@@DirtLifestyle no worries! Also you are almost single handedly convincing me to do a link suspension for my build instead of buying premade leaf spring mounts
As an Ironworker : the weed burner is used a lot to preheat large structural members before welding, I have found that welding cast material with a Stick Ni-rod/nickel does best, then when hard facing sometimes I’ve ended with using an E-7018. The main thing is the preheating and post heating covering the material to cool slowly just as you did. The UA taught you well. Great Workmanship. A Retired IW/Business Agent LC 433
Ironworkers use weed burners to preheat anything over 1/2". At least thats how my journeyman taught me. As far as the cracks in some of your welds, I hope by cleaning up those welds means you're gonna grind them away completely. I've had luck just grinding a channel where the crack was in one of my welds and weld over, but was told by the weld inspector at the jobsite that the only proper way to fix a crack was to completely grind away the weld and start over. Only ever had one of my welds crack but it was good info to take from the experience. Love the videos, Hafa Adai from Guam
I’m really enjoying the super technical “dives” and the Q and A. What makes your channel stand out for me is the educational content. There are tons of wheeling channels not many that teach you how to build the rig. Keep it up!
Hey guys, not being the weld nerd troll but here is the correct nomenclature. DCEP+ DC current Electrode Positive “ Reverse Polarity, DCEN- DC current Electrode Negative “ Straight Polarity” it’s confusing but here is the science. In welding current travels from - to positive this provides wider arc diameter and deeper penetration in “Reverse” polarity. Conversely when the current is traveling from electrode to work “straight “ polarity you have a higher burn off rate of the electrode and shallow penetration. Hope this helps Brent Akin AWS CWI
Thank you for publicly making clear death wobble is an alinement issue. I cannot believe the sheer number of people who do not understand the underlying issue is caster and toe. If caster and toe is in spec, you can run every wear item until it breaks without death wobble.
you know how many people always want to argue with this statement... people without even knowing what caster is... lift their vehicles..then deny caster is the culprit for death wobble despite having new steering components ....
B Varney or the number of new vehicles have incorrectly adjusted suspension or have a plow prep added after production and the result is an unstable axle. How about this one. Ifs trucks can run with tie rods blown to hell and ball joins to the point of failure but encounter no vibration. Why? Because their ifs didnt change caster being the adjustments are rusted solid and caster angle doesnt change much at all if the torsions are cranked. Anyway, its basic suspension geometry conversation blown out into witch craft lol
Just as a quick reference, the factory doesn't pre heat the housing before plug welding it. And if your going to Tig weld it use stainless 309 filler rod, it has basically the same strength as 70S--, it flows better, joins to many different materials and won't crack while welding or after cooling off even if you don't preheat the housing, unless specified otherwise it's my go to filler rod.
I recently learned that what people are calling the ground (negative) is more accurately called a work lead! What is actually happening is that it is providing a return path for the electrons that are being put out by the welding lead. In reality, current travels from negative to positive, even though it is described as flowing from positive to negative. Just thought I would throw that out there. You really do some amazing builds on this channel, Nate! Great work!
I loved your comment about death wobble being an alignment issue. I bent my tie rod assembly on my JKU wheeling, and just got the damn thing home. After an alignment check I found I had 1 inch of toe-in, no warn parts whatsoever, just huge toe-in. If I went over 70 kms/hr the Jeep tried to jump off the road lol. Everyone said I was crazy lol. Loving the QA in the videos. Great content Nate!! 👍🍺🤘
I love that you just go for it man and share it with the community. This is how we all learn. Your channel is what we DIY guys that can't dump 100k into our rigs live for!!
I feel that stick welding is the foundation of all other welding I learned on stick once you can weld a 7018 uphill and have it look like a flat weld Mig and Tig will come easier to you.
I got a set of JK axles i am putting on an xj these kinds of videos you do about everything and how you break down the welding on different materials is awesome!! Thanks and keep up the great work much appreciated.
The preheating and post heating is to prevent cracking of the weld during and after welding. Many cast materials will crack at the toe of the weld if weld on cold or if the weld cools too fast. The filler material becomes important so the finished weld is not brittle. Many people claim hero status when welding cast with er70 because they got a weld not to crack during cooling. They don’t realize that their weld is so hard and brittle that if it’s stressed it will fail. One easy important test is to take a tig torch and puddle a spot on the cast material with no filler. Take a file to the spot and file it. If the spot is super hard and won’t file, you have to use a filler that doesn’t absorb carbon and become brittle (ni55-ni99). Some guys use 309 stainless (which won’t become brittle due to carbon) but I don’t like that because stainless shrinks and pulls massively which can lead to cracks on welds. Your tig weld likely failed on the tube to housing because that rod was a form of stainless and not high nickel. I weld d60s and sterlings all the time with ni55 nickel tig and never have cracks on the weld after cooling.
