Welding Tips and Tricks

I am going to be installing axle sleeves into my dana 30.
The wall thickness of the axle is 1/4" which is the also the thickness of the sleeves.

The plan is to plug-weld three spots on both side of the long tube and once on the short side (front axle).
I will also be welding the end of the tube at the knuckle.

I had planned to use my tig but the material is so oil soaked over the years that is simple not an option (I tried). So I plan to mig weld it. Gave me an excuse to finally buy one, I picked up a Hobart 210 MVP machine.

Are there any specific things I need to be aware of when doing this kind of a plug weld, that would differ from using a tig?

<Crickets>

Sorry mate, We only have a few auto type welders here, and they are likely quite busy. On the other hand, we have a large a amount of topics that go unanswered. A quick look at the unanswered posts tab will show you this.

Regards, Mick

Firstly, I'm not an auto welder, but I will make comment.
I see the main loads on this repair are the driving force and fatigue stress due to the cyclic nature of operation. To resist these forces, your welds should have plenty of penetration which solid wire mig is notoriously unreliable especially with unclean surfaces and particularly in the hands of the inexperienced.

So for this repair (if you are set on using your new power source) I would recommend using the FCAW (gas shielded) process to ensure good penetration and avoiding cold lap. The better you can clean up the surfaces the better the result will be.

Show us some pics and good luck!

Even if it's. Oil soaked I'd still tig it. Tig then grind out the spooge. Then tig again.

I have Tig welded several cast aluminum (I know this is steel but) small engine cases. They are very porous like your project
I heat and clean with acid then heat and clean till they stop making oily smudge then weld them with the tig. Thats the only way I have been able to get them to weld nice.

So finally got it welded in, all the welds were laid down on bright shinny metal.
I think the penetration went well, it was done on both side of the C Gussets.

https://dsm8.smugmug.com/Other/02-Jeep- ... -x89b4Ns/A

https://dsm8.smugmug.com/Other/02-Jeep- ... -ZdNs7fK/A

https://dsm8.smugmug.com/Other/02-Jeep- ... -GXKpNPV/A

Tie ins look pretty clean. I'm guessing there's a small hole under that dot on the one in the pic. For mig it doesn't look too bad. Every job reveals places that may be adequate, but that we criticize, or over criticize ourselves on.

Looks good and solid from the outside, no evidence of cold lap. What it's like on the inside, time will tell.
Nice job.

Coldman wrote:Looks good and solid from the outside, no evidence of cold lap. What it's like on the inside, time will tell.
Nice job.

Thanks, there was some gap to be filled in a couple of areas so for those I did a root pass then the cover pass which is what you are seeing in the final pictures.
What ever I ended up with is adding strength where there was none before so it is just gravy.