91extcab
+1y
^^ what he said. You could plate it if you wanted to, but with as thick as the piece was that i used, and as much penetration as i had i wasn't worried about it for mine. That truck went to a scrap yard after i sold it, cause the guy who bought it didn't know shit about mechanics and couldn't figure out how to deal with the oil leak the motor had. I put a couple thousand miles on it after i did the notch (not to mention i only wanted a little extra room to avoid axle slap so i didn't remove a lot of the structural integrity of the stock frame) and never saw any weakness to the frame after the notch. This truck was a static drop only, never planned to bag it... Had 84? Jeep j10 front shocks in the rear if i recall correctly. Rode real nice.
In any case, you need to do what you feel is safe. Everyone has their own preferences as far as how something should be built, and spending a couple extra bucks for some extra plating for that piece of mind isn't a bad thing. But as far as mine went, seeing how prior to doing this notch i had repaired a broken frame and passenger cabin floor frame for a 24 passenger bus and done a z notch behind the cab on my other truck (currently still have this other truck, flatbed conversion) i was confident in my work. But to each his own.