In my opinion, the loose rivets or missing bolts are things which could be expected of a truck that has been driven hard for the past 33 years. There were inspection parameters for catching these faults way back in the 90s. The MLVW was susceptible to rusting in between the trunnion plates and the frame, which resulted in mat techs having to cut the rivets, remove the plates, inspect the frame thickness, and if OK install newly made plates using bolts to retain them. It falls on the vehicle techs to then check the torque of those bolts during the annual inspections.
To test for loose rivets, you squirt a bit of oil at the back of the rivet head, wipe off the oil, and whack the rivet with a hammer. If the rivet is loose, oil will be seen splashing from around the rivet head. Those rivets were to be removed, the hole reamed to size, and a gr 5 bolt with a suitable length of unthreaded shank should be a slightly snug fit. A locking nut would then be torqued to spec.
We replaced the front spring hanger bolts way back in the late 80s/early 90s, and from my experience, it was not uncommon at all to find the bolts loose.
My privately owned MLVW had some corrosion at those plates, but there is a simple fix. Annually, I'll squirt some oil into the gap and let it seep in between the frame and the plates. Eventually I'll remove them and do the inspection, along with some POR-15 treatment, but in the meantime this will suffice. Mine is not abused nearly as much as those still in service.
As for the trunnions cracking, they were all NDT inspected not that many years ago. Surprising that this has cropped up again.
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