How to Check the Condition of Your Frame and Is It Safe to Work Under

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Now, the majority of repairs we perform on vehicles require you to raise and support your vehicle. Before doing that or before purchasing or working on any vehicle, you'll want to inspect the condition of your frame. This truck hasn't had any suspension work done on it or brakes because we don't want to jack it up as this truck has a very, very poor condition frame on it. Here are a few simple ways to make sure your frame is in good shape.

The first and easiest way to inspect is visual. Now, we can see obviously our frame has some surface rust, which doesn't necessarily mean it's bad as long as it's strong. However, if you keep looking around you'll notice that the actual upper part of this – this is a C channel, the rear frame – the upper part of the C channel and, feeling around, the lower part is completely gone. This frame that's supposed to be a C channel like this, is really just a flat piece of sheet metal here, which I can actually move with my hands. That's very, very weak, and this is not something you would want to jack up.

Some other ways you can check if something looks soft but you're not positive: just grab a hammer. Now, you may think why would I want to punch holes in a frame that doesn't have holes in it, but if it's soft enough to get through with a small hammer, then it's soft enough to fail. You can see chunks of our frame are falling out here, but we blew some holes on the edges and obviously this is all torn up anyway, but we broke some holes in places where there weren't holes, they were just soft. The amount of buildup still hanging on can make it difficult to tell exactly what condition the frame is in.

Now, here our frame is nice and solid. It's just surface rust, but the reason we check the entire frame is while that one section looks good, and sturdy, and safe aside from the obvious patch over here, this portion of the frame I can go right through with a hammer, and our transmission bracket has actually started to tear and fall off of the frame. Raising up the vehicle and working under here without seeing this could cause the frame to drop out and potentially hurt you.

Once again the front of the frame looks pretty solid, but with the damage we saw back there, lifting up the front of the vehicle and supporting it could put more strain on the soft spots closer to the transmission and cause it to crack or buckle. This is a perfect example of why it's important to check both sides of the frame thoroughly. All the way down the cab on our passenger side looks like it's in really good shape.

However, the back side on the passenger portion of our frame is actually the worst out of anything. We're cracked in several places. Stress cracking is actually a really bad sign, which has actually been welded up here a little bit. That is more concerning than any of the soft spots in the frame, because that means there's been enough stress to break this, and reinforcing it is just going to move that stress somewhere else. It's cracked up here, soft, and poking through here, and after that, after this bed rail here, again, we have C channel rotted away, so it's all but sheet metal back here. This truck isn't safe not only to drive, but to jack up or work on, and is realistically well beyond the state of repair.

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