96 T4R: Help Needed in Denver with Bent Frame

[unisnpf]

I've got a 96 T4R with manual trans and factory e-locker and 230k miles that I think is a great truck. My son-in-law hit some black ice over on the Western Slope, hopped a curb at highway speed which resulted in the bent frame seen in the pictures. Damage is to the right rear starting just at the connection of that stabilizing bar(?). I don't want to give up on the truck and part it out. I drove it home to Arvada from Grand Junction and it drove just fine. It's clearly not perfect but it made it home without incident. I took it to a frame shop here in Arvada and they just told me they couldn't fix it and handed it back to me. My questions are: does anyone know a shop that would take this straightening on for a reasonable amount of money? or would it make sense to cut the frame and weld on (with additional support) a replacement section?

These particular configuration T4R's are hard to come by which is a key reason I don't want to junk it.

All positive input is welcome.

 

[phattyduck]

The body is pretty bent too, I wouldn't repair it. Better suggestion? Find a cheap 2WD and swap everything over. Less total work, and you have the perfect parts truck. You'll need to do a bit of work for MT part of the swap (make sure you start with a matching engine chassis), but it will be way easier and probably cheaper than fixing what you have.

-Charlie

 

[Devbot]

Hot damn that's a kink!
I agree with above. If it was just the frame you could replace it with some square tubing. But the body is seriously tweaked judging by that door and it would be the an extremely expensive nightmare to get it halfway right again. Unless you don't care that much about the body, I know some people like that. A cut-and-patch would probably be the only (reasonable) way of going about it
Finding another for cheap and swapping everything over would be the move; preferably something with a major failure like a burnt out tranny or blown head gasket. Usually when that happens to people they list it for a "get it the hell off my driveway" price. It would be a fair amount of work but nothing compared to straightening everything out - and you'd probably be ahead a solid $10-20,000 at the least

 

[brillo_76]

I repair Rusty Frames and I probably would not fix that one. Its a lot of damage. The frame is the easy part to fix. Its the body that's bent as well back to the rear door. The frame would have to be cut out and replaced as well and plated back together. The corner is mangled and probably bent the floor along with all the supports on that side. So when someone would pull it back all that bent area will rust and rot 2 to 3X faster then normal. This is why the other members suggested to put the parts into a non rear end damaged one. :-(

Not to mention, if that section got hit again it would crash a lot worse because all that steel is really severely weakened.

 

[clearock]

Just sell it and tell the buyer all they need is a little touch-up paint and everything will be fine... and of course 13k min for the diamond in the rough.

Glad no one was hurt, at those speeds and the forces needed to fold the rear down like that it could have been a lot worse.

P.S. guessing u won't fix it... but if u do by chance, I have a section on frame for that area in my scrap pile u can have...

 

[Sparky 97Runner]

Glad no one was hurt, at those speeds and the forces needed to fold the rear down like that it could have been a lot worse.

My thoughts exactly. It's a miracle that rig didn't roll big time.

Another vote here for buying a 2wd and swapping everything over.

 

[unisnpf]

Thanks!

Okay, it appears to be unanimous. I really appreciate all of the input. I was proceeding under the delusion that the body would pull back in line with the straightening of its support. That's clearly very unlikely at best and not even a possibility if I cut and splice in that section. I do like the idea of swapping everything over to a nice 2wd. They are usually the best looking examples when I'm browsing/window shopping. It's always a disappointment to find they're 2wd after drooling over them for a bit.

I realize there are probably a number of build threads out there that I will use to do the swap but just a quick question: are there modifications required to the 2wd underside to support the additional components of the 4wd such as the front and center diffs?

 

[phattyduck]

I realize there are probably a number of build threads out there that I will use to do the swap but just a quick question: are there modifications required to the 2wd underside to support the additional components of the 4wd such as the front and center diffs?

Not a ton of threads on it. My signature has a link to my thread on it. The MT version is a *slightly* different story, but not much.

Short version:
All front-end components bolt in
Transmission crossmember is the same, but welded to the frame in a different location (easy to move if you have a grinder and welder).
Shifter hole under the console is different, but you have a parts truck to get the parts from
Wiring for j-shift is 4-6 wires on each side of the front (ADD stuff, transfer case switches).
Rear upper links are different between 2WD and 4WD, swap in rear diff to make 100% sure the ratios match.

That's it. You'll want to get/use an 'early' truck ('96-'98) for simplest wiring, but you can do a '99/'00 if you want with some extra work. Avoid an '01/'02 donor.

If the recipient truck was a 15" wheel truck originally, you'll want to swap over the larger brakes (front calipers/rotors and rear wheel cylinder).

Charlie

 

[unisnpf]

Sale or Part Out

Well after a bit of searching for 2WD examples and much discussion with my wife, we came to the consensus agreement that I should not take on another project at this time. So I will either be selling this truck complete as-is or parting it out. I currently have 2 cars in my garage undergoing restoration, 2 Land Cruisers in the driveway, and this guy sitting on the street in front of the house. I don't know what I was thinking to even consider it myself. Even parting it out is probably too much now that I've said all of this "out loud". Next step is to list it for sale. Thanks for all your support guys.

Paul