I used to do tool n die for a few years out of high school. We used the propane weed burner style torch to preheat all our tool steels and cast metals that required preheat
Sweet video and edit buddy, very informative here .wow this had me revisit ,my studies in metallurgy, pretty accurate content! Practical and straightforward Thanks buddy!
I work in a foundry that produces mostly ductile iron. As most others have told you, nickle is the way to go. Nirod or nickel wire and your heat numbers are right on.
Another awesome video brother 😁👍 your videos have helped a lot of Missouri wheelers, anytime someone asks me about a issue with welding or suspension I tell them to watch your videos & they always say it gets them a better understanding of what they were doing. So from all of us here in Missouri, Thank you
Finally...been waiting for your vid forever. You have to understand you're one of the few youtubers with excellent content and quality. Keep em coming and buy a zuk or yota nx plz.
Using a magnet to identify how “weldable” cast is works well too, the better a magnet sticks the more weldable the material is. Rather than buying more TIG rod if you want larger rod for bigger jobs twist two or three rods together. Put one end of the rod bundle in a vise and the other in a drill and twist as tight as you like. Last tip, don’t ignore 7018 stick electrodes for welding casted materials, it’s easy to control and does well joining dissimilar materials. Keep up the great job Nate!
thanks for answering my question man I really appreciate it. I will have to email them and find out. Looking to get the most flex out of the leaf springs as I can
mabbee expand on the "peened" for us uneducated lot? please gentlemen? im aware what it refers to in other manufacturing processes..... similar process i assume? obviously post weld but before or after cooling? etc..... please
@@porschetech72901 Good question, to keep it simple, it's like this, in the metal, there are molecules in straight rows, just like a knitted sweater, when you put in the extreme heat from welding, you scramble these molecules, making the metal weak, weak because it is strongest in it's natural state, this causes cracks from heating and cooling, even if you can't see them they are there. Each and every weld should be peened, what this does is kind of stress relieves the piece although now completely and it flattens out the top surface blending out these small cracks. The proper way is preheat to keep the extreme input to a minimum, and then slowly cool in an oven, then finally quality stress relieving, this can be done in 4 ways, 1) heating, 2) burying in the ground for 10 years, this some might remember from school when the teacher in shop class got you to dig up material for your 1,2,3 blocks that had been buried years earlier. 3)shaking to find the stress peaks 4) dropping the piece from a fairly high height. These are the main ways of stress relieving, a mostly forgotten task that only the most professional shops perform.
great videos Nate, totally agree with you about death wobble, in my experience 99% of the time death wobble is caused by either worn out steering components or poor suspension geometry.
Something I have had great luck with in welding centers to tubes is using flux core wire and turning the heat up. Pre heat to 500 and weld in quarters. I've done 3 all the same and haven't had a crack yet. I also post control heat down to 100 degrees or so instead of using a blanket.
Man I'm digging your channel, doing some great work over there , the Q&A is awesome. I'm positive your videos will help a bunch with my one ton swap. Keep up the great content
Great info, Nate. Really digging these ‘deep dive’, ‘super techie’ vids. It’s what science class/votech classes should have been in high school. Learning a ton, all 💯 practical. Keep up the great work! 👍
Keep doing what your doing. I really appreciate all the technical information and it helped me tremendously on my build. Hands down my favorite channel on UA-cam. Thanks from Texas.
Appreciate this particular post. I’ve got a 1980 Bronco, front diff is D44 reverse high pinion, IFS TTB with a bolt in passenger side axel, this style was only 1980-1982. There’s no spring inside to retain axel, but the inner pinion bearing bore the cup/race pounds into is spun/over large, and there’s no interference fit to keep it. Planning on welding in material and machining back to size. Hopefully it works, meanwhile I’ll be on the look out for a hard to find center section
As mentioned before using a weed burner is the best way to pre heat most metals. Especially large areas. I use them to weld broken dozer ripper shanks together, doing build up on dozer idler wheels etc. As for the cracks in your tig welds and mig welds it has been my experience that they crack because of TOO MUCH heat. The metals expand and cool at different rates pulling your welds apart. I’m sure there is way more to that but I am not a metallurgist just the welder hahah! Love the channel and keep the awesome content coming.
