You made me laugh, William as I recall how "over the moon" my wife was when I brought my first rusted out 40 home from Salt Lake. "You drove all the way down there for that ?"
A Cruiser named Crusty **NSFL**
- Thread starter D21FJ60
- Start date
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.
I like rusty vehicles. Glad to see somebody else thinks a rusty Cruiser deserve another chance at life.
That's my feeling too. I tried looking for a brand new frame and found them but in the end I have too many other projects. I am glad to see William give it a go.
I can't seem to stop with the challenging old LCs. Just bought this carburated 80 at auction:
Which -may- be very low mileage.
I won't know for a few weeks when I see it in person. Looks to be a bit of a time capsule:
Last edited:
Subscribed to watch this unfold. Suddenly I don't feel so bad about Sandy.
D21FJ60
#LiveLaughLove.
- Thread starter
- #26
What's funny is when i commented on your build thread I was actually talking about welding my other truck, whose frame i've already had repaired and treated but the body has holes in it.
Back to Crusty-
So as you all can see the trans crossmember portion of the frame rails will need to be replaced. The company said htey would just do stitch welds to put it back into place.
I am hesitant to do that because id like to be able to take the crossmember off if possible. Am I able to drill into the frame once they weld the new portions in and install threads? I would be getting a new used trans crossmember probably anyways.
Nutserts would work for this application.
D21FJ60
#LiveLaughLove.
- Thread starter
- #29
I thought about it, but honestly I feel the truck still has potential. Yes, it is crusty. Yes it will be some $$ and time to bring it back. But I am not one to sit here and lament if there is a spec of rust, or if it doesn't look exactly like it did new 21 years ago. Drive it to enjoy it. Drive it til you can't. Even if the welding is double the quote they gave me, i'm still in it a significant amount less than I would be buying a truck in OK condition with the same mileage.
And if it does get to be too much, there are plenty of usable parts I can move over to my 99, which needs love.
ramangain
Clarksonian disciple
You'll need so much steel to weld in, you could single-handedly cause steel mills in PA to start back up.
Throw that quote out the window, buy a Harbor Freight Titanium Welder, and let the journey begin.
I feel just a little bit guilty....
D21FJ60
#LiveLaughLove.
- Thread starter
- #36
This is the encouragement I need because welding would help with my 99 as the body on it is significantly showing it’s age.
Is it really that hard to do? So long as I can get it to pass inspection and feel safe driving it I really don’t care what it looks like.
It takes some practice like anything worth learning. First pick was right after I figured out where the power button was, after practice things improved…still learning and working on it.
Last edited:
Why not just go on car-parts.com and source a frame from a southern state? looks like you can get them anywhere from 500-1300 bucks. Shipping will probably be another 350 bucks but much better than patch welding what is already rusty.
Crocodile tears, bad acting to boot.
