X2^^^ That turned out awesome!!! It looks like there was never anything wrong with it. Good thing it didn't get around those holes. It probably would have made it a little harder.

Like Brandon said, Keep up the good work.

 

That does look good! Were you concerned about putting too much heat into the frame and weakening it at all?

 

Heat certainly was a consideration. I laid off using the torch to take the rivets out because of that. No sense putting more heat to it than necessary.

As for welding…well, what was I going to do? It had to get done. I read many discussions about loosing the temper of the metal. My thoughts are, this whole frame will be hot dipped at a temperature of about 900° when it gets galvi'd. Hopefully that helps to "re-set" the metal in the frame.

This truck will be street driven only, not pulling or hauling anything, so I'm not concerned about it.

 

Well I don't plan on galvanizing my frame so I'm thinking about filling any pitted areas with something like Eastwoods metal to metal filler. I use the truck pretty hard so the stronger repair the better. I was just curious if you had researched welding on these frames and what the effects are. I guess it all boils down to whether having more material (metal) in the frame or less heat from the repair yields a stronger finished product.

 

I'm no metalologist or anything, but these old truck frames are mild steel non-heat-treated. I think the steel was even cold formed, but others would have to confirm that. Welds therefor should be even stronger than original base metal. The bigger concern might be distorting the base metal (the frame) but I had no issue. I'd weld a bit, pause, weld, pause, etc. Same as you would for thinner sheet metal. I did actually pre-heat the area, but that probably wasn't even necessary.

If I were only priming/painting a frame, I'd probably go the filler route like you mentioned as well. Not on anything requiring the work of the one I did, but the smaller pitted areas.