Frame woes are bane of old trucks
You may not see any rust holes, but problems could still be there
Old work trucks seem to be the backbone of small businesses everywhere. It’s not uncommon to see 15- or 20-year-old pickups still in service towing, plowing, delivering or doing just about any job imaginable. One of the main reasons owners try to wring the most life as possible out of these workhorses is the cost of replacement, especially with additional equipment such as snowplows, tow-slings, salt spreaders and the like; a lot of these add-on components are hard, if not impossible, to retrofit to a new or newer truck, so they keep plodding along.
When it’s a vehicle that earns income, owners will often spend whatever it takes to keep things humming. But there’s one failure that seems to catch many vehicle owners by surprise, and it’s one that few vehicles ever recover from, no matter how much cash an owner wishes to pour in: frame breakage.
It’s easy to spot a frame victim from far off. The front of the pickup’s box is tilted into the back of the cab and the lower sill line of the truck is V-shaped, with the point down to indicate the graveyard where the vehicle is headed.
Yes, frames can be repaired, but because corrosion is often the leading factor in their failure, it’s usually not cost effective to attempt. And simply welding patch plates onto a rusted frame isn’t a safe idea, and seldom does it lead to accurate wheel, body and axle alignment.
The biggest problem for owners of working trucks is that — as Murphy’s Law always dictates — when a failure occurs it will be at the most inopportune time and place. While frame failures can be sudden, the factors that lead up to them occur over time and are easily detected.
If you’re working with a truck that’s more than 10 years old and has been operated year-round, checking the frame and general undercarriage isn’t an option, it’s a necessity. Fortunately, most of it is visual. With the underside clean of mud and debris, take the time each year to do a front-to-back inspection, looking for any heavy corrosion. Check especially at structural points where axles and steering and suspension components are mounted.
Don’t let the absence of any rust holes lull you into a false sense of security. Many frames are made in a closed-channel fashion, hiding the inside surfaces from view. To check for any weakness, nothing beats a substantial tap with the peen end of a ball-peen hammer. If the metal deflects or dents with a moderate one-armed blow, it usually indicates loss of strength in the steel. While this doesn’t necessarily sound the death knell for your truck, it may be a sign to start planning for its eventual replacement.
Another common failure area on older trucks is the thin metal straps that hold the fuel tank in place. Any corrosion on these straps that exhibits flaking means heading for the parts store for replacements sooner rather than later.