I have a buddy that is a good welder ( I have seen some of the stuff he has welded) , I fixed his truck for him and as a return he is going to box in a section of the rear unibody that is rusted out with 1/8" steel. I am considering eventually having him reinforce the rest of unibody. What are the most common places for the unibody to fail and where should it be reinforced. I know they sell unibody stiffeners but he can get 1/8" steel for next to nothing and he has the equipment to bend and cut it. Also if on the sections where it is still in good shape does it need to be fully boxed in or will just a strip welded down the side be good?

 

They make the frame stiffeners in the shape they do for a reason....very few people who put them on are doing so to replace metal.

Most are doing so to prevent problems down the road.

 

Look around online 3 or 4 places make them now,Or if your good you can make your own or copy someone elses design.

 

There is only one spot where the frame is bad. The rest of it I just wanted to reinforce the other common failure spots. I know they make stiffiners but I can get them made for much cheaper.

 

For your bad spot, cut the rust out and patch it then plate over the patch. I just did this with mine using 16 gauge for the patch and 1/8" for the plate.

As far as reinforcement goes, the most common area for failures due to stress is the steering box area.

I would recommend patching the bad area(s) and mimicking stiffeners on the market to cover the rest of the unibody rails. I'm in the process of installing the DirtBound Offroad set which plates the rear on one side, the mids in a "L" shape on the side and bottom, and the fronts on just one side. The front and rear are 10 gauge and the mids are 3/16". The 10 gauge is nice to work with, the 3/16" seems like overkill to me. Check out the HD Offroad Engineering frame plating kit to get an idea of what you'll need to do.

I also intend to plate the bottom of the rails in the front with 1/8". It wouldn't hurt to do all three sides as well as sleeve the steering box bolts. That would really give some meat for the box to push on. The steering box and track bar put alot of stress on the driver's side rail. That extra material paired with a steering box brace and track bar brace that both run to the passenger side frame rail would result in an extremely stout setup. That may be overkill for your situation, as well as many others. Any effort to distribute the stress over a larger area will be beneficial.

 

Uniframe...

 

driver front frame rail all day long. the pressure from the steering box and track bar really does a number on loosening that area up. track bar brace and steering box brace will probably go farther than frame plates though. Center frame is easy to dent on rocks


you're only running 31" tires by your signature though, so unless you plan on moving to a bigger tire later or getting really into rock crawling you probably don't have to worry as much as someone who is running heavier equipment and offroading frequently

 

I plan on keeping 31s to keep things from getting expensive. So I should just fix the rotted out part, put some plates on the center frame where it could get hit by rocks and do a steering box brace and I should be good right?

 

yeah that sounds perfect. I recommend the HDO center stiffeners as I've used them and liked them, I know other options are available nowadays though. I think the track bar brace may be more affordable so maybe start with that, in a perfect world you should have both.

 

I ordered the Rubicon express track bar brace and the Rugged Ridge steering box brace that ties into the passenger side. I have also seen upgraded steering box spacers, are they necessary if you have the steering box brace?

 

I'm not entirely sure what those spacer plates are for... If they don't go through the frame rail and sandwich it on both sides it seems kinda useless. I actually remember bending one, I had a pic from way back but I think photobucket destroyed it. I'll look for it

 

here it is. no idea how this happened but it did. I was replacing the steering box because the reman Durango didn't last very long and I discovered a bent steering spacer


before





after







but then again, I broke the factory spacer with my hands so I guess that's the reason for getting a steel one

 

I got the Rubicon Express track bar brace in, but then I realized that had to be used with their track bar bracket which can only be used if you have a 4.5-7" lift.