Ok, I just bought a 1983 f-150 from a guy which had done quite a bit of work to the truck, had all receipts and such. Truck has a 125,000 miles on it, good tranny, good engine, good brakes and wheels. I was driving it home, got about 20 miles down the interstate and one side on the rear bumper bracket broke and was dragging down the road, I stopped and took a look. It rusted completely through on one side and was about to rust through on the other side. So i had no choice but to tear the other side off too and throw it in the bed to get it home. Looked at the rest of the frame to see that the whole frame is rusting pretty bad, seems to be mostly surface rust except where the leaf springs attach and the rear bumper crossmember are. Need some help in deciding what to do with the truck. Have a 1993 f-150 already which the frame doesn't look to be as bad rust-wise. Should I swap the frames or just take one and have it powdercoated and sandblasted or if there is a better way to get the truck going so i am able to drive it.

 

My 80 frame was in pretty bad shape, and I kept it on the road by going to the junkyard and getting them to cut the frame from the cab back on a truck that was getting ready to go to the crusher. They charged me $50, and I had to bring back the leaf springs. I pulled the bed off my truck(different bed from a different truck already on it) and started drilling the heads of the rivets out, and then used a chisel to knock the heads off and punch them out. I had to do this on my truck and the junkyard frame, and then cleaned up my frame and the junkyard crossmembers, and then bolt the junkyard crossmembers in my truck.

If you get the same frame(4x4 or 2x4) you can drill out the rivets on the spring brackets also. The Ford dealer also sells the spring brackets for around $40(several years ago). They keep them in stock if that tells you anything.

My frame was getting a little thin on the rear passenger side, so I cut the same area on the junkyard frame out, and cut the top part of the "C" off and made the junkyard frame piece look like a "L". I then slipped it right in on the inside, and there were so many bolts from the spring hanger and the hitch, I didn't even need to weld it in place for it to support the weak area.

Here are some pictures I took while doing this;



Even the junkyard truck had rust under the rear cab mount. That large hole in the crossmember below should only be about 1/2" diameter, not 3 inches. That's where the large rubber mount sits.


The picture below is where I doubled up the frame in the rear.