The only difference is a rivet is shear fastener vs bolts being a load fastener. I guess folks have used bolts here with success though. How is the frame overall? Its tough to tell from the pictures how deep the rust is. I left the rivets alone on my frame, but they were in pretty good shape.

Mine isnt going to be a show truck either. I used POR15 with a brush & little foam roller. Then I sprayed their chassis black top coat. The frame looks great sitting in my garage under a car cover! Maybe one day I'll get the body back on!

 

Havi- I'm going by the pics you posted. The frame looks like it has considerable amount of corrosion and eaten by rust and whatever? I would remove the rivots and reinforce the frame with new metal. Then put the hangers on with grade 8 bolts. As far as the frame, if you sand blast that frame, your going to have even less metal than you already have. I'd be a little nervous about sandblasting. As far as paint, I've seen some frames painted with POR 15 which looks really nice. They painted the frame right over the rust and it gave it a thick shiney appearance. My first concern would be the strength of the frame before doing anything. It's a safety issue.

 

Personally...I would rather be safe than sorry. Again, I am not used to seeing rust like that. I freak out a little when I see it. To you (or anyone further north) it may not be that bad. Sounds like you have decided to repair it though.

I do like what George did to his. He is going for a complete restoration and not a daily driver type truck. I wish my frame looked half as good as his (even if it is a driver). Oh well...

 

Havi;

Sandblasting will definitely remove some of that frame metal; I suppose you don't have to be that aggessive when snadblasting. Get some of the surface material off then use rust convertor or POR-15 type product?

On frame color grey would work; ElCabron used a gun metal grey that looked good, don't see his sign on anymore ?

I know what you mean by looking for perfection, sometimes we have to let go.

Tom

 

Part of it depends on what he blasts it with as well (machine and material). Not many places use actual silica sand anymore. They use coal slag, star blast, walnut hulls, etc. He needs to see what the "local blaster" uses.

The steel fab shop where my dad works has a blaster, but there would be no frame left if they did it. The blast unit is close to 6' tall and probably 3' diamater. They had a hose come off the unit once and it ate a hole through 6" of concrete before the guy could release the trigger. I would guess the hose itself is about 4" diamater. Looks like a fire hose.

Heavy rusted Beams are "white" when they get done blasting it.

A smaller home type blater will not remove as much even with more aggressive blast media.

 

I my area the blaster shop gets$80\hr. They told me apx. 4 hrs to do the flakey chrome grill! I did my own frame outside my shop with a bucket feed blaster. Took a while, there are now SEVERAL HUNDRED POUNDS of black sand in the back yard helping to ariate the soil and the grass likes that alot.
My next frame will be cleaned, completely smoothed (boxed?) and then powdercoated the bodycloor.
Getting your frame blasted well might even help you decide whether it should be saved or not???
good luck with it, Ed

 

OUCH! No wonder so many people are doing their own in their backyards. Thats as much as (or more than) a body shop or mechanic charges per hour. You could buy a small blaster, blast media, and the needed safetly equipment for that.

 

well after I slept on it. (ok I couldn't sleep), I figured I'll keep the frame together since the frame is decent from the shackle forward. I looked over every inch for uniform thickness, and the posted pic is the only thinned out area. The rad. crossmember will come out, repair the crack, a small scalloped boxing plate welded in, and place the rad. crossmember back in. Bolts will be vertical so it "should?" be a pulling load. On the back half, I'll remove the lower brackets and crossmember, scallop box the frame, C-notch the frame, and reinstall the crossmember(from the pic), and replace the lower brackets with a big piece of box tubing on each side with the hollow facing front and rear, and fab a mount for ladder bars. I thought about 4 linking the rear, but cost is too high. The ladder bars "should?" keep the rear in check, and keep the load off of the shackles..... Which, only the front 2 rivets are bad, I figure to leave the rear 2 in, and just bolt in the front 2 with grade 8's. The rear of the rear is fine, and only the very back crossmember will be moved to the end to make room for the gas tank like Bobbytnm did with his. Of course this may change after it's blasted.

So my question is: would boxing the frame where the original area is thinned be sufficient, or would laminating the frame before boxing be sufficient, or is a thinned area too far gone?

In reference I seen where George (earl) replaced a section of his frame with angle iron and thought that, too, but that's a last resort, I think.

 

You might want to pressure wash the frame real good before deciding on what to do. A lot of that may be dirt and surface rust (wishful thinking?). Steel expands when it turns to rust, that may be making it look worse than it is (or hiding even worse areas).

 

Havi, if the metal is visibly eaten from rust and appears eaten through, don't spend money on sandblasting. It is real easy to repair the area with angle iron or metal as Earl did, especially if you can weld. This way you know its done right and the metal is strong. It sounds like you only have a small section that is rusted out, which would make the job even easier. Personally, I'd cut that section out and repair with new metal and be done with it. My two cents. BTW- Don't lose anymore sleep over this.

 

this is the other side of the crossmember, as you'll see it ain't as bad. the thickness of the frame is pretty much like that all the way.

 

here's the bad side from the outside. It looks like the 4" by 4" angle from work might fit here. This frame sure is frustrating, though.

 

I don't want to be the devils advocate here, but anytime you see the holes out of round and broken off like that, you have some serious corrosion going on and that means weakness in the metal. Remember, these frames aren't the strongest made even when they were new. That's why people box the frames to strength them for twisting, etc. I'd reinforce that frame or replace that portion that is really bad. I know its frustrating!

 

yeah, the top is good, so cutting out that area where the running board mount goes, and the bottom I can weld in the angle iron. At work, i have a section of 4" x 4" x 3/16" wall x 18", which i can cut down, and fit it in there. The top will keep the frame together for squareness. Shouldn't be too bad. I think I just needed some second opinions to verify what I didn't want to see, lol. Thanks, Ed.

PS: backside will be boxed, too.