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Hey guys - first post - Rust in body mount crossmember - beware

dhumphri

New Member
Joined
Apr 1, 2020
Messages
3
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australia
Hey fellas

First post on the forum... name is Darren, am an aussie living in beautiful Queensland, Australia.
Not sure if I am a fortunate owner of not as the 80 series I bought about 6 months ago has got a lot of issues.

The good stuff first though, its a dark blue GXL, around a 4 inch lift, locked front and rear with ARB air lockers, bars front and back, rock sliders, winch, roof rack and awning, running 35's.
Best thing about the truck is its running a Holden LS1 V8 backed by a 4L60E auto.

Truck has a ton of lights and gear on it but its pretty much a bloody mess.
Found out tranny slipped on drive home so just had a new super heavy duty transmission built for it - fully Sonnax equip'd and strengthened - plus a new HD torque converter with kevlar bands. Also purchased a remote tranny cooler that sits under the car - one of many projects on the boil.

Will post some photos when I get a chance but the reason for my post is this.

I pulled the seats and carpet out of the vehicle to find a little rust in the floor pan in the channel that the wiring runs in right along the pax side of the truck.
But what was worse and unexpected was the rusting of the body support that runs across the vehicle pretty much right in the middle of the cabin.

Where this body channel makes a 90 degree turn near the body mounting point the thing is rusted to bits.
So I did a little investigation and found this channel full of sand/dirt/moisture. Not just a little bit - piles of sand and crap trapped in this body mounting channel.

No idea how it got in there and its hard to inspect as the channel is hidden by the fuel tank.
I will post some photos of the damage - but this post is pretty much a warning to check this channel out if you do any hard core or dirty 4 wheeling.

If u pull the seats and the carpet there are inspection bungs. I have made up some simple gussets that I am welding onto the vehicle to replace part of the channel (the 90 degree'ish) bend.

Just did not expect to find this - anyone out there with similar findings???

Rgds Darren
 
Darren welcome. Sorry to hear of your troubles. Here in the UK we often have more rust than metal so don't be surprised if people say Oh is that all!! Not sure that this is a common spot for us though. When we see the pics we'll be in a better place to comment
 
Maybe the truck has done some salt water wading in its past? What are the other rust prone points such as wheel arches, rear cross member etc like?
 
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Hey Towpack - the front inner guards are a bit rusty so am prepping two replacement ones - other than that its just this funny spot on the crossmember - not sure how all the rubbish got inside it??
 
That's not rust. It's just a little light surface corrosion. It'll polish out.
 
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