In the Bishop Tardell book they describe how to mate the Model A flange steering box mount to the F-1 box. I understand this and think that it is a good way to do it. My question is they say you can mig weld it. These boxes are cast aren't hey. At least mine are. Is mig welding the proper way to do this & if it is what kind of wire do you use?? Thank you in advance for any feedback here.
Don't quote me on this, but my friend is a blacksmith and he told me to use 309 stainless wire on cast iron. Once you finish welding the part you have to get it cherry red to stress relieve it and let it cool on it's own. I did this to a thermostat housing but a steering box is a little more risky, do your homework.
Dude I don't think you can mig weld it. Mig welding for sheet metals and things. I would Tig it. You can use a Tig welder on it I know, now I dont know what wire to use. But I know you SHOULD Tig it. 1shot
Not trying to be a dick, but .025, .030, .035, etc. are wire thicknesses. 309, 308, 430, etc. are wire types.
Yeah it's possible. First you need to preheat the casting with a torch then you need to either grind out the area you are going to be welding to a little bit or use a carbide burr to get under the surface. Keep your ball peen hammer on hand weld about an inch then peen the weld with the hammer to relieve any shrinkage stresses. Only time i weld cast is when i repair an old cracked exhaust manifold. I would not do to anything that is load bearing or has my life depending on it.
Guidelines for Welding Cast Iron <TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD bgColor=#990000></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Background Cast iron is difficult, but not impossible, to weld. In most cases, welding on cast iron involves repairs to castings, not joining casting to other members. The repairs may be made in the foundry where the castings are produced, or may be made to repair casting defects that are discovered after the part is machined. Mis-machined cast iron parts may require repair welding, such as when holes are drilled in the wrong location. Frequently, broken cast iron parts are repaired by welding. Broken cast iron parts are not unusual, given the brittle nature of most cast iron. While there are a variety of types of cast iron, the most common is gray cast iron, and these guidelines are directed toward this type of material. A few facts about cast iron help in understanding the welding challenges. Cast iron typically has a carbon content of 2% - 4%, roughly 10 times as much as most steels. The high carbon content causes the carbon to form flakes of graphite. This graphite gives gray cast iron its characteristic appearance when fractured. When castings are made, molten iron is poured into a mold and allowed to slowly cool. When this high carbon material is allowed to cool slowly, crack free castings can be made. Remembering this is helpful when welding cast iron: during and after welding, the casting must either be allowed to cool slowly, or should be kept cool enough that the rate of cooling is not important. A critical temperature in most cast iron is about 1450 degrees F. When at this temperature, conditions that can lead to cracking occur. While the arc will heat the casting to temperatures above this level, it is important that the casting not be held at this temperature for long periods of time. Electrode selection If the part is to be machined after welding, a nickel-type electrode will be required. Use Lincoln Softweld® 99Ni stick electrode for single pass, high dilution welds. Softweld 55 Ni is preferred for multiple pass welds. Sometimes, root passes are put in with Softweld 99 Ni, followed by fill passes with Softweld 55 Ni. For welds where machining is not required, and where the weld is expected to rust like the cast iron, Lincoln Ferroweld® stick electrode can be used. To Heat, or not to Heat In general, it is preferred to weld cast iron with preheat--and lots of it. But, another way to successfully weld cast iron is to keep it cool--not cold, but cool. Below, both methods will be described. However, once you select a method, stick with it. Keep it hot, or keep it cool, but don't change horses in the middle of the stream! Welding Techniques with Preheat Preheating the cast iron part before welding will slow the cooling rate of the weld, and the region surround the weld. It is always preferred to heat the entire casting, if possible. Typical preheat temperatures are 500-1200 degrees F. Don’t heat over 1400 degrees F since that will put the material into the critical temperature range. Preheat the part slowly and uniformly. Weld using a low current, to minimize admixture, and residual stresses. In some cases, it may be necessary to restrict the welds to small, approximately 1-inch long segments to prevent the build up of residual stresses that can lead to cracking. Peening of weld beads can be helpful in this regard as well. After welding, allow the part to slowly cool. Wrapping the casting in an insulating blanket, or burying it in dry sand, will help slow cooling rates, and reduce cracking tendencies. Welding Techniques without Preheat The size of the casting, or other circumstances, may require that the repair be made without preheat. When this is the case, the part needs to be kept cool, but not cold. Raising the casting temperature to 100 degrees F is helpful. If the part is on an engine, it may be possible to run it for a few minutes to obtain this temperature. Never heat the casting so hot that you cannot place your bare hand on it. Make short, approximately 1” long welds. Peening after welding is important with this technique. Allow the weld and the casting to cool. Do not accelerate the rate of cooling with water or compressed air. It may be possible to weld in another area of the casting while the previous weld cools. All craters should be filled. Whenever possible, the beads should be deposited in the same direction, and it is preferred that the ends of parallel beads not line up with each other. Sealing Cracks Because of the nature of cast iron, tiny cracks tend to appear next to the weld even when good procedures are followed. If the casting must be water tight, this can be a problem. However, leaking can usually be eliminated with some sort of sealing compound or they may rust shut very soon after being returned to service. The Studding Method One method used to repair major breaks in large castings is to drill and tap holes over the surfaces that have been beveled to receive the repair weld metal. Screw steel studs into the threaded holes, leaving 3/16” (5 mm) to ¼” (6 mm)of the stud above the surface. Using the methods discussed above, weld the studs in place and cover the entire surface of the break with weld deposit. Once a good weld deposit is made, the two sides of the crack can be welded together. www.lincolnelectric.com
I would NOT MIG weld any cast iron. Stainless is one way to weld cast, there is also a cast rod that can be used with a stick welder. You can mig ( although I wouldn't cast steel), like a front axel or spindle, I narrowed a 40 Ford axel 1 1/2 inches to do a spring over but I welded it with a TIG , Back to what you asked NO don't try and weld cast iron with a wire feed.
