My Frame Repair Process - Rust Perforation Options for 1st Gen

Hello TW,

I wanted to share my experience with repairing the frame on my 99 Tacoma. The truck is a 1999 SR5 Ext Cab 4WD 4C 5 Speed Manual 4WD. Original in service date was 5/99 so before any one asks, I was/am outside of the warranty period from Toyota.

A little background; I had the truck checked by Toyota while still under the recall period. They told me at that time (was probably 07 or 08) I was borderline, frame looked decent but if I made enough of a stink about it, I could probably get them to put the truck through the buyback program. I decided not to pursue that avenue for a few reasons, mostly because I love the truck and I work in the car business so I figured we could repair it down the road if need be.

Over the years, I always tried to keep up with taking care of the frame. I'd powerwash all underneath a few times a week during the winter. Every spring I would wire brush the frame really good and shoot it with rubberized undercoating. A few years ago, I had a new leaf spring shackle welded into place because I had perforation and they touched up a few spots as well about 3 or 4 times.

This past spring, I brought the truck out of a storage unit and on my first drive, the shock tower broke off from the frame. I noticed about a golf ball sized hole on the frame in front of the new shackles they welded in a few years back.

So this is when I started talking seriously about replacing the frame. I'm friends with the owners of a local body shop and we send them a good amount of business so he agreed to help. He said he could get a new frame direct from Toyota, shipped in from Japan. We waited about 4 months for the frame before they decided to tell us it was no longer available and refunded our money. At that point my body shop guy suggested we look for a used frame (preferably from the southwest) that would be in decent shape. I started doing some research and came across a product called Safe-T-Cap. They make replacement frame components, vehicle specific. You can pretty much rebuild the frame section by section with this stuff.

Here's a website I ordered the product through https://www.autorust.com/safe-t-cap-kits/

Here's a rundown of the work they did. First they stripped the truck down to the frame, took the body off and dropped the engine and trans.





Then, they sand blasted the frame down to bear metal, getting off all of the surface rust and rubberized undercoating I put on. Then, they cut out and welded 7 of these Safe-T-Cap Panels into place.



Notice also, they applied what they called "chip guard" which was basically a waterproof adhesion compound that looks pretty much like the CRC that Toyota installs. They used an applicator wand to get inside the boxed portions of the frame also. They let that bake on the frame in their drying oven overnight.

While they had it there, I had them powder coat my wheels also.




It took about 6 weeks from start to finish. Total investment in this project was about $5,000, but that includes new tires, tie rods, shocks, body mounts and the powdercoating.

This is me and my son picking the truck up after it was all set.


If any one has any questions about the process we went through, I'd be glad to try to answer them. Obviously this was a large investment in a truck that probably wouldn't retail for much more than that, but hopefully this helps give some owners an option to keep these trucks on the road. I'm hoping to pass this truck down to this little guy one day.