rear frame crossmember

[fredo74]

I've been searching for the past couple hours and haven't had much luck in finding what I'm looking for. I was wheeling in Katemcy, TX a few months back and I almost rolled my scout end over forward. Well, I felt the back come pretty far up and hammered the gas to try and bring it back down. Well, in doing so I brought the rear back down, but in the process, slammed my rear bumper into the wall I just came down. Needless to say, it not only bent the rear crossmember, it basically destroyed my bumper mounts and completely mangled the two rear body mounts on the frame crossmember. It actually was a violent enough hit that it buckled the two body mounts on the frame in front of the wheel wells! My doors wouldn't even open afterwards. I've currently got the body suspended by a boom attached to the rear so my doors are lined back up but now I have to fix the mounts. I've already rebuilt the two in front of the wheel wells, but now I'm just kind of having a fabricator's block on the rear crossmember. My thought was to simply remove the gas tank, plasma off what's left of it, and replace it with some rectangular tubing or some sort of C Channel. Mainly I just wanted to find out what others had done and see if anybody had any pictures of how they fixed it.

[Jim Grammer]

Seeing no other takers, here's what I'd do considering that the rear x-member in a SII is a known weak spot:

Scrub the remains of the stock x-member. You'll need to support the rear of the tub since you're losing mounts(temporarily) in the process. Then, 2x4 steel tube across the inside of the frame rails, flush with the end of the rails. .188" wall would be fine, .250 might be easier to find as a rem. Then, a hunk of 3x5x.188(or .250, but you may have to shave your body cushions a bit) angle, with the flange facing forward. Bevel cut the ends, drill for the body mounts, and skip weld the bottom to your 2x4. With .188 stock, that presents a bumper mounting face that's 3/8" thick, which should be plenty beefy.

<edit>Be sure to weld the top of the angle as well, I just neglected to mention it on the first pass. If your upside-down-in-a-corner welding skills are pretty good, I'd burn a bead on the inside of the flange along the top edge of the frame rail.

[Mark Ashford]

Jim's plan is pretty darn good. Nails it quite well.

If thats more work than your willing to do right now, you can beat the crossmember back into shape and weld up the cracks. Straiten the body mounts and reinforce the body mounts by welding a support on the back side of them (which would really be the front, facing the front of the truck).


A complete new crossmember would sure be the stronger.