Body Sheet Metal Cracks? (rad Support)

[wild.coast]

So I'm getting slowly growing cracks in my radiator support:

Has anyone else experience this?

I'm assuming it's partially to do with driving off-road (rattly logging roads for hours) as well as the fact that I'm running a 2" body lift... those 2" rubber body pucks mean the frame has that much more ability to flex and stress the thin sheet metal.

I talked to a body shop and they said they could braze them but it will likely only be temporary and will likely happen again b/c of the body lift. Any thoughts? Any way that anyone has seen these get reinforced?

 

[BEEFY]

It is know issue for the rad supports to crack and for the lower portion to rot out. I built a new bottom to mine then drilled and welded the cracks that had formed on mine. There was a link at one point here to a stainless steel lower rad support you could buy.

 

[wild.coast]

UPDATE, figured I'd post in case anyone else is having the same issue:

So I got the rad support cracks welded up:

Even added a crossbar to stiffen the rad support (you can see it in the front pic, in front of the AC condenser). But none of this seemed to help, hood was still shaking like crazy. Had a closer look and I think I figured it out!...

So first problem was that the hood latch was too high. It's adjustable up/down (loosen 3 bolts and you can slide it). My latch was as high as it goes, which meant that the hood wasn't really even sitting on the rubber bump stops, even if they were dialed out as high as they go. Adjusted the latch down, and it seemed to help a lot. However, I also noticed something else...

There are also rubber bump stops that brace the sides of the hood. Most people only have 2 (1 per side) but there is a slot to add two more, which I did. Pic:

Essentially the only thing that really prevents the hood from moving side-to-side is the fact that it's braced by these bump stops. The bump stops sit on the body panels, and my driver's side panel had a ton of play in it! In fact, upon closer inspection I realized that 3 of the bolt that attach the panel to the rest of the body were broken! So the hood was getting braced against a panel that was moving as well - so the whole thing was shacking!!

Pic of broken panel mounts:

A third broken one on the bottom as well:

So I think that's the root of the issue. I think the reason my rad support developed so many cracks is because the hood latch was the only thing holding on to the hood, and it was getting shaken to oblivion without any proper bracing of the hood on the sides, ugh.

Posting here because I've heard of other folks having issues with cracked hood latch and rad support, I think this is why. Check your rubber hood bump stops on the sides, and ensure that the body panel is actually firmly attached!

Gonna weld up the body panel attachments so it's tight, and hopefully this fixes the problem.