Crossmember replacement welding question (1 Viewer)

[eleventhirtyfour]

Hey all- thought I might repost this here since it's basically a frame-welding question...


My Canadian 85 BJ70 (338K) is pretty well stock with standard western Canada rust that I'm tackling piece by piece, but I've got one major repair to go before I'm ready to install my upcoming full OME upgrade...

Namely, I've got the rear tube crossmember in my workshop rather than under the rig. It basically looks like the muffler just ran too close to it and it rotted away right there- the forward tube crossmember (hop in and let me know what they're actually called, I'd love to know) is basically in an earlier state of the same process.

The plan I've hatched to repair these is to cut them out and have some tube bent to similar profiles and weld on the shock mounts and muffler mounts. I would use smaller OD tubing to fit an inner "sleeve" piece through where the old crossmembers passed through the frame and could then weld the 'O' end of the sleeve and the ring where it fit into the new...

This is all just backyard brainstorming at this point but it seems like a pretty decent and durable repair- all I would have to contract out would be the pipe bending. Am I totally forgetting anything? Is this even possible?

Man, it'll be nice to get that OME and finally have shocks again.

Emerson

 

[rusty_tlc]

The center one is called a torsion tube on the 40 series, I don't know about the 70 series.

I had one bent up at a shop for my FJ40. Grind the old stuff flush and weld on new scab plates. I'd go with a heavier wall tube, have the shop build it long then cut to fit. Weld it to the scab plates. The scab plates shouldn't have any sharp corners, I just had some elliptical scab plates cut by a local shop on their CNC plasma table, it cost ~$30 for six. Basically 1/2 hour shop time.