Hello All!

New to the forum and to jeeps. I purchased a '79 jeep with the intention of doing a frame up restore on her. I've never done anything quite like this, so it is going to be a learning experience.


Now shes look more like this:


When I bought her I knew the frame had some rust in the back, as is common with the CJ7s. What I didn't realize was that someone had already done a bad repair job on the frame in the rear. I pulled off the back bumper and got a good look at it today. So here is the current state of the back of the frame:







The PO put a metal beam inside the frame to support it (driver side one is stuck). Then drilled holes through the frame and bolted metal sheets 1/4 inch thick out the outside. When I first saw it I just through that is was how the bumper was mounted to the frame. Obviously not.

Has anyone dealt with this level of rust damage on a CJ frame before? I'm thinking I could get a local welding/fabrication shop to cut the last 1-2 feet of frame off, fabricate a replacement and then weld it on. Does this sound reasonable ? Is there a better way to go out this repair?

Any help/ideas are appreciated!

IF you have the skills, equipment, and spare back half of a late CJ frame sitting at your house, go for it.
but when farming something like that out to a shop, it would be better time and money spent to just replace the frame with a better one. I usually pick up good frames in the free to 400 buck range....in my area....
I have done extensive frame repair before and can't imagine trusting a regular shop to get it right.and their labor bill would be huge.

Hey thanks for the reply man. I found some prefabricated parts on the Web thag are used to fix that section. I think I'm gonna go ahead with the repair

I just went through the same thing. My son is 15 he wanted a cj5 so I figured he needed to learn something anyway. We picked up a 79 and the back part of the frame needed work in the same spots as yours. Check out my pics of what we did. I don't know how to paste the link but I just put it in the jeep build section. 1979 cj5. If you have any questions about what I did let me know and good luck!!

I am in the middle of doing exactly this. I purchased the AutoRust repair sections and am pleased with their design. I only have one side on now but it turned out as well as I expected.

What I started with:



Section welded in:


Shot with primer:

Here we go this was my start. Pretty much the same on the other side.

All finished up for the most part

Attached Images

Thanks for the pictures guys! Definitely a confidence booster to see pictures of what you've done.

Did the same for the back end of my frame as well, but didn't have as much rot as some of you guys have.

Only had to replace 5 inches of the inner frame pieces on both sides. Had a local weld shop fabricate some pieces that matched OEM frame dimensions.

Are they holding? I live in the rust belt and have never seen a frame repair last.. It takes the temper out if the steel and it rots out 10x faster at the weld line. I fought with mine for years, then it was welding patches to patches as the only way to keep it together. In hindsight I could have just bought a new frame for what I spent.

Yeah, its holding. But then again, I never take it out in the rain or salt covered roads in the winter. Plus, the entire frame is painted and coated with Linseed Oil in the inside.