"Project Little Red beater" suffers a tough blow.

[littleredbeater]

Ok boys (and girls) started installing a lift on the jeep a rescued from a feild behind my buddies house and discover some terrible things. There driver's side rear frame where the shackle mounts is terminal. It's rusted like I've never seen before. The rest of the frame perfectly fine but the one corner is so bad we actually just sat there for 10 minutes in awe. Now before you say "junk that thing" shoot me some possible fix ideas. Actually after we got it apart the top of the frame rail is fine and the metal around the sleeve is solid. So I'm thinking either cut away the rust and box it in with new metal or should I just cut the last 12" of the frame off and weld on a new piece. And where would I get a piece of frame like that? Anyway, I'm open for suggestions.

[Mozman68]

If you blur your eyes a little, that second shot looks like a visit to the Titanic.

I'm sure you find that very helpful.

[littleredbeater]

yes i do actually :shock:

[Jeffy]

How far back does the rust go?  It's too far gone for a patch job.  You'll probably have to cut the frame then weld in a new section and reinforce the weld.  Hope you can weld.

[littleredbeater]

thats it. everything not shown in the picture is solid. weird.

[Jeffy]

That's a typical rust area for Jeeps in the midwest-east coast.

Is the other side solid?

Looks like you'll be dropping the gas tank to get better access to it.  You could do this one of two ways.  One, try to salvage as much of the old material as possible or replace it all while you're down there.

If you want to replace it all then that would mean sectioning the frame and removing the rear crossmember.  You'd then replace the rear crossmember with some heavier material and probably integrate a bumper into it.

Look familiar?

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=150584

http://www.lowtech.net/gallery/jeep

Notice the first guy reinforced the weld with that hexagon shape piece.  This relieves some of the stress from welding.  If you grind the welds smooth, no one would be the wiser to the patch.

[/dev/null]

I'd say find a junked donor. As long as the frame isn't bent, you can cut and piece the two frames together.

Might even end up with some other useable parts for elsewhere in the project...

Peter M

[littleredbeater]

I'd love to get a nice frame and por 15 it but I only have a 1 car garage and I know if I do that the spending will easily get out of control. haha I'll let you guys know what I end up doing and hopefully get some pics.