Cleaning up around the #4 crossmember to patch the damage around those two body mounts. In between 11/10 and this picture (11/20), we spent a LOT of time cleaning the frame, and removed the old cab mounts (including brackets where no longer needed). I've mostly got frame rivet removal down to a 20 minute per rivet science at this point. No pictures in between because I was working my poor photographer half to death.

Cutting out some wafer-thin "dead" metal that will trap moisture and cause more rust later.

Mild steel patches. Wish I had a spare junk frame lying around. I also don't have a few goodies I need to run our big blue box, so this work was done with the little Miller MIG, which required a lot of prep and three passes on the perimeter to get a full 3/16 fillet. I'm still not happy, but even mild steel and mediocre penetration beats air and rust, which is what was there 10 minutes ago. Between the two patches, I only ran into trouble (porosity) in one spot, and it's in a non-critical area on the passenger side, which wasn't as bad.

Cutting the rivets on the #5 crossmember. Did I mention that's coming out? I'm replacing the rear crossmember and installing a far more substantial bumper, but I can't get a full strength connection to the frame rails if this crossmember's in the way.

My aim's not really that bad, that's on the backswing. My prescription for frame rivet removal -- undercut the head as much as you can with a 3" cutoff disk, and then break out the 5/8" cold chisel and (depending on the angle) the 24oz ball peen or the 4lb drilling hammer (shown).

The little chisel holder I'm using was a Sears purchase yesterday (11/19), and was an extremely well spent $10 -- unless you have nerves of steel and either good aim or a steel wrist to match, there's no way you can put enough force on that chisel to do this job. With the chisel holder and my hand out of the way, I could draw back a good two feet with the ball peen (or 18" with the hammer shown) and really beat the hell out of things. After swinging that hammer for an hour your aim starts to suffer a little, and I'd have probably broken my wrist without the chisel holder.

The #5 crossmember on the way to my scrap metal pile. This is a decent shot of the frame patches, too. No body mount holes since thise mounting locations won't be used any more.