yes its a fun job this one. I worked for a local dealer in town and did several jeeps with the cracks in the frame. I would drill all cracks at the start to end like TSB would say and weld the plates onto the frame after. spray with cold gal paint then spray with the matching colour in spray cans made up by panel shop. When they made them RHD the front cross member the radiator sits on covered the crush sleeve top mounting leg inside the frame up top. This cross member covered a slot that was supposed to get welded in the factory and it was not as the operator welder could not get to it. One of the checks showed a tool that bolted to the cross member (existing holes) and directly over the covered slot. you then drilled the area were the tool indicated to drill to open up the cross member over the slot. I then weld the leg to the top of the frame. If you look at left rail when the radiator is out you see the slot in the top of the rail I speak of it's for LHD. I am good welder and enjoyed the look on the other mechanics faces when I first started. They gave them to me from then on. I like to take pride in my work and I Know how important it is for this job to be done right as you could be passing me on the road one day and I don't wont you steering to fail. I also do roadworthy's for NSW and have seen some bad repairs in my time. HQ holden chassis cracks, Ford falcon spring tower cracks, Valiant rusted and cracker rails around the steering box, upper control arm mount cracks and complete separation on test drives. Nissan patrol rear frame cracks. Nissan spring mounts hitting on the wagon floors when they broke off because of the air bags.
Toyota hi lux front shocker mounts broken off spring hangers cracked. should see what new fj 40 Toyota is doing to its chassis/frame engine mounts broken off inner slash guards cracked that bad that you cannot get out of the car as the front doors will not open due to contact with the front guards. So with the jeep they stuffed up, put they still acknowledge this problem my only concern is this job is only as good as the person doing it. with age comes oil leaks, rust ect. welds need good clean material to work and the person doing the job, well if he/she don't like jeeps good luck with the repair. I have seen some repairs done by a blind man. Remember clean if you think it's clean I bet it's not. remember to keep up the fish oil or cavity wax inside the rail fresh once a year as the welds on the plates burn the gal paint off inside the rail. flood it.
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