Recommendations for a reputable shop to do frame repair - East Valley?

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-Good to hear that. Any idea how this happened? That's some scary looking damage!-

*Que up the Waylan Jennings - "Justa good ol' boys....never meanin' no harm...beat all you eva saw, been in trouble with-a-law...." *

It prolly happent that thar one time ol' Rosco was chasen em' down ol' 79, an that bridge over Crawfish Creek was out. 'Stead o' stoppin', she just mashed th' gas peddle down, hit that big 'ol berm o' dirt th' couny put thar, and jumped clean 'cross that bridge!! Goot-goot!!
 
Come to think of it, I did listen to Waylon Jennings on the way back from the Chiva Falls run, but it sounded more like "too dumb for New York City, too ugly for L.A." :D :D :D
 
I have been talking with Michael and Claudia about this and leaving the forum out of the loop:whoops: Here are some of the pictures.

I don't know why it broke, not something I have seen before. It has some rust, but only surface with minimal pitting and I don't think that's significant? This truck sees a bunch of trail time, probably has a much higher trail to road percentage than most Land Cruisers.

The design of the spring hangers, cantilevered off the frame looks weak. That coupled with heaver lift springs made it flex, once it moved, it kept flexing until it broke. If you have this hanger design keep an eye on them, it's much easier to fix when it's only cracked! The best move would be to just put the gusset on now. I will trace the gusset and post a pattern, grinding the gusset to fit has been the most time consuming part of the job. It looks deceptively easy, but fitting it to the angles and curves was a lot of work, I traced the first one onto the second one and it was much easier.

Some pictures of the right side after cleaning.
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The left side is only cracked.

This is the gusset, made from 3" x 3" x 3/16" tube cut at 45 degree angles, the long side is 5".

How it looked tonight, I don't think it's going to fall off!:D

Next week the left side gets welded and the frame boxing kit will be installed on the inside.

Project 1- Boxing of the frame
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Claudia, I don't think you will get this much rear flex again! I will bet that crack is way open, would have given us a heart attack if we had looked!:D
12-31-2005_4.webp
 
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That does look like a weak design. I never noticed it on my 40, but I wasn't as thorough at PM as I am now. The cantilever is begging for trouble. Nice job supporting it, the gusset looks like the right way to do it. Boxing the frame there should gaurantee no further issues.

-Spike
 
Tools R Us said:
...would have given us a heart attack if we had looked!:D
Click to expand...

WORD! - there is a reason I didn't sleep all that well after discovering the cracks...... (this is Michael: I had nothing to do with either of this - neither the frame crack nor the sleep part...)

Kevin, that sure looks ultra-bling and beefy... (pun intended) :cool:

Tools R Us said:
This truck sees a bunch of trail time, probably has a much higher trail to road percentage than most Land Cruisers...
Click to expand...

...only since Claudia got her nails on it :p (Claudia: mind you, this thing was set up as a wheeler between 11 and 15 years ago according to some of our records......, but who knows how much trail time it actually had......)
 
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Looks great Kevin!!! Way to hook a member up...and I don't care how much they are paying you, you still are hooking them up big time.
 
Tools R Us said:
would have given us a heart attack
Click to expand...

I am usually close enough to a heart attack just on those downhills alone.......;) don't need a frame crack to boot......

clarkrw3 said:
I don't care how much they are paying you, you still are hooking them up big time
Click to expand...

You bet, I can't tell you how much I appreciate Kevin's help on this :) :) :)
 
Tools R Us said:
hanger_5_f.jpg
Click to expand...

That looks great.... don't suppose you made more of these, or a template? I bet you could sell a few of these!
 
Here's a thought along another tangent:

In our quest to make the suspension move after we got the truck (and did we succeed or what...), we replaced the rear shackles, bushings and spring bolts as the originals had solid metal-to-metal contact. In order to avoid changing drive line (or is that propeller shaft?) angle, we went with stock-length shackles.

There's some evidence (some old, some new) of spring eye-to-shackle hanger contact at the rear on (full?) compression. This would lead to transmission of extra force forward to the front spring hanger in addition to the upward/outward force that would act there as consequence of suspension compression. Not sure how much of a contribution to stress in the area of the cracks this would make, but in the words of the latest Dodge Hemi commercial, "...this cain't be good..."

So a slightly longer shacke (1 1/2" or so) might be helpful; right now (Sunday morning) I don't feel like setting up trig equations to calculate angle changes and such, and we've never measured angles to see how close we are to operating specs of driveline angles as is, with the 4" or so lift. Anyone with input/thoughts on that one relative to the frame stress?
 
RUSH55 said:
This thread ought to be posted on the regular board.
Click to expand...

I posted a link to this thread on the FJ40 forum, will do a review on the boxing kit when it's installed.
 
RUSH55 said:
This thread ought to be posted on the regular board.
Click to expand...

I was thinking myself that some sort of formal write-up with pictures would be a nice thing to do.

BTW, Rush55, found a picture with your truck in the background (posted in Shotts planning wheeling post for other reasons, post #34 in this thread https://forum.ih8mud.com/showthread.php?t=74055&page=2).
 
Found sometime to play with the boxing kit today, it took very little grinding to get it to go into the frame. It fit well in the critical areas, some of the other areas have huge gaps, a couple over 1/4"! I would prefer to have more metal and have to do more fitting, than have the gaps. I am making patterns and a buddy of mine is going to program this kit and the spring hanger box gusset into his CNC plasma cutter in case another club member wants to do this.

The bump stop is held on with nuts and bolts, when the frame is boxed the only way to remove it would be to cut it off, so nuts were welded into the frame. Drilled the boxing plate and welded a nut on the backside for the brake line mount and while I was at it added some extra ones in the inaccessible areas in case something needs to be mounted there in the future.
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That's looking sweet. How difficult is it working with the suspension and body assembled, or did you have to remove major stuff?

-Spike
 
-Spike- said:
That's looking sweet. How difficult is it working with the suspension and body assembled, or did you have to remove major stuff?

-Spike
Click to expand...

I only have the driveshaft, wiring harness and locker air line out right now. Climbing around the axle and shocks sucks, I was thinking about removing the shocks, then it's just a few more bolts to remove the axle? Right now it's drivable, when I need to move it, just put the spring bolt in, slap the wheel on and drive.

With the body off this would be easy, if I had the body off of a 40 I would plate and weld up the frame before it went back on.
 
just came back from a business trip, and now this: I have to say WHOW! :cool: :cool: :cool:

I cannot wait to see it, this will be so much better than before :bounce: :bounce2: :bounce: :bounce2:

Looks like we'll make it to the Potluck !
 
Had some time to play with the 40 on Saturday. Got the left side prepped, welded and the box gusset installed.

Painted the inside of the frame, then welded the boxing kit in on the right side. The only thing left to do is the left side boxing kit install, after going on a "test wheeling" run next weekend.
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