that can’t be factory ??

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Adam snapp

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Been doing some major overhaul work to my 98 K1500 Sierra,SLT 5.7L recently, and just began the front end disassembly today noticed this brace or possibly some kind of “K” member not sure wtf it is. Can’t find OEM pages about it. Gotta feeling it’s been wrecked or tweaked and that was added for support and I was never aware that was even there nor was I informed on any accidents or frame tweaks. She drives straight (in the 2 gears I have ) any ideas on what it is ??
 

Supercharged111

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Not only is it there, it seems to cause frame cracks. I'd love to know how this happened.

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If you look closely at the top of the crack, it seems to originate from that damned brace.
 

MIHELA

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The brace is there on all of these trucks, just without the goofy angle iron piece. That part of the frame where the crack is starting is a pretty heavily loaded part of the frame.
 

Supercharged111

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I'm trying to understand what stresses it? Because the box loads both sides of that rail, but that brace only pulls on the 1.
 

evilunclegrimace

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The front end of these trucks flex quite a bit. I feel that it is due to the curve in the frame where it goes over the front drive axles for the IFS.

My '88 K3500 cracked the brace about 3 inches up from the bottom of the "V" where it is welded to the center of the cross member on the drivers side. That brace was a solid piece of stock on my truck and it was a pain to get in there and weld it up. My truck was never wrecked or used to plow with but I did take it off road from time to time.
 
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