Patching SCSB Frame

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croach13

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Long-winded post incoming, but bear with me please...

In 2019, a lady pulled out in front of me in my '93 k1500 SCSB while I was driving through town and I hit her directly perpendicular to my driver's side frame rail. Of course, the frame bent like crazy. I was only doing about 30mph, but managed to bend the front frame horn, kinked the area right behind the control arms, twisted the driver's frame rail under the cab, shoved the torsion bar crossmember back, bent a torsion bar, and have a couple different areas where the frame bunched up due to all the bending. It seems like from around the rear cab mount to the back of the frame is okay, although it probably isn't perfectly straight due to all of the other areas that bent. When the truck was on the wrecker on the day of the accident, I vaguely remember looking at the rear axle and thinking it was no longer straight within the wheel wells on the bed.

At the end of that year, I bought a SCSB V6 1500 truck to use as a donor frame. I overpaid in all honesty, but it was the only SCSB 4x4 I could find after searching facebook, craigslist, and local dealers for months that the owner didn't want $4k+ for. Drug it home, then I started moving houses and the truck got put on the backburner for a year.

At the beginning of this year I ripped the parts V6 truck down to the frame. One day walking around the frame, I looked inside of where the gas tank mounts and saw nothing but very thick flakes of metal. Great. Poked that area with a screwdriver and sure enough, went right through. What looked solid on the outside was completely rotten on the inside. In total, I've found 2 or 3 holes in the frame around the gas tank mounting area/rear cab mount/front leaf spring hanger. The biggest hole being about the size of a fist. In addition, the rear portion of that frame is basically also trash. It at least supports the weight of the frame on the rear hangers now, but I'm not sure it will for more than another year.

Being that the rear cab mount, fuel tank, and front leaf spring hanger is all in that area, what do you think the best option would be to fix the rust on the parts frame? Should I patch and plate the holes and rebuild the rear portion of the frame (about middle of the bed wheel wells back) or try to cut the entire rear section of the frame by the rear cab mount out of both trucks, and weld the solid back half of the wrecked (in the front) frame to the never-wrecked front end of the rusty one? Or, should I take a crack and see if this thing can be straightened? The truck means a lot to me, but I'm not willing to spend more than 2k repairing a damaged frame that will probably never be as strong as the original.

I really wish I could find a solid, straight, 4x4 SCSB frame in southern Indiana, but finding a 4x4 SCSB in this area is tough enough. Let alone one that I wouldn't feel bad about ripping apart, or one that is neither straight or solid. If anyone has one, let me know...otherwise, open to opinions on the best and safest way to fix this thing. I need my truck back, I miss the ole girl too much
 

croach13

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Pictures are worth a thousand words here.......
I would have attached pics to the original post but don't have any of the rusty frame and it's too dark outside to get any. I'll take some tomorrow when I get off work

Seems like I should drag some frames out to the mid west.
We crush em by the 10s out here.
I can pick up a frame for pretty darn cheap.
Uhhh...yeah! You should! There's definitely money in it. At least from me, lol
 

Hipster

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If you're looking at a hole in the frame the size of your fist you need to check the rest of the frame out thoroughly. The front frame section is bad about rusting from the inside out.

As far as tail clipping the frame with the 'old" rear section, I can almost guaranty the rear section is no longer square.
 

89obsSB

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There’s a guy that has stuff posted on Craigslist all the time that brings stuff from Texas to sell in and near Ohio. Beds doors hoods cabs. You name it. Anything that normally rusts out body wise he usually has listed. His prices are high but it’s hard to come by rust free 400 parts out here in Ohio.
 

someotherguy

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Seems like I should drag some frames out to the mid west.
We crush em by the 10s out here.
I can pick up a frame for pretty darn cheap.
I can't tell you how many good frames I've scrapped in the past. Nobody wants them down here, because rust isn't an issue. I'd part trucks out until it was a shell of a cab sitting on the frame, and off to the scrapyard it went.

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Richard
 
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