Great video about material determination and welding process; best I've seen on UA-cam. I've been building 8.8's for some time, and finally sorted out preheat, interpass, and controlled cooling after several years of experimenting (moved from MIG to TIG, 309L to Ni99) and talking to a fair number of welders. For controlled cooling, I have a large plastic tote I have axle tube slots cut out in, and place the hot rear in the tote and cover with dry play sand, wrap the tubes with welder's gloves/shirts/towels, then throw a shipping blanket over it and let cool overnight.
Hey, as a mechanical engineer I just want to say thinks for caring about the material and being open minded. You have great curiosity and want to do things right. So many times all I hear is hate for engineers for putting a good quality Ductile Iron or Austempered Ductile Iron (ADI) instead of just using cheap materials. The engineers and company are paying good money out of pocket (as opposed to profit) to make sure you are getting good quality material that has good strength, toughness, corrosion resistance, hardenability, etc. If you are curious you should look into the material properties for each (ADI is my favorite) and compare them to cast iron, mild steel, and 4130. I think you would be surprised how well some of the high strength cast irons fare. Yield strength, elongation at break, ultimate tensile strength, and toughness (IZOD/Charpy) are a good place to start. Keep up the good work!
I'm drawing up plans for a custom 4 link (bc my truck is a hard ride and used in disaster rescue) so I'll be able to crawl this thing over almost anything. Ur channel is a gold mine of info and I've learned a lot from ur vids!!! Thanks for all of ur hard work!!! (Though I know it's all fun for u). 👍👍👍🤣
The fact that both your tig and mig welds cracked down the middle shows that its not an adhesion/bonding issue but the different rates at which the cast and mild steel expand and contract. This is why you have to preheat the cast and then control it's cooling rate by adding heat so it cools at about the same rate as the mild steel.
We use to use those weed burners for heating up very large coal pulverizer castings to make 11" shaft fits, we would usually run 3 to 4 for a couple hours to get the growth, They work very well !
I like your explanation on death wobble, it makes sense. What I’m accustomed to for death wobble is usually a wore out knuckle where the tie rod goes. (Not allowing the tie rod to set proper, ie improper alignment) You can’t keep doing these beautiful builds, my wife is getting upset that I’m collecting diffs and a transfer case to throw under our 99 Durango 2wd. Yes I’m doing the swap, because of you. Already have a Dana 44hp our of a 79 F-150 (+2 inches vs current width), a fresh transfer case out of a 99 Ram, (both are driver side drop) still looking for a good priced overdrive unit for a 42-48re to rebuild brand new and slap on the back of my transmission. Then just need a rear end out of a early 2000s ram 5 lug with factory disc.
With grey or nodular cast iron is either keep it cold or keep it hot. for smaler repairs I use nickel rods or nickel/fe powder rods without preheat. Just weld small 2cm (1inch) long welds then stike it for 10 sec with hammer to relieve stres. For cracks or damage on parts that just need to hold water or oil I just use tig and silicon bronze wire.
Funny I just did this whole process myself, research included I wish this video would have came out sooner lol. I preheated and used cast rod on a AC Lincoln stick. Would love to try and use DCEP for curiosity. Post heat and cool slow. Weld and inch then relieve it. Welding it during arc didn't leave the prettiest welds like you said, but I was confident in the welds. On the tubes I've used 1/8" arc rod designed for cast and just tried to get as much material in there as possible and I've been super happy with the tubes. I had very little welds crack on the housing, most were tacks that cracked and only had one small piece of structural weld that split. Welding 1/4" truss to the cast went fine, had some trouble on the 1/8" artect truss material I believe because of heat. Just tried to weld smaller sections at a time, all using 1/8" cast rod on 115amp for the tubes and 90-100ish for cast. I will let you know after the jeep is done and how the welds last! @mi_zj is where Ill probably end up posting my 4link and truss weld process etc. Hopefully after windrock the welds will still look the same as they do now lol. I've been talking with rubberducky TJ and all sorts of other sources, after doing so much paranoid research I think if you follow the basic guidelines given for this welding procedure and trust your gut using prior knowledge and the research you do. Thanks Nate, your channel ideals are really helpful to this community! Keep up the good fight Nate!
I hope you address the TIG rod cracking in the next video. I had mixed results when I used it on my build. I did fold the rod over so it was twice as thick so I could feed more rod into puddle. Looking forward to your solution. FYI I used stick weld for 95% of my build. Was just easier and it looked/felt stronger. Love you stuff always good!!!
First glance at that pic I thought you were making a camp fire in the axle cooking sausage over it lol. Maybe make a makeshift photo like that, turn it into a poster and hang it in your garage. Would look good.
