has anyone ever patched a frame???? I have a good 3 inches rusted out on two sides. if i weld a some 1/4 inch steel and box it, do you think it will hold?
yes , i have patched frames...i'm sure many here have will it hold up? that depends on how you patch it , the quality of the materials used , and your skills..especially your welding can you post some pictures?
I've done it, on a really nice Volare that only had 57k on it when I got it in 93. The undercoating covered 18" of missing frame on both sides of the front sub! We used 1/4 plate, now they make actual fitments for it! When I worked in the aggregate biz awhile ago, we used to have to do it to our Euclid dump trucks all the time. We used "fish plates", which aren't quite round and not quite square pieces of steel to cover the crack. I'm not a welder so I don't know why, but that's how they did it. Some of the more knowledgeable welders here will know why. jay
1/4" plate is a bit heavy, but will do. Most frames are made of 3/16" material. Unibody can be even lighter than that. If you don't want the repair visible on the outside, you can put the fish plates on the inside of the repair. If you were going to splice two tubes together, you might slip a smaller tube insde a larger one to back up the weld. Fish plates work the same way on flat material or inside square tubes. Usually, you would clamp the plate inside the repair and weld through the original material with several rosette or plug welds. Remove the clamps and put the patch in. Repeat the plug welds on the other side of the joint and weld up the seam. This doubles the material on the seam without it being seen. If appearance isn't an issue, weld in the patch flush, then lay plate across the joint and weld the perimiter in addition to a couple of plug welds near the seam.
There's no reason that a compotent welder can't fix a chassis on a car. Hell, guys here build frames from scratch, why wouldn't you be able to weld up a hole that needs repair? Post a pic of the bad spot on here and we should be able to advise you on how to fix it properly. Some people freak out about a rust hole in a frame but really, it's not a big deal, it's very fixable.
Patching a frame is not a problem as long as you can get to good metal, clean the original frame to shiney steel, and can weld all the way around the patch. Often things like floor boards/rockers/body mounts prevent welding all the way around the patch and also cause problems with cleaning the original frame. Be sure there are no gas or brake lines or wiring around where you will be welding. Also watch for flamable stuff. Many times the frames have had mice and other critters make nests inside of frames. That stuff burns forever and really stinks. You will also want to dig all the loose metal crust, dirt, stones, critter nests and other debree out of your frame rails before you do your repair, the area that may need repair may be larger then you first thought. A frame rail full of dirt, sand, and crusty metal will appear much more solid the it really may be. If at all posible, make your welds on the patch pannel at an angle instead of at a 90 degree up and down. A diamond shaped patch is stronger the a square patch and if you can't weld all 4 sides you will have a comprimised repair. Gene
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