i mig welded my f1 box .. a little pre heat on the box and the flange...beveled it too.i dont think they are cast.. it seemed to melt together very nice...
www.mig-welding.co.uk/cast-iron.htm Cast iron welding using stainless steel wire Andy Pugh has successfully welded cast iron using stainless steel filler wire. He sent an email explaining the metallurgy: I read your article on mig-repairs to cast iron with some interest, and having been through a similar train of thought, but coming to a different conclusion, I thought I would share it with you. The basic problem with welding cast iron is that it is, as everyone knows, brittle. It will crack if subjected to tensile forces. As your weld contracts it will tend to crack the iron due to differential thermal contraction. The traditional way to avoid this is to avoid the "differential" bit and to pre-heat the whole thing to as near the melting point of the filler rod used as practicable. This is the approach generally used with cast-iron filler rod. There is another issue with cast iron, of a chemo-metallurgical mature. What makes it cast iron rather than steel is the very high carbon content. This tends to diffuse into your filler rod, causing unfortunate metallurgical transformations on cooling. An attempt to use mild steel to weld cast iron will leave you with a fast-quenched, high-carbon steel weld. You will almost certainly end up with Martensite, brittle and unmachinably hard. The phase-transformation in which austenite turns to martensite (or pearlite, ferrite, or bainite, depending on carbon content and cooling rate) is at the heart of the problem. This occurs at about 720 degrees. It is also accompanied by a change in volume, which may cause more differential stress cracking issues. Both the austenite-ferrite (hot-cold low carbon) and austenite-martensite (hot-cold high carbon) transformations lead to an increase in volume, so ought to reduce the residual stresses slightly, and under conditions of slow-cooling this is probably true. However this sudden expansion on cooling of the weld pool will tend to crack the already solidified and transformed weld behind it. None of this metallurgy happens in Nickel, so nickel rods side-step the problem, as does brazing. I am not sure what sort of bond nickel rods make with iron, but brazing material needs to "wet" the surface to stick properly in just the same way as solder. This might be why your thin-sheet mig-brazing worked well, and your cast iron brazing less so, perhaps the greater section thickness resulted in the material not getting hot enough for the braze to take. There is, however, another common mig-welding filler rod which does not go through the austenite phase transformation, and that is stainless steel. As long as the stainless is austenitic (easily checked with a magnet, austenite is non-magnetic) then the phase change on cooling won't happen, and so you can afford a great deal of dissolved carbon without fear of creating a brittle, unmachinable, weld. Armed with this theoretical knowledge I attacked the broken guide-arm of a mechanical hacksaw I had been given. Using stainless wire in short bursts (to avoid too much heat input creating thermal stresses elsewhere) I successfully repaired the arm, and it has shown no signs of breaking again yet, after 10 years of irregular use.
easy way to tell if it is cast iron or cast steel is to grind on it. cast steel will have very bright yellow/orangish sparks. cast iron with have a very a deeper orange and they will be very dull, looks like very little sparks are shooting off.
that was what i was just gonna post as well! i believe the rod used for welding cast material mentioned above is called "ni-rod" it has a high nickle content.
Hello: When you talk welding Cast Iron there are many things coming into play. Its pretty difficult to correctly weld Cast Iron. Also when you say Cast Iron its not just lumped into one thing there are different types and qualities of Cast Iron. Plus what the fix is on such as Water Tight. Pressures , Loads.... You can with care successfully Braze cast in a home situation. To keep this post short here is a great description about welding. They also talk about Cold Stitching. http://www.locknstitch.com/expansion_contraction.htm Be careful and hope it works out for you
I'm fairly certain early Ford steering boxes are cast steel, not cast iron. They can be mig welded with preheat and slow cooldown.
Pretty sure you can check to see what it's made of by what color sparks it throws when you grind it. I think red means cast iron. Someone else should know on here.
Just because someone has done this with MIG and gotten away with it so far does not mean you should do it. TIG it.
I'm sure you guys have this sorted out and not to be a dick....but if Vern Tardell told me I could weld a steering box with a mig welder.....I would never even question it. The guy has built more cars than most of us will even own in our lifetime and drives the piss out of them.
only thing ive seen cast iron welded with that actually worked was with an arc welder and a nickel rod.. it was pre heated , then welded then let cool down slowly.. actually slow cooled in an oven i'm sure it could be tig welded also. i bet the box is a good quality old American cast steel
Are we reading the same book, or am I missing the reference? I don't see where they recommend MIG, at least not in "How to Build A Traditional Ford Hot Rod." Different book? Bob
besides Blue Demon , ESAB- Arcaloy Nickel 99 is rated for cast iron in mig wire ... Flatford39 if you determined it to be cast iron I have .035" mig wire , PM me if interested
If it's cast steel of some type 7018 dc stick works ok.If you can't tell what it is take it to some old fart that's done things like this his whole life and lit him do it!
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