It may work better the way you've connected the polarity but reverse polarity is electrode positive work negative. And that in fact was the reference on the box
According to Metals and How to Weld Them (from the James D. Lincoln Welding Foundation), SMAW with a 60% nickel, 40% iron rod. You can also use a high nickel MIG wire. You not only need to preheat, you need to maintain the heat during welding. After welding, pean the bead while it's still hot to reduce the tensile stresses. And then post heat afterwards. Cooling slowly over 12-24 hours completely wrapped in fiberglass blankets.
Hey Nate great content as always. I appreciate your channel you're so informative and you've taught me a lot about working on my Jeep. As to the death wobble contents in your Q&A section. I would after suffering from death wobble look at the drag link connection. I would get death wobble at 20 miles an hour after hitting a bump, after diagnosing the potential issues it came down do a worn-out drag link. I replaced it with the rock jock heavy duty and my problem disappeared. Keep up the good videos sir
Ayyy thanks for answering my question Nate! In the rear it has air shocks which I assume the computer self levels and then it has some short coil springs. I was thinking about possibly cutting off the stock shock mounts for those air shocks and fabbing up some new ones that push the air shocks up a little higher. Then I could make some coil spacers or find/modify some bigger ones to match the new ride height. Thanks for the tip about the torsion keys too. I think I'll just try to find some bigger aftermarket shocks instead and see what I have to do to make the rest of the suspension work. Thanks again Nate, always love the content and it definitely inspires me as someone with almost no fabrication experience 👍
On case backhoe I've noticed a large cast arm on the modern ones. It says ductile iron do not weld. Somewhere I saw where ductile iron is a patented process. You are the next thing I'm seeing about ductile. Thanks for this video. Very interesting.
did the axles in my rubicon D44s, with a spark test i could tell the center was some kind of iron and the inner Cs were cast steel, so i heated the pumpkin to 400-500F and welded wit just regular MIG then immediatley "peened" the welds with an air hammer and reheated then wrapped with my welding jacket to cool, the cast steel didnt get the preheat just welded and peened, no issues a few years in
Peening the weld metal straight after welding has the effect of removing the stress risers from the outside of the weld nugget. Air hammer is the best method.
Great information...! Interesting to see you still use some “old school” techniques while also some current tech. When I was in the hall (40 yrs ago) we used to use Tempil Sticks to indicate correct temperature of the material for pre and post heat....I don’t know if the heat gun / temp sensor had been invented yet 😜 or was probably too expensive. Also like watching your work....keep making the vids, we’ll keep watching. I show them to my grandson too.
Cool white board talk. I worked at a Ductile Iron Foundry for awhile, it was hot bwah! I remember one of the biggest customers was Cat. Ductile iron has all those extra ingredients in it to make it more flexible, easier to machine, and easy to weld, its not as likely to crack like cast after welding. It's definetly superior to cast iron and idk about the mild steel thoughts?!??! Good death wobble/alignment info here to, thats how its done. Thumbs, cool show!
There are three main types of cast iron commercially available (there are hundreds of alloys within the types but that is irrelevant). The first and most common is generally called gray iron or flake iron. This is what you will see in the overwhelming majority of castings. It gets it's name from the shape of the graphite nodules formed during cooling and the general color after machining. The nodules resemble flakes (think corn flakes) of carbon (graphite) in a matrix of iron/carbon alloy. Imagine corn flakes inside of play doh. The flakes allow for easy machining, structural stability, sound deadening and rigidity. Unfortunately they also cause the material to be difficult to weld and more brittle. This type of cast iron is ideal for castings that don't need weldments and, don't see a bunch of dynamic load (body castings for machinery, etc.) The second type of cast iron is called nodular or ductile cast iron. The main difference is the shape of the carbon nodules. Through a process of chemistry and heat treatment the nodules cool into spherical shapes. Think bb's inside play doh. From a microstructural standpoint, it allows much thicker "webs" of iron between the graphite nodules and significantly increases the ductility and weldability. Conversely, it lowers the machinability, rigidity, sound deadening etc. It is a higher cost material and is only typically used where dynamic loads are encountered (hence use in suspension components and piping). The third type is called white cast iron. It is rarely used and is only for special applications. The carbon in the iron matrix is frozen into a carbide structure called cementite. It is very hard, difficult to machine, impossible to weld, corrosion resistant and brittle. It is mostly used in specialty chemical processes that can take advantage of it's corrosion resistance.
When are we going to start to see the J truck being worked on some more? I have a '78 J-10 that I'm about to start tearing apart to do a 6.0 LQ4 4L80 swap as well as Dana 60 14 bolt axles and would love to see some more of the truck on the channel.
