Bent frame and radius rod

[WoodsWagon]

1992 loyale 4wd, 4/4 PK lift to start with. I bent the left hand radius rod to about a 30 degree angle, and worst, bent the body where each of the lift blocks hold the tranny mount/ radius rod plate. I have a spare radius rod, but the bent nuts and the unibody surrounding them concerns me more. I'm going to fabricate a bridge between the two inboard blocks, and I'll see about using extra plating to reinforce the body from the outside. Has this hapened to other people and how did they fix it?

[Subarutex]

I encountered a similar problem. However, I ripped all three of the unibody nuts out of the driver side plate.

 

My first fix was to try and weld the nuts back in (thanks Dr. RX) However the unibody sheet metal is far to thin, and in daily driving (about a week later) it ripped back out.

 

I then contacted a buddy who worked at a fabrication shop. We drilled the back 2 holes through the unibody to the cabin area. We used large (3"-4" dia.) 1/2" thick aluminium washers in the cabin, and used ready rod (1/2" threaded rod) and nuts to bolt it back together. The front hole we cut an access hole into the frame rail and put another aluminium washer in there, with more ready rod through the lift block.

 

That was 2 years ago. I've retightened them 4-5 times since then, but really only a 1/4 turn at best... so its holding pretty strong.

 

At this same time, we also through bolted several different locations. The passenger side main radius rod plate bolt (the one the trans. cross member sits on) and then the main bolts for the rear subframe. We used the same technic described above... drill through the unibody, shove ready rod up, use a huge washer on the top to distribute load, and tighten as hard as you can.

Good luck!

[WoodsWagon]

Thanks. When you drill through the body, where do the holes come out in the interior?

[Subarutex]

Pretty much right under the pedals on the drivers side.