Broken frame truck

[Ozwynn]

97 F150 4.6l 4wd with 212,000 miles. Rusted out. It belonged to my dad who passed 14 years ago. I didn’t need the truck at the time because I had the ‘90 F150 which I liked better so I gave the ‘97 to my uncle and it just kinda became the family truck, it was available to whoever needed it. Problem is nobody maintained it for 14 years other than the occasional oil change. I have decided I’m going to do something about that because we have been driving it the last 3 weeks.

I changed the spark plugs. Changed the oil. 2 decent used all terrains for back, did a spill and fill on the transmission along with a new filter.
It uses 2 qts oil for 500 miles, all leak, no detectable oil burning. I’m going to pull the engine and regasket it. Is there any benefit to porting and polishing the heads and port matching the intake?

Going to pull the transmission and do a soft rebuild…. New clutches/steels and seals. The overdrive switch doesn’t work…. I have no way to turn the OD off. Might be the cut wires poking up through steering column near the gear shift. Still gets 18mpg 65mph.

Needs a new steering gear and probably tierod ends and ball joints….

I don’t want to restore it but I want to bring it back to daily driver condition.

The big question is, can this be fixed? I know that Ford used to sell this piece of the frame.

This truck is a cockroach… it doesn’t matter how many times you stomp on it, it just keeps coming back.

Below is the crack and rust hole in the frame and a pic of the cut wires near the gear shift.

 

[franklin2]

The shifter cable is a known issue, it rubs through in that area. I just got a 2002 2wd with 260,000 miles on it. Same problem with the shifter button, all I needed to do is wrap a little tape around the wire. When it rubs through it blows a small fuse in the fuse box. Interesting note, my truck is a loaded king ranch and has auto headlights, which I never use. But that same fuse that the shifter cable blows, works the auto headlights also, they now work.

Once you hang around the jeep wrangler crowd a little bit, frames rusted out is not a big deal. In your situation I think I would go to the junkyard and cut that section out of a good frame. Get as large a piece as practical. Grind the rivets and get that bracket off of there (use the one from the donor frame if it is better, Then take the donor frame piece and cut the top lip off. Instead of a "C", turn it into a "L". Grind and paint the original frame, and then slip this donor "L" piece up inside the damaged frame to strengthen it.

You will find the bolt holes already in the frame will almost line up. Take a drill and ream them out, and then use bolts to bolt the bracket back in place. Now the new piece is somewhat in place. If you have any other brackets in this frame area that you had to deal with, the more the better, ream them and bolt them back in place. Depending on how many bolts that end up through the "L" piece you added, you might be done. Or add a few more "non-stock" bolts if you need to.

This is a easy practical way to strengthen a weak frame without welding. Once you paint the final assembly, you can't hardly even tell it's in there.

 

[Roert42]

I would strip the rear down to the frame, then just start cutting out the rust and welding it patches one spot at a time.

If it’s got a lot of bad spots, would’ve quicker to just splice in a new section of frame from a different truck.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Maybe see if some place like Safe-T-Cap has a repair section?

I’d check over the frame good and see just how bad it’s getting. If that’s the only bad spot, by all means fix it. If the whole frame is rotted, you’re better off finding a better frame.

 

[Ozwynn]

I would strip the rear down to the frame, then just start cutting out the rust and welding it patches one spot at a time.

If it’s got a lot of bad spots, would’ve quicker to just splice in a new section of frame from a different truck.

The only problem with this is I can’t weld. The only bad spots are the ones in the pic.

 

[Ozwynn]

Maybe see if some place like Safe-T-Cap has a repair section?

I’d check over the frame good and see just how bad it’s getting. If that’s the only bad spot, by all means fix it. If the whole frame is rotted, you’re better off finding a better frame.

The problem with a frame replacement is then it would no longer be Dad’s truck. It would be Dad’s cab on John Smith’s frame. Plus the cab is rotted out too. It really isn’t worth fixing except for extreme sentimental value…. I mean a month ago I wanted to steal the transmission from it and scrap the rest. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.