How the heck do I repair this part of front crossmember

[mjo8585]

Hey thanks again everyone for helping me on all my questions! I took my frame front crossmember to get sandblasted. After, I noticed the brackets that hold the upper a-arms, (sorry i dont know what the name of them are), had a few areas of rust around rivet area rusted through. I dont know how to put pics on here or else i would. I cant find replacement parts anywhere for it. Its the bracket that has the shims for alignment, that area. its has 4 rivets that hold it to front crossmember. Can this be repaired?!! I sure hope so. Any help on how to post pics would be very helpful for me too. Thanks again everyone

[LockDoc]

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That is a pretty important area so I'm not sure if I would weld it or not. I guess it depends on how bad it is. There is a board member that goes by the name of "brak" that is up in your area and may have a front crossmember, or know where there is one. If it's a 1/2 ton too bad you aren't closer I have one you could have. Here is his last post if you want to send brak a PM... Great guy.

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...05#post4780605

LockDoc

[dyrt]

i had a very similar problem with mine. i refer to those as the upper a arm towers since i have no idea what their name is. regardless, when i pulled my engine and cleaned the engine bay i found out that they were both rotted through pretty badly. My fix was to take the ones off of a 74 crossmember since they are almost the same exact part. The main body of my crossmember was fine but the 74 one was pitted HEAVILY because of the crappy steel gm was using in the mid 70s. The towers themselves were pitted but were thick and still good. In the end, i used the better parts of two crossmember to make one good one, but i had to drill two holes and egg two holes to reinstall since the later towers space the hole different which is the reason you need to drill the holes when you install a later crossmember.

If i were you, i would just pick up a later member(73-87 since they are much easier to find then 67-72) from a junkyard and put it in, then install your suspension on it. You could also use this as a chance to update with a complete newer suspension from the donor truck. If i had someone to help me get the whole front setup out of a truck and onto a trailer that is exactly what i would have done. Keep in mind that you want towers from the same weight truck, 1/2 ton or 3/4 since the upper control arm bolts are different sizes. i just drilled my upper arm shaft out a bit(only about 1/16 difference or so and plenty of material in the shaft) to match the 3/4 ton ones.

Good luck!

[steelhorse]

I believe you can use the ones up to an 87 model.Should be plenty of those in the local boneyard.