lol yup

 

The question of not having a lift and doing this with jack stands is one thing, that I'm sure would be mildly dangerous at best, but the other thing to consider is just how much space you need to do this. Like... A lot of parts get removed and reshuffled in a project of this scope.

 

This guy did it with 2 bottle jacks.
Just from watching the frame swap video on the lift, in the other post, I'm sure you can safely lift the body with several jacks, blocks, and jackstands.

My 04 had an ugly rust spot behind the axle on the passenger side, and the rest of the frame just had surface rust that I painted.
The one rusty spot was solid when I got the truck a couple years ago, smacked with a hammer, solid.
It still looked the same a few months ago.
I looked at it yesterday, and that place has evaporated!
Talk about bs british steel!
So now, once I finish putting everything else back together, I need a frame axle back at minimum. Yay.
I have a friend with a lift, but given the time it would be on there, I'm thinking that I'de be better off doing a frame swap outside, at my house.
Either a good D2 frame, or a new galvanized frame.
$5k is alot to sink into a D2 now, but long term, with everything else done, maybe not so much.
I see quite a few D2's selling for high teens and low 20's now.

 

When you decide to do a full frame swap you have to either swap a bunch of rusty worn junk, which will be worse after transfer, or do all new pipes, hoses, lines, bushings. The job quickly moves over 100 hours of labor and into five-figure price territory. Doing a frame without all that supplementary work is a setup for poor performance and future trouble. 95% of the time a half frame (the $1k Rovers North unit) will solve all your problems and not open the door to any of those complications. The only challenge is having a jig to weld it on straight. We see those jobs in the $6k range recognizing they may need minor patching elsewhere. If you can do the work yourself it is far less.

 

Thanks for the response, John! Not sure if I'm going crazy or not, but I got an email notification of this post yesterday, and it says on the forum that it was from February...?

Anyway - I have a question. We've actually spoken about the rear quarter/half frame replacement, and the $6k quote that you mentioned above is consistent with the conversation that we had. See below for some pictures from another forum member who was dealing with extensive chassis rot. Instead of spending $6k swapping the entire rear half frame, he had a fabrication shop cut out the rot and re-weld the rear frame in the affected areas, and paid $1500. Based on the before/after pics, this seems like this is a repair where your recommended steps would have cost 4x as much. How can the added cost be justified, assuming that no other parts are replaced during the process? Is it just a matter of the fix being good for a few years vs. another 15 years?

Before:
After:

 

When you have rot to the extent shown in the photos, a $1,500 patch isn't going to fix it. We have been down this road and that has been my experience. You patch what you see and the next winter the spring perch tears off, or the frame breaks ahead of the axle. Patch and keep patching if you want, but I have not found it to work.

 

Need to get @frostythor to comment on this!!

 

Clearly people will have different opinions on what works. I agree a patch will often hold for a year or two but that is not going to be acceptable for most of our clients; they want something more durable. The rear frame replacement should last many years, and that is our goal. People with a shorter time horizon may be happy with less, but if you go off road remember your frame may see higher stress and there a patch will fail a lot quicker.

 

Thanks for the response!

 

HI , Cvhatt thanks for the vote of confidence, OK I have just replaced the back of my chassis, to be honest it was not difficult, a I said in my post the hardest part was tipping the car over enought to get the fual out, I did have 2 wooden support to hold up the back once I had cut the chassis out but I kept knocking them out, the body on its own is strong, and once I slid the new one on it all lined up, but what I did do was put, tape over the rear door shut gap to give me a check if there was any movement in the body , I found none, no body drop, so I was happy to weld it up
if you look at the post by Robinson Service that are replacing a half frame, the body is just sitting there overhanging with out and supports

I will say yours does look worst than mine, so you may need to get the next size up the longer section

If you go for the full frame swap, then I would make up a couple of jacking frames like you see in the the video and look for a couple of 48 inch high lift tractor jacks they are about £50 new

I would like to add if I can do it, so can you as Im 69 an fast approching my 70th, plus as I did it all myself the cost was £325, that included the paint,