Yep, down in Haiti. The roads are very rough there. All distances are measured in time, not miles. It can take you 4 hours to cover 20 miles, and some of that is paved. American, long framed trucks don't hold up real well there. I have seen many sway-backed, where they have been overloaded, and combined with the rough roads, bend or crack.
On one trip, we had stopped at Blue Ridge, a Christian ministry which has a well drilling operation, and saw them working on an F350. It was the chase truck, and had damage to the frame. They had stripped it down, and was plating the frame. They also fabricated a gusset, running along the bottom of the frame from the back of the cab to the back of the frame, with a brace in the middle, to strenghten it from bending. I don't know how well it worked, but it looked like it should help.

 

I'm hijacking this post for a second... i need input from anyone who has wrecked their CTD and tried to repair it themselves...

I hit a power pole the other night with my truck (I was going about 60)... good news is I had a ranch hand bumper that cut the pole in half and saved most of my truck... bad news is, I tore and bent the front part of the frame where the bumper brackets go. I actually tore one of the bolts through the frame. I'll post some pics later this week when I get free from work and classes...

OK... so I'm a licensed A&P and a mech. engineer by trade... I know I can do something with this situation... but I'm looking for the voice of experience on pitfalls to look for.

My plan so far is... when I get home today... take my pics, and some measurements to see if the entire truck is still "square" or if it has warped or bent in any way. Once I establish the rest of the frame is ok, then I plan on using a hydraulic press to re-shape the splayed open ends (it doesn't look like they bent at all... just splayed open). If I suspect they're bent, but the frame is square, then I'll have a shop put them back (or if the frame is bent I'll have that repaired too)...

Once I have the truck trued up again... I'll have a new ranch hand welded into place (and bolted with grade 8 hardware again). I'd say this sounds pretty obvious, but I'm looking at $2000-$2500 to do all of this work (including replacing the mangled sheet metal and radiator support)...

My other option is to buy another truck (like this '79 bronco I found for $600) and throw my drive train into that truck... it's a 4wd, so I'm probably only going to swap in the motor with an adaptor to the ford 4 spd for now... my truck is a factory '94... so it's only 165hp and 400lbs ft... Ford used to build some tough trucks... so I think it'll hold

Option 3 is to find a V-10 dodge and do a swap... and option 4 is to buy the bronco and go back to a gas motor (I don't haul anything but my butt back and forth to work and classes anymore anyway) and sell my truck for parts.

Suggestions on (a) the repairs I'm looking at and (b) whether or not it's worth saving. ???