So I went down the same road years ago about cast/ductile welding. I knew heavy axles where ductile from the dana axle classes with dana engineers(I was a Chrysler master tech) I still do alot of fab and welding but not a schooled welder. My welding supply rep for work(new job) said treat ductle like AR plate. Its higher carbon content. 7018's are what we used for the AR plate to mild steel so that's what I used. It fused in great. Held for years untill a nasty epic roll. Weld didn't break. It ripped a chunk of "cast" out. My preheat sucked with a rosebud and possibly cooled to fast. Cast anything us kinda like concrete, loves compression but hates expansion. Cooling to fast creates fissures in it wich I believe is the downfall of "cast" welding. Ductle is better but still has cast properties as it is a cast product. Your on the right path with the heating but slow the cooling as much as possible. My old welder/forging buddy said bury it in sand. Lol
In other parts of the world ductile iron is referred to as spheroidal graphite iron and comes in different grades such as SG 60-40-18. SG 40 for example is widely used in the automotive industry, say for, exhaust manifolds (with added molybdenum and silicone for high temp crack resistant operation) and differential housings such as what you're working with in the above video. Good luck with the build.
It depends on the welder, personal preference, gap, etc etc. There’s usually a chart on them, if not you can usually find a chart on the inter web to get you started. Your in the right place to learn- just practice. Good luck.
In before someone complains about silicone vs silicon (this is really great information, people will just find anything to complain about)
Thank you for having some understanding 👊
@@DirtLifestyle no worries! Also you are almost single handedly convincing me to do a link suspension for my build instead of buying premade leaf spring mounts
Because sillih-kahn, obviously
i'm getting inspired to upgrade my axles now, install a truss, and buy a new welder. getting to be an expensive channel, but worth every penny.
Glad I'm not the only one!
As an Ironworker : the weed burner is used a lot to preheat large structural members before welding, I have found that welding cast material with a Stick Ni-rod/nickel does best, then when hard facing sometimes I’ve ended with using an E-7018. The main thing is the preheating and post heating covering the material to cool slowly just as you did. The UA taught you well. Great Workmanship.
A Retired IW/Business Agent LC 433
Ironworkers use weed burners to preheat anything over 1/2". At least thats how my journeyman taught me. As far as the cracks in some of your welds, I hope by cleaning up those welds means you're gonna grind them away completely. I've had luck just grinding a channel where the crack was in one of my welds and weld over, but was told by the weld inspector at the jobsite that the only proper way to fix a crack was to completely grind away the weld and start over. Only ever had one of my welds crack but it was good info to take from the experience. Love the videos, Hafa Adai from Guam
One of these days I’m going to go back and watch all of these again when I get a project going.
I’m really enjoying the super technical “dives” and the Q and A. What makes your channel stand out for me is the educational content. There are tons of wheeling channels not many that teach you how to build the rig. Keep it up!
Thanks for watching!
You should put those death wobble videos together as a playlist.
Another awesome video.
Thanks will do
"Metals And How To Weld Them", from Lincoln has detailed info about welding Nodular, and just about every other metal you could possibly care to weld.
This axle conversion is coming along great. Really liking the Q&A at the end, keep it up brother.
Thank you!
Hey guys, not being the weld nerd troll but here is the correct nomenclature.
DCEP+ DC current Electrode Positive “ Reverse Polarity, DCEN- DC current Electrode Negative “ Straight Polarity” it’s confusing but here is the science. In welding current travels from - to positive this provides wider arc diameter and deeper penetration in “Reverse” polarity. Conversely when the current is traveling from electrode to work “straight “ polarity you have a higher burn off rate of the electrode and shallow penetration. Hope this helps
Brent Akin AWS CWI
Thank you for publicly making clear death wobble is an alinement issue. I cannot believe the sheer number of people who do not understand the underlying issue is caster and toe.
If caster and toe is in spec, you can run every wear item until it breaks without death wobble.
you know how many people always want to argue with this statement... people without even knowing what caster is... lift their vehicles..then deny caster is the culprit for death wobble despite having new steering components ....
B Varney or the number of new vehicles have incorrectly adjusted suspension or have a plow prep added after production and the result is an unstable axle.
How about this one.
Ifs trucks can run with tie rods blown to hell and ball joins to the point of failure but encounter no vibration. Why? Because their ifs didnt change caster being the adjustments are rusted solid and caster angle doesnt change much at all if the torsions are cranked.
Anyway, its basic suspension geometry conversation blown out into witch craft lol
Just as a quick reference, the factory doesn't pre heat the housing before plug welding it.
And if your going to Tig weld it use stainless 309 filler rod, it has basically the same strength as 70S--, it flows better, joins to many different materials and won't crack while welding or after cooling off even if you don't preheat the housing, unless specified otherwise it's my go to filler rod.
