Welding Tips and Tricks

Looking for input on a repair I am facing. I have to repair cracks in a racing axle housing where a mild steel truss was welded onto a cast iron housing. I have done several trusses and had great success using pre and post heat and using mig process with er70 wire. My issue is this is a repair to work done a few years ago at another shop. Some of the welds are in places that are nearly impossible to get good angles at, or cleaned as well as I would like. I was informed all the old welds were done without preheat, and Im worried about what effect this may have had in the base materials. I will be v grooving, pre and post heating, and peening. My question is on what process and filler to use. I am considering nickle 99 stick process, do to the places I have to reach, and Im hoping it will handle any contamination better. I am also considering just using 7018 or just MIG welding. Anyone have good experience with the above?

KineticOffroad wrote:Looking for input on a repair I am facing. I have to repair cracks in a racing axle housing where a mild steel truss was welded onto a cast iron housing. I have done several trusses and had great success using pre and post heat and using mig process with er70 wire. My issue is this is a repair to work done a few years ago at another shop. Some of the welds are in places that are nearly impossible to get good angles at, or cleaned as well as I would like. I was informed all the old welds were done without preheat, and Im worried about what effect this may have had in the base materials. I will be v grooving, pre and post heating, and peening. My question is on what process and filler to use. I am considering nickle 99 stick process, do to the places I have to reach, and Im hoping it will handle any contamination better. I am also considering just using 7018 or just MIG welding. Anyone have good experience with the above?

Per heat with the 7018 type works
I like using brazing rod with torch still per heat let slowly cool

Dave

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Not an expert here, but most axles have a cast iron or cast steel center section and steel axle tubes. All of the trusses that I have seen are welded to the tubes only... (again, I'm not an expert, some may be welded to the center section also). I have built a couple of Ford 8.8 axles to put under Jeeps, and they both had cast steel center sections, which I was able to weld with no preheat.

Are you actually needing to weld to the center section?

-Bear

Yes this one is welded right to the center section. I have welded a couple of them to center sections before, but those were new trusses with freshly cleaned and ground sections of cast. This one I'm facing a repairing cracks on previous welds. I used mig before , but Im sure with the added contamination thats not a good idea for this. I also have no clue if nickle rods handle contamination well. I don't have extra material to experiment with, and off coarse its a custom and expensive dana 60 housing.