2nd Gen Frame Crack

Looking for opinions on serverity and suggestions on what you all think this should cost to weld up.

 

That looks like painted rust more than a crack. Hit it with a hammer and see what falls off

 

Yeah thats rust and delamination. Whats the front of the frame look like under the front doors where it turns from C to boxed.

 

That looks somewhat expensive. There doesn’t look like there is much good metal to just weld. What does the rest of the frame look like?

 

Well, I just wire wheeled and coated it all with POR-15. Just saw this spot and I know of another up front. Just wondering if I should sell and pick something newer up at this point if it is going to get bad fast.

 

Not sure exactly where you’re referring to, but this is the only other spot with rust near where you’ve asked

 

putting lipstick on the pig, you can see the entire length of the sandwiched section of the frame lower in the first pic driver side all sorts of swollen. If it looks that bad the worse areas are going to be up in the box frame that are hard to see.

 

Not good....

 

I have some delamination in a few places in my frame but no failures of the exterior plates (yet) - just some expansion due to the center plates rusting/expanding. I soak those areas twice a year with Amsoil HDMP to slow it down, but it's inevitable that there will be further damage later.

Something I have pondered is chopping those sections out (eventually) and hot gluing in solid plates of equivalent thickness.

I've heard people say that this will negatively impact any designed flex in the frame at those points, but I can't believe that losing flex in the frame is worse than losing structural integrity in the frame.

Anyone have thoughts in that vein?

 

It wasn’t until I boxed the whole frame and made new crossmembers that I noticed a difference in frame flex (which I wanted to eliminate) so I’d imagine a few spots won’t make any difference at all in how it feels in the seat. Even if it did, it’s better than the truck rusting in half haha

 

Yeah, I’m going to run by Toyota and a weld shop today to get some professional opinions. But I think I’m sold on going the Safe T cap route.

https://www.autorust.com/product/mid-frame-section-tac-232d-r-passenger-side/

 

I did the front sections with Saf-T-Caps. Good product, perfect fit. POR'd the frame and interior of the caps before welding on.

 

Good to know you POR’d the interior of the caps. I was thinking of doing the same thing. Do you mind posting pictures of your frame? Especially where you have delamination?

Ran it by Toyota today and they suggested the caps. So I ordered one for the cracked area. Then I ran it by my welder buddy (structural engineer now). He says it should be fine as long as I’m not rock crawling or towing above the recommended weight. Going to weld it on and wait this vehicle inflation out…

 

I will say this… love Tacoma's. But their C frame approach is a load of shit. Personally, I think it’s a way to keep people buying newer models. Having vehicles that run forever can’t make sense financially.

 

As mentioned the delamination is indicative of deep/extensive damage, fortunately it's a smallish area.

Remember, you've gotta remove the rust and expose bare metal to weld to. It's possible to refill/rebuild/reconstruct an area with weld, there's some great videos of this on youtube, but it's time consuming to do.

Saf-T-Caps are the way to go, but put in the time and effort for prep.

 

Yeah, we’re definitely going to prep the hell out of it. He’s a DOT certified welder and PSE. We’re both aware that we will more than likely find more once we start.. but I wouldn’t sell this to someone with the crack.. so we’re going to do it regardless of if I keep it or not.