I recently learned that what people are calling the ground (negative) is more accurately called a work lead! What is actually happening is that it is providing a return path for the electrons that are being put out by the welding lead. In reality, current travels from negative to positive, even though it is described as flowing from positive to negative. Just thought I would throw that out there.
You really do some amazing builds on this channel, Nate! Great work!
The Q&A at the end is a great addition to an already awesome video. Keep it up Nate!
Thanks!
I loved your comment about death wobble being an alignment issue. I bent my tie rod assembly on my JKU wheeling, and just got the damn thing home. After an alignment check I found I had 1 inch of toe-in, no warn parts whatsoever, just huge toe-in. If I went over 70 kms/hr the Jeep tried to jump off the road lol. Everyone said I was crazy lol. Loving the QA in the videos. Great content Nate!! 👍🍺🤘
I love that you just go for it man and share it with the community. This is how we all learn. Your channel is what we DIY guys that can't dump 100k into our rigs live for!!
I feel that stick welding is the foundation of all other welding I learned on stick once you can weld a 7018 uphill and have it look like a flat weld Mig and Tig will come easier to you.
I got a set of JK axles i am putting on an xj these kinds of videos you do about everything and how you break down the welding on different materials is awesome!! Thanks and keep up the great work much appreciated.
The preheating and post heating is to prevent cracking of the weld during and after welding. Many cast materials will crack at the toe of the weld if weld on cold or if the weld cools too fast. The filler material becomes important so the finished weld is not brittle. Many people claim hero status when welding cast with er70 because they got a weld not to crack during cooling. They don’t realize that their weld is so hard and brittle that if it’s stressed it will fail.
One easy important test is to take a tig torch and puddle a spot on the cast material with no filler. Take a file to the spot and file it. If the spot is super hard and won’t file, you have to use a filler that doesn’t absorb carbon and become brittle (ni55-ni99). Some guys use 309 stainless (which won’t become brittle due to carbon) but I don’t like that because stainless shrinks and pulls massively which can lead to cracks on welds.
Your tig weld likely failed on the tube to housing because that rod was a form of stainless and not high nickel. I weld d60s and sterlings all the time with ni55 nickel tig and never have cracks on the weld after cooling.
Agreed, alignment is the first place I look for death wobble. I look at toe then caster. It’s almost aways one of those.
Kickass ill send it off to my buddies allignment shop, thanks for covering the differences
I used to do tool n die for a few years out of high school. We used the propane weed burner style torch to preheat all our tool steels and cast metals that required preheat
Sweet video and edit buddy, very informative here .wow this had me revisit ,my studies in metallurgy, pretty accurate content! Practical and straightforward Thanks buddy!
Thanks for watching!
Weed burners are what we use to preheat in the structural steel industry.
great info nate this is why your channels the best and you got skills
Thank you!
Can't wait to see this rig hit some trails!
Thanks for sharing!! Dont listen to internet wheelers. All the best from Sweden
I work in a foundry that produces mostly ductile iron. As most others have told you, nickle is the way to go. Nirod or nickel wire and your heat numbers are right on.
Nice I used a two cheap oreillys torches took forever but got the job done.
Another awesome video brother 😁👍 your videos have helped a lot of Missouri wheelers, anytime someone asks me about a issue with welding or suspension I tell them to watch your videos & they always say it gets them a better understanding of what they were doing. So from all of us here in Missouri, Thank you
Thanks for spreading the word!
This was a very informative video on a tricky subject. You certainly did your research for this video.
Finally...been waiting for your vid forever. You have to understand you're one of the few youtubers with excellent content and quality. Keep em coming and buy a zuk or yota nx plz.
Thanks! I would love to build either 👍
I worked at a large bucket fabrication shop and we used the same torches for preheating.
Using a magnet to identify how “weldable” cast is works well too, the better a magnet sticks the more weldable the material is.
Rather than buying more TIG rod if you want larger rod for bigger jobs twist two or three rods together. Put one end of the rod bundle in a vise and the other in a drill and twist as tight as you like.
Last tip, don’t ignore 7018 stick electrodes for welding casted materials, it’s easy to control and does well joining dissimilar materials.
Keep up the great job Nate!
thanks for answering my question man I really appreciate it. I will have to email them and find out. Looking to get the most flex out of the leaf springs as I can
Lovin these new videos Nate, the Q&A at the end is GREAT!
Excellent, not to many go this extra mile, excellent dude. One tip all the welds should be peened.
