Club 80-90 Forums

this may be one for the wiki,
jake called me about his spring locater on the trailing arm had roted away and wanted me to re-weld it for him, but my mig welder is on loan, so i poped to my dads to use his arc welder, not realy ideal but he is off to france and time was limited and we were only replacing the spotwelds that we hold the section on to the trailing arm, the plan is to mig weld the rest of the plate when he returns.

remove the wheel and shock and clean all the crap so you can see the factory spot welds and drill them out we used a 6mm drill bit.


once you have drilled the welds, only through the plate not the trailing arm, we used a cold chisle to tap it off, if it will not budge drill the welds a little more. clean up the traling arm with an angle grinder, the cleaner the metle the easyer it is to weld



old and new, the 2 holes on the old one at 12 o clock & 6 o clock are the locating holes on the trailing arm. they are also on the new as well to make things easy, at 10 o clock and 4 o clock on the new one


as i said we used a we used an arc welder, would be easyer with a mig, we clamped the new plate on to the trailing arm with some mole grips and spot welded through the holes that are in the new plate,






all the spot welds done, we will seam the plate and paint it when he gets back fron his trip, only took an hour and a half or so.

Good stuff Neil. I shall be getting to my rears oneday( ) & is good to have advance notice & a view of what may be waiting.

Good work, a picture tells a thousand words! Great arction shots. I guess there is a bit of sideways load on that locator as well as compressional so a seam weld will be better in the long run, and keep water out.

syncrosimon wrote:Good work, a picture tells a thousand words! Great arction shots. I guess there is a bit of sideways load on that locator as well as compressional so a seam weld will be better in the long run, and keep water out.

i thought of this when i was moding my trailing armsm and put a couple of small seams on the plate on my trailing arms before i rust proofed them,

syncrosimon wrote:Good work, a picture tells a thousand words!

Just as well in Neil's case!!


Just messing Neil.

a nice shot of the axe too!

CHeers Neil, much appreciated! Not sure it even took an hour!

Now down in France.

A quick and simple job, would be worth doing anyway when replacing trailing arms, you can't see quite how rotten they are underneath!

Repair section was delivered next day from Baxter:
http://www.brickwerks.co.uk/index.php?p ... t&Itemid=6

Need a shot of it anti-rusted, sealed and painted and we'll Wiki that Cheers Neil

Yours looks like it'll outlast you

Neil, I'm going to donate you one of my spare welding vizors before you damage your eyes (or get a nasty burn between your fingers!)
You need to be able to see what you're welding, when you're welding and still be able to see years after you have given up welding...

silverbullet wrote:Neil, I'm going to donate you one of my spare welding vizors before you damage your eyes (or get a nasty burn between your fingers!)
You need to be able to see what you're welding, when you're welding and still be able to see years after you have given up welding...

thanks but i have it already. but it is on loan saving anouther syncro.

neil

Lending tools out? Stuff that You should have given me a shout and I'd have got one too you.
Welding's too risky not to use one. I only started taking PPE seriously when I had a hot swarf chip jump off the lathe and stick to the white of my eyeball
I was lucky but had to wear an eyepatch and pad to keep it closed for a week until it calmed down...
but without the smile...
If you need a spare vizor give me a shout as I have several and now I have my solar one they don't get used.