Rear crossmember replacement

Tbaumer

Technical Excellence Contributor
After more clean up & a very unimpressed attempt with a portable sand blaster, I removed the rear two (of five) cross member supports over the fuel tank & the body stay arms. They will be going with the fuel tank cradle to get blasted & powder coated. That's a lot easier than trying to clean them up myself!

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Tbaumer

Technical Excellence Contributor
Removed the nut plates & wire wheeled the corrosion off before applying POR15 to seal. Added thick pieces of aluminum to reinforce the body side panels that were missing chunks of the 90 degree bend. Sealed the edges with Alumaseal to prevent water & debris from getting between.

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Tbaumer

Technical Excellence Contributor
Taped up the wire harness, removed connectors, connected a cable & pulled the harness forward until it is safe from the welding. The amount of waxoil on the harness is encouraging. It was a slippery mess.

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Tbaumer

Technical Excellence Contributor
It's aluminum pigmented gutterseal. Been calling it Alumaseal for decades. Now that I actually look at it, it doesn't actually call itself that. Very adhesive, easy to get into tight seams & settles/levels to a smooth paintable finish. It is flexible as it cures. We use it at my sheet metal shop to finish & seal edges/seams (also on what it is designed for - gutter seams).

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Uncle Douglas

Well-known member
Callsign: delete
butyl rubber. Similar to what we use to fill all gaps and crevices dynamat.
Will give your liquid version a try.
 

Tbaumer

Technical Excellence Contributor
Powder coated supports & body stay arms back in place. Just riveted the old rubber pads back on. Got some grinding down to bare metal to do at the weld seam while waiting for new nut plates to arrive so I can line up the new rear crossmember with the body.

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Tbaumer

Technical Excellence Contributor
Still waiting for the new nut plates... so I installed two of the old ones to line things up with, temporarily set the new crossmember, marked weld lines, sanding disk to remove the galvanized coating on the new cross member & on chassis for welding... still waiting for new nut plates.

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Tbaumer

Technical Excellence Contributor
Got 'er welded up, took a grinder to some ugly welds, sealed the seams (plus some) with POR 15 & bolted the reason I started this project on (step bumper).

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Tbaumer

Technical Excellence Contributor
Pulled the harness back through & routed it. Before the fuel tank can go in I need to figure out a couple things - My old gauge never read fuel level. After removing the old tank, I see the Green/Black wire is spliced with a (purple) repair wire & the White/Slate is spliced with a (purple) repair wire. Those I can do better, but there is a broken wire (White/?) coming out of the harness at the same point that the fuel sender wires come from. I don't find it on the diagram. Any ideas? Also, does there need to be a ground wire connected to the threaded post on the fuel level sending unit? I see a ground on the diagram, but the old tank never had one connected (see first pic) - might explain why it never showed my fuel level.

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Napalm00

Technical Excellence Contributor
on the new sender you may have to bend the tube and bend the sensor arm and its stops for it to read correctly and pickup the fuel at the bottom of the tank.

id suggest mocking it up without the return elbow in place to see where it all needs to be.

Add a ground to the threaded stud and wire that to the chassis ground

the two wires that are repaired should have white and red connectors under the boots to tell you what one they get plugged into. You see when the low fuel light will function by moving the arm all the way down, when the float arm touches the sender body, it will ground out and illuminate the dummy light. So adjust as needed

Use ARP thread sealant on the metric flathead screws that hold the top return elbow in place. then after assembly hit the entire bolted in elbow with some paint. mud and water pools here and it rusts quickly depending on where you are
 
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Tbaumer

Technical Excellence Contributor
The odd set up of square plate bolts & retaining nuts for the rear cradle mounts & stacked rubber isolation washers, sleeves, etc for the front cradle mount have been replaced with new. Finished fitting parts to my fuel tank (New nuts & compression sleeves, rubber fuel line & added some undercoating where the water collects on top of the tank) repairing the wires (crimp connectors, heat shrink & taped) that are inaccessible after the tank is in place & mounted the tank & cradle . Also put the sway bar is back in place.
Still have the wiring in the rear cargo area to do, along with the fuel lines & exhaust piping.

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Tbaumer

Technical Excellence Contributor
To complete this thread - I finished the wiring (eliminated the trailer wiring that ran to the old crossmember plug), added the ground to my fuel level sending unit (now it works), sealed exposed wire at old connections, replaced the rusted ground connection with new, put the old tail pipe on, installed the fuel fill & breather/overflow tubes... The one piece of advise I would give anyone who is going to do this repair - Get all the mounting hardware (Nut plates, bolts, grommets, hoses, including parts for the fuel tank) & all bits that you do not plan on re-using ahead of time, so you are not ordering & waiting for parts during the job.

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