I peened them just forgot to mention it
mabbee expand on the "peened" for us uneducated lot? please gentlemen? im aware what it refers to in other manufacturing processes..... similar process i assume? obviously post weld but before or after cooling? etc..... please
@@porschetech72901 Good question, to keep it simple, it's like this, in the metal, there are molecules in straight rows, just like a knitted sweater, when you put in the extreme heat from welding, you scramble these molecules, making the metal weak, weak because it is strongest in it's natural state, this causes cracks from heating and cooling, even if you can't see them they are there. Each and every weld should be peened, what this does is kind of stress relieves the piece although now completely and it flattens out the top surface blending out these small cracks. The proper way is preheat to keep the extreme input to a minimum, and then slowly cool in an oven, then finally quality stress relieving, this can be done in 4 ways, 1) heating, 2) burying in the ground for 10 years, this some might remember from school when the teacher in shop class got you to dig up material for your 1,2,3 blocks that had been buried years earlier. 3)shaking to find the stress peaks 4) dropping the piece from a fairly high height. These are the main ways of stress relieving, a mostly forgotten task that only the most professional shops perform.
great videos Nate, totally agree with you about death wobble, in my experience 99% of the time death wobble is caused by either worn out steering components or poor suspension geometry.
I've been very impressed with you channel. Great content for a newer channel. Keep up the great work!
That Abicor Binzel MIG gun 🔥🔥🔥
Once again you raise the bar one your channel, great content 👌🏻
Thanks!
Great video, love the Q+A section!
i love your videos. these made me get my s10 prepped for the 1 ton swap. great job keep doing what you do!
Finally! Been waiting on this one foe a while 😎 Thanks Nate
Any non shielded (flux) process should use reverse polarity FYI. Thanks for actually getting to the bottom of the cast iron/steel thing Nate👍.
Awesome video nate, very informative as always
More great stuff. Thanks Nate!
Great information. Love the q&a
You are a excellent teacher!
Love the video style and content.
Thank you!
Something I have had great luck with in welding centers to tubes is using flux core wire and turning the heat up. Pre heat to 500 and weld in quarters. I've done 3 all the same and haven't had a crack yet. I also post control heat down to 100 degrees or so instead of using a blanket.
Great video Nate.
Thank you!
Man I'm digging your channel, doing some great work over there , the Q&A is awesome. I'm positive your videos will help a bunch with my one ton swap. Keep up the great content
Great info, Nate. Really digging these ‘deep dive’, ‘super techie’ vids. It’s what science class/votech classes should have been in high school. Learning a ton, all 💯 practical. Keep up the great work! 👍
Keep doing what your doing. I really appreciate all the technical information and it helped me tremendously on my build. Hands down my favorite channel on UA-cam. Thanks from Texas.
I am with you on the death wobble.
Appreciate this particular post. I’ve got a 1980 Bronco, front diff is D44 reverse high pinion, IFS TTB with a bolt in passenger side axel, this style was only 1980-1982. There’s no spring inside to retain axel, but the inner pinion bearing bore the cup/race pounds into is spun/over large, and there’s no interference fit to keep it. Planning on welding in material and machining back to size. Hopefully it works, meanwhile I’ll be on the look out for a hard to find center section
As mentioned before using a weed burner is the best way to pre heat most metals. Especially large areas. I use them to weld broken dozer ripper shanks together, doing build up on dozer idler wheels etc. As for the cracks in your tig welds and mig welds it has been my experience that they crack because of TOO MUCH heat. The metals expand and cool at different rates pulling your welds apart. I’m sure there is way more to that but I am not a metallurgist just the welder hahah! Love the channel and keep the awesome content coming.
Q&A is awesome!
Daaaamn I love your channel!! Always a huge amount of value out of each video!! 🔥🔥🔥
Great video about material determination and welding process; best I've seen on UA-cam. I've been building 8.8's for some time, and finally sorted out preheat, interpass, and controlled cooling after several years of experimenting (moved from MIG to TIG, 309L to Ni99) and talking to a fair number of welders. For controlled cooling, I have a large plastic tote I have axle tube slots cut out in, and place the hot rear in the tote and cover with dry play sand, wrap the tubes with welder's gloves/shirts/towels, then throw a shipping blanket over it and let cool overnight.
Hey, as a mechanical engineer I just want to say thinks for caring about the material and being open minded. You have great curiosity and want to do things right. So many times all I hear is hate for engineers for putting a good quality Ductile Iron or Austempered Ductile Iron (ADI) instead of just using cheap materials. The engineers and company are paying good money out of pocket (as opposed to profit) to make sure you are getting good quality material that has good strength, toughness, corrosion resistance, hardenability, etc. If you are curious you should look into the material properties for each (ADI is my favorite) and compare them to cast iron, mild steel, and 4130. I think you would be surprised how well some of the high strength cast irons fare. Yield strength, elongation at break, ultimate tensile strength, and toughness (IZOD/Charpy) are a good place to start. Keep up the good work!
