together ten repeat the other side.
I have a friend with a 77 KW, still pulls end dump with it. He has replaced both frame rails. Bought them predrilled from KW.

 

Oh man the different metals touching each other though.... corrosion!

edit: I guess it wouldn't matter if was never ever going to be separated...

 

Just run it and keep an eye on cracking.
For what your doing it might just be fine.
If you do run into problems then think about options but no sence jumping the gun. Theres a lot of trucks out there with alum rails that have no issues.

 

I agree run it ...and clean and inspect often!

 

Polish them! LOL.

 

http://articles.sae.org/14161/

 

One of my 89 379's has aluminum frame. No cracks, but the mag chloride that is used for dust control, and de-icing roads wreaks havoc due to corrosion between the steel liner and the frame. It has actually pushed the bottom flange down a bit in spots.