I have a 2007 Supercrew 4x4 with the 5.4, owned it since new. Now granted I live in New England and its survived 11 winters and years of road salt and temperature extremes, I’m not expecting it to be rust free but recently I noticed a rust spot on the top of the frame rail right alongside the passenger side wheel well. I watched it for the past year or two and recently I took a better look at it and noticed that it’s completely rusted through. I can put my hand inside the frame. It’s roughly about a 4-5” section.

Now at this point if it was any other car or truck I owned I would’ve just said it’s time to go and start looking for a new one. However, this truck is in great shape and only has about 58,ooo miles on it. I went under it today and wacked every inch of the rest of the frame with a pick hammer and it’s all solid. I don’t what caused that one spot to rust that bad.

Has anybody else had a similar issue? Can it be safely repaired? I would love to be able to get at least another four years out of it, just until my wife’s new SUV is paid off.

 

God invented a grinder, a welder, and a random piece of plate steel for this reason.

 

Yeah … plate it.

 

In all seriousness. A piece of plate steel to fix it up will work fine.

Choose the plate steel one step up from the steel that is there.

Just don't go crazy, you still want to keep the ability for the frame to crumple in the event of an accident. Just cut the piece of plate to overlap about 1/2" to 1" all the way around, and do a good penetrating weld.

I'd clean it up with a grinder or wire wheel and use a mig with solid core wire with a shielding gas to get the best results.