Backyard frame straightening tips?
 

Hey everyone,
So I was poking around under the truck the other day and discovered the the PO of my truck wasn't entirely truthful with me, evidence is in the slight bend in my frame up front on the passenger side just behind where the bumper bracket bolts up. Must have been smacked pretty good at some point and the PO(also the original owner) didn't mention it. My bad for not checking I suppose. It doesn't appear to be TOO bad so I was wondering if anyone has some tips or tricks they've used to straighten a frame at home?

I figure at this point I don't have much to lose considering it's already bent, I might as well try to fix it myself before being forced to either pay to have it straightened or find another good short bed chassis in my area.

I'll try and get some pics uploaded after work, thanks for reading

Tom

Re: Backyard frame straightening tips?
 

Those are easily pulled by a frame machine! I would take the truck to a reputable body shop and see what their estimate would be. You might be able to pull it in the backyard but do you really want to just duplicate what the PO did? Do right, do it once!

Re: Backyard frame straightening tips?
 

Thanks for the reply. Ideally I would prefer to have the pro's do it but there's one small problem with that. I'm in the military and at least in my area(and quite a large distance around) the price for "specialty" work, especially on older cars/trucks is quite inflated. The unfortunate truth is that there's a lot of new Pvt's and Pfc's who will pay whatever price simply bc they just don't know better. I hate to "go there" like this but ive taken my truck to several shops for rust repair estimates and the quotes were OUTRAGEOUS, I'm talking buying 2 or 3 other trucks for less outrageous and all the shops were booked for years out...I'm in a location where I HAVE to do things on my own or I'll never get my truck back on the road...hate to get all mushy about it but that's how it is around me

Re: Backyard frame straightening tips?
 

You can pull a frame at home if you have the stuff to do it. I learned to do some low tech pulling in the mid 70's because thats what we had. You need a way to tie the frame down. What we had was steel cups in the floor of the shop the had a cross bar in them we could run chain in and some we could drop 3" pipe in that allowed us to tie the frame down and block it up and places to pull from. You have to be creative with chain, come alongs, bottle and floor jacks but it can be done. It took a lot longer than the frame machines can do it and not as accurate but we got by.
Jimmy

Re: Backyard frame straightening tips?
 

My Suburban frame was bent from the cowl mount forward and I took it to a local shop that thought it was real easy and got it perfect for $150

Re: Backyard frame straightening tips?
 

That sux! There is a guy right down the street from me that would do it for a few hundred! There should be a huge discount for our soldiers!

I should have started off with Thank You for your service and sacrifice!

I do understand being a military retiree, money doesn't come in abundance as you serve.

Good luck sir!

Re: Backyard frame straightening tips?
 

Here at home I use a Daewoo hyd excavator & a 580K Case back hoe & two large Oak trees!
You should have some type of shop on post that you can sign into & use their tools. Do they have anything like that w/ the facilities you need for this job?

Re: Backyard frame straightening tips?
 

If your at Ft Bragg, I believe they have a on post auto center for your use. They did at Hood when I was in.

Re: Backyard frame straightening tips?
 

Yep, they have an auto shop here, I use it pretty often actually, especially for tools I don't have. It's pretty nice, the guys that work in there are pretty helpful too.