OP
Capricious
Platinum Member
I'm no steel worker / fabricator; I'm just a hack.
But I decided that I needed to get one more year out of this truck. The "big name" body shops would not touch it unless they could put it back to factory specs, and the only way to do that was to replace the whole frame ( replacement factory frame sections are available for some trucks, but not this one.)
Some shops that deal with hot rods and the like would tackle it, but not for free (obviously).
So I decided to do it myself. I spent hours researching Ranger frame repairs on the internet, and what other people had done. Branched off into frame repairs of other brands of pickups, and even frame repairs/modifications on "big" trucks.
Learned what I could and could not get away with. For example, you can usually drill holes in the web (vertical section) of a frame channel, but there are restrictions. Drilling the flanges (horizontal places) is not advisable. Lots of controversy on frame welding; where you can weld, what you can weld, how you weld it, how you reinforce the weld.
I considered the issues of having inflexible new pieces fastened to flexible existing pieces. I found that replacing rivets with bolts is no big issue, assuming the correct bolts. And so forth.
I will obviously keep an eye on things, and re-torque all the bolts in the near future, but I am confident the thing will hold together.
EDITED TO ADD: Also, a bit of controversy on grade 8 bolts vs. grade 5. There are those that represent that grade 5 is better because it will 'stretch" before breaking, while grade 8 is "brittle" and will break without stretching at all, while there are others that say that the grade 5's will stretch and break long before the grade 8's reach their breaking point.
I went with grade 8, or the metric equivalent of 10.9 and I replaced all bolts I removed with new ones of similar or higher grade.
But I decided that I needed to get one more year out of this truck. The "big name" body shops would not touch it unless they could put it back to factory specs, and the only way to do that was to replace the whole frame ( replacement factory frame sections are available for some trucks, but not this one.)
Some shops that deal with hot rods and the like would tackle it, but not for free (obviously).
So I decided to do it myself. I spent hours researching Ranger frame repairs on the internet, and what other people had done. Branched off into frame repairs of other brands of pickups, and even frame repairs/modifications on "big" trucks.
Learned what I could and could not get away with. For example, you can usually drill holes in the web (vertical section) of a frame channel, but there are restrictions. Drilling the flanges (horizontal places) is not advisable. Lots of controversy on frame welding; where you can weld, what you can weld, how you weld it, how you reinforce the weld.
I considered the issues of having inflexible new pieces fastened to flexible existing pieces. I found that replacing rivets with bolts is no big issue, assuming the correct bolts. And so forth.
I will obviously keep an eye on things, and re-torque all the bolts in the near future, but I am confident the thing will hold together.
EDITED TO ADD: Also, a bit of controversy on grade 8 bolts vs. grade 5. There are those that represent that grade 5 is better because it will 'stretch" before breaking, while grade 8 is "brittle" and will break without stretching at all, while there are others that say that the grade 5's will stretch and break long before the grade 8's reach their breaking point.
I went with grade 8, or the metric equivalent of 10.9 and I replaced all bolts I removed with new ones of similar or higher grade.
