Frame rail repair

If your whole frame is in rough condition like that you might be better off having new rails installed. Kind of hard to tell condition from 1 photo. Might be possible to weld a new piece in and have a sleeve fabricated and installed on the inside for reinforcement. I would advise taking the truck in to a reputable frame shop to see what kind of options you have for repairing this.

@BoxCarKidd any other ideas?

 

^^X 2^^

 

Replace the truck. Once it starts, it is going to be a fighting battle you will lose.

Beside using now is a violation iirc and you will end up oos

 

Hi mp, clearly, replacing the truck may or may not be an option, and replacing frame rails is a big job, but not the worst. I had a frame rail crack on my Western Star behind the sleeper, and a shop bolted a smaller "U" channel inside the stock frame rail. It worked for a while, but then the repair cracked as well. I was told it was done incorrectly, and ended up cutting the back off and put a Peterbilt Air ride frame on it.

 

Your picture just looks like some bad surface rust. You say you can stick s screwdriver through it?

 

There is a difference between a cracked frame and one rusting away, the cracked frame can be easily repaired to prevent it from spreading, but when they rust, it is almost impossible to keep up on making sure it is safe. This isn't thin sheet metal, it is thick metal that takes a beating and when it weakens from rust, then there are other issues that happen.

 

Before you go nuts getting estimates think of this: A flake of rust say, 1/8 thick is probably only a few thousandths of actual material. Rust ALWAYS looks worse than it is.

My advise to you is, acquire a needle scaler and knock off all the heavy corrosion before making any decisions. Most likely you could media blast the area after scaling and paint with a quality metal coating (not rattle can). Then have some plate bent up and bolted on as a reinforcement (with same size bolts as existing cross member bolts). Stay away from welding, welding is a "field fix" and not really correct for a heat treated frame.

 

I second the needle scaler. I got the smaller one from Harbor Freight and it works fantastically. Will take most of that rust off then paint. If it does go through the frame have the body shop address those areas. It may not be as bad as you think.