welding to frame

I just got a new (Used) welder Hobart 175 I am faily comfortable welding. I have never welded to a Xj frame before I would like to sleve it or plate it.
what setings should I use and what wire. any help would be greatfull.

i would like to know this as well since ill be boxing my frame hopefully soon...and where to weld and what style
_alex

This may or may not be the right forum but you might want to try searching the Advanced Fab forum. They have a tendency to talk about welding a lot more than on this forum.

And not to hasta and scream search but this has been touched on a bunch of times.

All I can suggest is that the unibody is nice and thin and is covered with zinc. You will need to grind the area you want to hit really well and make it nice and clean before you hit it with the welder.

for starters, every welder, and every person is going to be comfortable with a different setting.

grab some 14g, and some of what ever your using to plate it, and go to town till your not burning through the 14g

Brand new to this but having wheeled for a while and modified my XJ... pretty sure we have unibody not frames. Is this correct or am I just an idiot.

[QTOTE¼DilRedRover]Brand new to thhs NpPJA but�having wheeled for a while and modified my XJ... pretty sure we have unibody not fr`mesn" Is this cnrre2t or am I just an idiot>Q/QUOTE]
Your an idiot, sorry :kissyou:

Your right though. They are talking abnut ôce "fra|m railsr%of theàynibody.
BTW, welcome to NAXJ`):wave:

LilRedRover said:

Brand new to this but having wheeled for a while and modified my XJ... pretty sure we have unibody not frames. Is this correct or am I just an idiot.

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x2

Starboard M said:

Your an idiot, sorry :kissyou:

Your right though. They are talking about the "frame rails" of the unibody.
BTW, welcome to :wave:

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Damn.. now we have to read between the lines... :rattle:

I did my rails with 3x3x1/4" angle iron. The welding gets tricky because it's all either out-of-position or just damn hard to get to, on top of welding sheet metal to 1/4".

Basically, you want to set the welder to whatever you'd feel comfortable with welding 1/4" plate, turn the wirefeed down a little bit, and then concentrate the weld puddle on the 1/4". Maybe 70%-30% between the 1/4" and unibody. Let the puddle 'flow' onto the unibody more than actually pointing the wire at it, but you'll still have to preheat the area a little bit for it to stick well.

Here's my first attempt, when I was still dialing in the welder. The vertical part is pretty crappy but that's my own fault for being shitty at vertical-down with a MIG. Look along the top edge...to do that, you basically have to start a big fillet by pooling up the puddle on the 1/4", then leading it to the unibody, then following that fillet down using a half-moon pattern. That's the best way I found to do it. So far it hasn't broken.



A TIG setup would be bitchin for this.

And yes, it takes a while to grind through everything, and you will likely get a face-full of dirt while doing it.

thats a really long bead across the top, when welding long welds, espicially to thin stuff, you should stitch it on, 1" weld, 3" space, repeat

.025 wire.
Settings vary from welder to welder.
Like OverpricedAmericanJunkboy said, concentrate the heat on the plate, flowing the puddle into the framerail.

tealcherokee said:

thats a really long bead across the top, when welding long welds, espicially to thin stuff, you should stitch it on, 1" weld, 3" space, repeat

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That bead isn't continuous across the top, it just looks that way because of the shadow. Just before where that small hole is in the weld on the top is where the bead starts around the corner.

I'll have to get some pics, pretty much what you just described is how I did it the whole way down. That's a good point though, I forgot to mention that. It helps keep the heat-affected zone under control on the thin stuff so you don't have a big weak spot all along the weld.

kid4lyf said:

.025 wire.
Settings vary from welder to welder.
Like OverpricedAmericanJunkboy said, concentrate the heat on the plate, flowing the puddle into the framerail.

Click to expand...

I sold it about 8 months ago, took the money and bought a 5.9 ZJ. :flipoff:

AHAHAHAHHA......gotta love it

tealcherokee said:

thats a really long bead across the top, when welding long welds, espicially to thin stuff, you should stitch it on, 1" weld, 3" space, repeat

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when i did mine the spacing is weld 3" then 6" space then another 3" weld.
if you do burn through, let it cool for about 20 sec then focus on the thickest weld section and spot weld the hole up leting the welds cool for about 5 sec between triger pulls. i used .035 flux core wire as i was out of gas at the time and it is rock solid.

3x6 stitch isnt too bad, IMO still heats up that 14g too much, thin thin thin, gets real brittle... ive had good luck with the 1x3 stitch, and using 3/16 wall as the stiffeners