Thank you people for your response. I had the opportunity to talk "Sunday Fun Day" and confirmed my plan was a good and discussed his repair. I'm going to order the 6psc repair kit from Powerful UK.

Thank you to the previous poster Frostythor the info and pictures are a big help.

Like I said, it's a million degrees cold this week, so no painting of anything. I'll get under the truck and continue descaling and prepping the rest of the frame for rust conversion. Then drop the tank and exhaust really open up the area of exploration!

Thanks People!

 

Make sure you inspect up near the cats as well. My first truck looked very similar to yours (minus the zip ties, wish I'd thought of that! and I contemplated which direction to go when an 03 with a blown engine and a great frame showed up, so I switched horses. However, there were some pretty "soft" areas next to the cat on the pass side in mine as well. There's another thread here where a guy took his truck to a fab shop in upstate NY and for about $1,200 (I think) it was a damn stout repair. He was starting from a worse spot as well.

 

HI be aware when you drop the fuel tank, it has 3 hoses not 2 as shown, there is a small hose behind the filler hose, it has one of those squeeze plastic clips holding it on it hard to get off, and very difficult to get back on so be careful when doing it