I just completed the jeep steering gear conversion. All seemed to be going good, But when torquing the gear mounting bolts the frame has cracked and the bolts are pulling thru. I'm wondering if a plate could be welded in, the surrounding frame area seems to be solid.

Thats exactly what I did, worked out just fine.
Not quite as pretty as the original frame but functional.

It can be made pretty enough if its a driver . We do it on our rockcrawling rigs in AZ all the time .

Thanks for your input, that's what i was hoping to hear