Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben IV
So onto welding the frame back together. First a little background on myself. I've been working in industrial steel fabrication more than a decade and have welded on everything from oilfield trucks to pressure vessels for refineries. I chose straight cuts because I see no need for the "z" cut. I've done straight cuts in various types of materials that hold 10's of thousands of pounds so it's good enough for a half ton pickup.
So here's a bit of a P.S.A on what I feel is the proper way to do it. First thing you need is a welder rated for the thickness you're welding (220 volt machine). You need mig wire with shielding gas. I'm using 75% argon 25% co2 with .035 er70s-6 wire. Even though I have welding experience I took the pieces of frame I cut out and cut them to make multiple joints to practice on which I highly recommend. It will allow you to get your machine dialed in and work on your travel speed.
When it comes to prepping the 2 halves of the frame you want to put a bevel on the inside of the frame rails almost to a point and leave about a 1/16" gap between the front and rear rails when they go back together. This is to achieve full penetration welds. You want to weld the inside of the frame rails first then grind into the back side of your welds on the outside of the frame with an 1/8" grinding disk to make sure you're achieving full penetration and welding to nice clean steel. When you knock down your welds don't go crazy, stop when they are flush.
First picture shows the prep and fitup you want. Second shows how running a few practice joints helps get things dialed in. My first weld had porosity from the ceiling fan being on. If you get any porosity you need to grind it completely out before continuing. Third picture shows the penetration on the outside of the frame. As you can see the first weld didn't burn all the way through the second and third is what you're looking for. Last picture shows the first weld ground into the weld then the weld after finishing.
Hopefully I wasn't too preachy or long winded but I see a lot of sketchy scary welds on frames. If cutting down your truck is your first welding project I strongly recommend watching some quality how to videos and getting some scrap to practice on before moving on to yourframe.
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Wow. Ben, would you like to come to Arizona for a visit? I'm about to do this to my frame. Haha.