Driver's Side Frame Rail Repair

It's been tough to make time lately, but I have been getting some work done on the car.  One of the areas that has really concerned me is the frame rail on the driver's side of the car.  I could see that it was pretty nasty looking and wasn't sure how much of it was salvageable.

My friend Justin T. came over to help me do some inspection.  Since the floorpan also needed to be repaired we also cut away all the rusty areas of the floorpan.  Once it was cut away, I was pleasantly surprised.  While there was a lot of rust debris inside the frame rail, it was not as bad as I expected.  It was heavily pitted, but still fairly solid with the exception of a couple of small spots.  This was good news, but it did make me wonder where all that rust debris came from....

Starting point.  Looks pretty nasty.

Justin T. doing some cutting.

Next I got under the car to inspect the front/upper portion of the frame rail. I had seen a couple of rust spots on it, but wasn't sure how bad it was.  Well, it was worse than I thought and was clearly the source of all the rust flakes in the bottom part of the frame rail.  Ugh, I knew I was dreading this repair for a reason.

So, I cut away the rusty areas, treated with weld-thru primer and started making patches.  I also took this opportunity to spray Eastwood internal frame coating all the way up to the front of the frame rail using the included spray tube.  After doing some research on how others had repaired this area I decided on a three piece repair.  Two side pieces which get spot welded on with full beads along the ends and a bottom piece which has a full weld seam along both edges tying all three pieces together.  Since I don't have a lot of metal working equipment this is a lot easier than trying to bend 16ga steel into the complex shape I need.

Once I got the pieces cut I drilled holes for the spot welds, welded the side panels on, then the bottom panel and finally ground it all down.  I think it turned out pretty good!

 

Frame rail after cutting and weld-thru primer.

Outside patch before holes were drilled for the spot welds.

Inside patch after holes drilled and weld-thru primer. 

Outside patch after welding and grinding.

Inside patch after welding and grinding.

Finished product outside.

Finished product inside.

Finished product bottom.

Now that the worst part was fixed I decided to tackle the back portion of the frame rail.  I cleaned this area up really good with a wire wheel, cut out one small rusty area, treated with rust converter, then weld-thru primer.  Next  I cut a reinforcement plate which I placed inside the frame rail, drilled holes for spot welds and sprayed with weld-thru primer.  When I welded it in I also welded the edges to the outside edge of the frame rail.  The welds aren't to pretty, mostly due to that weld thru primer.  Once it was all done I cleaned it up and treated with the Eastwood internal frame coating.

Reinforcement plate cut and ready to install.

Test fit of the reinforcement.

Cleaned up and painted with Eastwood internal frame coating.  Love the way this stuff runs down into all the crevices.

Welded in.