2005 Bulletproof Taco: 1 Ton SAC

Well I am gonna pray for you that your welds hold. You welding mild steel to cast iron. You have to preheat and post heat or there is a strong possibility you didn't get proper fusion with the cast iron. Your suppose to preheat to 500 and then keep it at 500 while welding then bring it down slowly. You can also peen your weld metal to release some of the stress from the two metals contracting at different rates.

Just some friends welder tips

 

^ that sounds incredibly difficult

 

Well your basically welding one type of metal to another type of metal and that is not really ideal iirc you also need to use a high zinc content filler rod

 

500 is too hot. 300 or so is sufficient. Enough to boil off whatever oils are saturated in the cast. I agree on pre and post heat though. I bought special high nickel content MIG wire for pulling it off successfully.

 

Yup.

Thanks for your prayers

And sorry to say...your friend is wrong. Center section is not cast iron, its cast steel. Pre and Post heat help but for the amount of heat I am putting into the housing for this small repair...not worth the effort. Peening can be done if you wish and does help with repairs on thicker "sections".

Wrong again. And its high Ni rod not zinc, and $70 for 2lb spool when ER70 will work just fine...no thanks.

Correct that 500 is a waste. Pre and post are a good idea, but I wasn't burning into things like I was with the housing shave. Burning into the ends of the cast center section worry me not. Thousands have done it this way just fine, add me to the list.

The high-Ni rod is just insanely expensive! Once again for this...I see no need. Heck my double shear steering is MIG'd on with ER70 and those haven't cracked yet, and see a ton of force.

 

On another note I finally got to take the truck for a drive with the 40's on it

Nice and smooth all the way to 75 mph...rode nice! I have one slow leaker, so I must not have used enough bead sealer when I mounted it. Crap...39 bolts to remove and do it over! The DIY beadlock setup came for my spare yesterday too

 

Need better pics on 40s! Ive been wanting to see this

 

Tonight...I promise!

It just looks right, no other way to describe it. However, after saying I would never go bigger than 40's...these just don't seem that much bigger than 37's now that they are on the truck and the 37's long gone

 

I don't like playing devils advocate but the center sections on Dana axles are nodular or ductile iron, not cast steel. The grain structure of grey cast iron is what you want to stay away from or when it's more critical to pre/post heat and use proper wire/sticks. Feast your eyes...left is nodular or ductile iron and right is grey cast iron.

 

You are correct. I didn't want to get that far into things here,lol. Nodular welds more like steel than grey iron does.

Typically cast iron refers to grey cast, which really shouldn't be welded for a repair unless its the only option, and then proper technique, pre/post heat, and proper filler material are of utmost importance.

 

Someone has to teach the newbies LOL

 

I stand corrected. Lol at least I wasn't to far off if it was for cast iron. Cast steel definitely would not require that. Thank you for clarifying

 

Just for you, peaches.





And frame height:

 

Oh FUCK.

SHIT.

That looks amazing.

Mark you win the internet today

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5kwgBOKhH4

 

Thanks!

Look what showed up yesterday

 

Hey Mark,
What lines go where from the steering box to the hydro ram? I'm probably going to mount my ram like you did, off the panhard mount. I have a top port and front port on my steering box ready to go for hydro lines but don't know which one connects to which side on the ram.

 

It depends which way your ram is mounted. What I can say is the forward fitting on the box gets pressure when you turn passenger, and the top fitting gets pressure when you turn driver.

 

Just wanted to publicly send a shout out to Ben. I found this spare for my set from someone in CO on another forum. Ben picked up this spare for me and shipped it to me since they wouldn't ship. Thanks a ton for helping me out! +1 to you kind sir