i would drill holes where the crack is to stop it from spreading, and then weld the hole shut, then box the entire frame from back to front on both side and don't forget to drill holes for drainage after the box, and i would use some nice long steel i beam girders, torch the one side of the eye beam off so ya get a c beam then box the frame on your truck and you can weld it and then rivet it as well but you would need huge rivets, and if ya can't weld or don't have the machine to do it get a local metal shop to weld it, and cut it for them to save money, and then paint the whole frame, and ya will have a tougher than stock frame, its best to over kill then to just bandage the problem, and since its the frame, ya got to over kill it! the frame is the back bone of the truck if it broke your truck is pooched and ya will have even bigger problems, best of luck and hope ya box it, cause i can't see patching the frame, that's to mickey mouse in my books and dangerous, do it right the first time or don't do it all!

 

I agree with the "mickey mousing" it on one hand, but we still don't know
nuthin' about his pickup. :/ Or how he's going to treat it in the future.
Is it raised?
Is that why it -cracked- to start with?
Loose steering gear cause it?
So far, it's "just;)" a crack.

I drove a cowgirl's '75 F350 460 pickup one time and stopped before I got a
mile and found the steering gear about to fall off. No kidding, there was a full
half inch of space between the gear and the frame depending on which way
you turned the wheel. :/

Seems like I tightened it right then and there with tools she had on the pickup.
She wasn't with me, she was driving a "real" truck. ;)

Patching works... just depends on what you call a patch and how good of a
job the "patching" job was and how the pickup's going to be used after that.

In my case the cracks were caused by really stiff dual shocks and lots of dirt
road miles.

No more patching was done, just a simple gas-welding of the cracks and
removal of the dual shocks and much less miles, let alone dirt road miles, in
its future, is going to fix it for life.

I'll betcha. ;)

Alvin in AZ
ps- I'll post it if I see anymore cracks but it's been a few years and there ain't
any yet, not even little ones ;)
pps- I understand the need to "over do it" ...I've owned dune buggies etc and
realize that the engineers can get away with flimsy-looking-crap that we can't :)