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Homemade D30 C Guessets

T

themauler

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Va Beach
Going to be beefing up a dana 30 here shortly. Want to reinforce the Cs on the axle while it is out getting a truss. I wanted to order these but figured I can just cut some metal in that shape and make sure before I weld them on that the shafts clear the guessets? Any one else have any experience fabbing their own C guessets.


TIA
:patriot:
Nick
 
The trick isn't making your own gussets, its having enough heat to burn them home.

We made our own, and included a trackbar mount.

2012-01-17_20-05-12_421.jpg
 
So Cal, do you recommend pulling the ball joints before welding in the gussets? I'd imagine the BJ gets super hot if you are putting that much heat in to the inner C.
 
We welded ours with cheap $9 china balljoints in, and then swapped in some Synergy ones after all the fab was done.

It did kill the balljoints.
 
Don't remove them, just have junk ones in there. When you get things that hot you want somethignt here to stop it from warping ;)
 
Hey cal - I've seen the brutality you guys subject that axle housing to, so I've gotta ask about how you burned them in.

Did you guys just use good ol' C25 and ER70S wire? Or did you stick them on with a nickel/manganese alloy for nodular iron? Any pre-heating?
 
We used whatever 220v miller welder was closest at the time with whatever wire was in it, and the heat turned all the way up.
 
I feel its relevant to share that we need to replace an inner C on the car as its so damaged we can't race on it. ;)

But the gussets held. The outer knuckle got hit hard enough to open up the balljoint holes and you can R&R the balljoints with your fingers. If it were KOH week we'd just weld them in and go race, but now the housing is coming out for some major work.

We'll build the gussets exactly the same though.
 
Definitely good to know, thanks man. My Miller 211 can supposedly do 3/8" material in one pass, so I'm guessing it should be hot enough.

I have yet to do any gusseting on any of my axles largely because armchair metallurgical engineers all over the internet have me convinced that using standard mild steel wire will result in the welds ripping out of the cast side, at the root.

And proper MIG wire for nodular iron (like Royal 44-30) is well over 10x the cost of mild steel wire, which I can't justify... Ni/Fe filler rods for SMAW are way cheaper, but I suck at stick welding and don't currently have a stick welder to begin with.
 
Well, the difference there is the C's are cast steel, where the third member is cast iron.


We've tried welding to the C with wire a few times and that's futile. We don't need anything to stick bad enough to go with nickle rod, but it would be the only way.
 
To clarify - you've tried [in futility] welding to the C's? Or the third member/pumpkin? I think you meant the latter :)

But that's good to know that the C's are cast steel rather than cast iron. I was under the impression that the tubes (and brackets/perches) were the only steel components of the D30 housing.
 
Successfully welded to C's.

Unsuccessfully to third-member. We knew it shouldn't work (it was a truss) but went ahead and burned it in anyways as we were hitting everything around it.
 
anthrax323 said:
Definitely good to know, thanks man. My Miller 211 can supposedly do 3/8" material in one pass, so I'm guessing it should be hot enough.

I have yet to do any gusseting on any of my axles largely because armchair metallurgical engineers all over the internet have me convinced that using standard mild steel wire will result in the welds ripping out of the cast side, at the root.

And proper MIG wire for nodular iron (like Royal 44-30) is well over 10x the cost of mild steel wire, which I can't justify... Ni/Fe filler rods for SMAW are way cheaper, but I suck at stick welding and don't currently have a stick welder to begin with.
Click to expand...

With the correct heating and technique, you'll be fine even with regular filler. I've done a few 60's, 14b's, and 8.8's with my MIG. Forged/cast steel inner C's don't need any special prep either, I've done C gussets on my old 30 and my current 60.
 
cal said:
The trick isn't making your own gussets, its having enough heat to burn them home.

We made our own, and included a trackbar mount.

2012-01-17_20-05-12_421.jpg
Click to expand...

Cal, you haven't had any problems with this set up? I kind of like it, and may steal the idea when I build a new front
 
Cast steel can be treated just like mild steel. If a 211 is all you have preheat the C's 5-700*f should be fine. Weld vertical up if possible to increase penetration. Don't weld downhill on something this thick or you run the risk of cold lap. The main reason for preheating is to retard the cooling rate. Also you could look into some .035 E71t-1 fluxcore to increase penetration on a smaller machine. Core wire penetrates much better than solid wire because there is a greater current density. More amps per square inch on the wire.
 
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