ORU SAS kit weak points and Front frame water entrapment areas

[Robbie6987]

Any one who's lookin at ORU brackets and planning to do hard core wheelin, some issues that come up after 3 years of running the kit.
Also the front half of the front frame is a bad water entrapment area though spraying the water hose down the frame was good enough, till i pulled the bumper changing the steering box and seeing water and rust scale in the frame. The frame pics are after i treated the frame with a rust remover.

 

[hd44blazer]

how often would you say that you wheeled your truck over those three years? Was it a dedicated trail truck or daily driver/weekend wheeler.

Just curious because I've had the ORU kit now for about 5yrs and wheeled it some(local trails, OHV parks, and Rubicon once) but for most of its life, it was a daily driver or sat for long periods because I bought another car and began working fulltime so it's probably got some life left in it but I'll check out that shackle spot next time I'm working on it.

 

[Robbie6987]

Its my daily driver and weekend wheeler, Ive put around 25,000 miles on it since ive installed the kit. Used to take it out at least a couple of times a month mostly mud and trails, The driver side frame inside about where the gearbox mounts started to rust out pretty bad also not from the lift just from mud collecting in there.

 

[JoeD]

That's a very common rust area on these trucks in the snow areas where they use salt. Plow trucks typically rip the whole bottom of the rail off at the front where the ORU kit bolts to.
Water also sits inside there after a nice rain. One one side of my truck it has a drain, the other I drilled one.