Unibody Rust Repair

I have my trailer hitch off right now in order to install a gas tank skid and tie in brackets for the rear bumper I'm making. I was wire wheeling around the rusted areas that the hitch had covered in order to prep for undercoating and found this:





This is not my DD, it's been recently promoted to trail rig. I work for a mechanical contractor right now and want to drop the tank and weld a patch over it. Do I need to cut out the rust or could I get away with just welding the patch over it? I figured I would make the patch go 90% of the way across the bottom and probably an inch up, centering it over the rust hole and probably 6-8" long with holes for plug welds. How much of a concern is the integerity of the metal around it? It's obviously not ideal, but it felt solid. How thick of material should I make it out of? Obviously at least as thick as the unibody itself, but not too much as then welding will become difficult, which is already going to be a task in such a cramped area. Finally, I would think TIG would be most ideal for this?

If this really belongs in Advance Fab & Engineering, I apologize and feel free to move it. Thanks in advance...

Make a metal taco around the area shown in the top picture. Use some weld through primer if you want to get fancy. Mig should do the job fine.

xjh3 said:

If this really belongs in Advance Fab & Engineering, I apologize and feel free to move it. Thanks in advance...

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Nobody looks at this forum.

OP You need to become a member to post to AdFab. You can more than make up the savings in one year of building.

souske said:

Nobody looks at this forum.

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:bs:
SPOBI. 416 threads with 4,638 posts. I'd say plenty of people look at this forum.