Had some noise under the rear for a while and ignored it until today when I took a peek under to find this looking me in the face. Obviously every bump theres loud noises, even just rocking the bed by hand makes nasty noises...

Considering taking off the rear shocks until I can figure out a solution to stop the banging noises? Bad idea?

 

Welcome to the forums.

It's a bad idea.

Your rear end will bounce like crazy. It's light enough and has enough trouble keeping planted. Trying to stop over some bumps would be interesting to say the least.

There's no shortcutting that damage. Take the bed off and be prepared to weld in some new metal or head to a frame shop.

 

Okay so then it's definitely a bed off fix? I'm sure you know the part that's broken by the picture, but it's the large I guess you would call it a cross member that seems to triple as a cross member/spare tire holder/top shock mount.

As far as driving without the rear shocks, do you really think that it would be much worse than it is now? Looking at the damage and the sounds it makes te shock can't be doing any of it's job now, which is why I didn't think any worse bouncing would happen.

As far as the mount, this is a welding/frame shop fix? Any idea if this would possibly be a junk yard available item? It looks like a couple bolts and a couple rivets and it comes right off.

Thanks for the reply.

 

yes taking off the shocks bad idea not only do they dampen the wheels when you hit a bump the are very important for controlling body roll and other functions of the rear suspension

 

Yes definitely do not want to remove that shock. You could fab up and weld some metal to support the shock with the bed on, but would be a whole lot easier to do with bed off.

 

I can't tell from the picture, does that crossmember bolt on? If so, then try to find one in a boneyard. If not, any frame shop can certainly make one easily enough.

 

I would say pull the bed off

If you have the money replace the fuel pump at the same time and put new bed rubber mounts on at the same time with a new rear brake flex line with the bed off it will be way easier to do.

 

Yea the crossmember has a couple bolts and a couple rivets holding it in place. I'm not sure about suspension stuff at all, the crossmember is cracked clean through and the mount for the shock is on it. Is it possible to make a new mount coming off of the frame for the shock instead of the crossmember? I don't know if the shock has to be in that specific spot or not. If its possible I would take this crossmember off, have a new c channel welded across the back and just have a new shock mount welded on directly to the frame? It seems like the easiest real fix for the situation.

 

Changing the shock mount location would be a very bad idea very bad unless you matched it on the other side even then I would not do it without much consideration as to its function

 

Mounting locations on it are currently not the same on opposite sides. Driver side goes toward the rear, and passenger side goes toward the front.