Agree. It was nearly mind-numbing when I was trying to find the best filler material for welding to my 2002 Dana 60 I am putting under my 77 Ford.
I'm drawing up plans for a custom 4 link (bc my truck is a hard ride and used in disaster rescue) so I'll be able to crawl this thing over almost anything. Ur channel is a gold mine of info and I've learned a lot from ur vids!!! Thanks for all of ur hard work!!! (Though I know it's all fun for u). 👍👍👍🤣
The fact that both your tig and mig welds cracked down the middle shows that its not an adhesion/bonding issue but the different rates at which the cast and mild steel expand and contract. This is why you have to preheat the cast and then control it's cooling rate by adding heat so it cools at about the same rate as the mild steel.
We use to use those weed burners for heating up very large coal pulverizer castings to make 11" shaft fits, we would usually run 3 to 4 for a couple hours to get the growth, They work very well !
I like your explanation on death wobble, it makes sense. What I’m accustomed to for death wobble is usually a wore out knuckle where the tie rod goes. (Not allowing the tie rod to set proper, ie improper alignment)
You can’t keep doing these beautiful builds, my wife is getting upset that I’m collecting diffs and a transfer case to throw under our 99 Durango 2wd. Yes I’m doing the swap, because of you. Already have a Dana 44hp our of a 79 F-150 (+2 inches vs current width), a fresh transfer case out of a 99 Ram, (both are driver side drop) still looking for a good priced overdrive unit for a 42-48re to rebuild brand new and slap on the back of my transmission. Then just need a rear end out of a early 2000s ram 5 lug with factory disc.
Weed burners are fantastic for heating axles. 😁
With grey or nodular cast iron is either keep it cold or keep it hot. for smaler repairs I use nickel rods or nickel/fe powder rods without preheat. Just weld small 2cm (1inch) long welds then stike it for 10 sec with hammer to relieve stres. For cracks or damage on parts that just need to hold water or oil I just use tig and silicon bronze wire.
Best video ever i really love the details i feel like i where in the materials class in college
Funny I just did this whole process myself, research included I wish this video would have came out sooner lol. I preheated and used cast rod on a AC Lincoln stick. Would love to try and use DCEP for curiosity. Post heat and cool slow. Weld and inch then relieve it. Welding it during arc didn't leave the prettiest welds like you said, but I was confident in the welds. On the tubes I've used 1/8" arc rod designed for cast and just tried to get as much material in there as possible and I've been super happy with the tubes. I had very little welds crack on the housing, most were tacks that cracked and only had one small piece of structural weld that split. Welding 1/4" truss to the cast went fine, had some trouble on the 1/8" artect truss material I believe because of heat. Just tried to weld smaller sections at a time, all using 1/8" cast rod on 115amp for the tubes and 90-100ish for cast. I will let you know after the jeep is done and how the welds last! @mi_zj is where Ill probably end up posting my 4link and truss weld process etc. Hopefully after windrock the welds will still look the same as they do now lol. I've been talking with rubberducky TJ and all sorts of other sources, after doing so much paranoid research I think if you follow the basic guidelines given for this welding procedure and trust your gut using prior knowledge and the research you do. Thanks Nate, your channel ideals are really helpful to this community! Keep up the good fight Nate!
Always learn something watching your vids. Keep it up!
Love the videos man keep it up!
Thanks!
You are the best!!!💪💪💪💪👏👏👏👏
I hope you address the TIG rod cracking in the next video. I had mixed results when I used it on my build. I did fold the rod over so it was twice as thick so I could feed more rod into puddle. Looking forward to your solution. FYI I used stick weld for 95% of my build. Was just easier and it looked/felt stronger. Love you stuff always good!!!
Another great video thank you for doing what you do.
Thanks!
First glance at that pic I thought you were making a camp fire in the axle cooking sausage over it lol. Maybe make a makeshift photo like that, turn it into a poster and hang it in your garage. Would look good.
Lol not a bad idea
Rather poisonous sausages.
went Jacques Cousteau on this ductile axle welding job.
It may work better the way you've connected the polarity but reverse polarity is electrode positive work negative. And that in fact was the reference on the box
Another great video! Great research and information!
We use weed burners all the time pipeline welding. Works great.
According to Metals and How to Weld Them (from the James D. Lincoln Welding Foundation), SMAW with a 60% nickel, 40% iron rod. You can also use a high nickel MIG wire. You not only need to preheat, you need to maintain the heat during welding. After welding, pean the bead while it's still hot to reduce the tensile stresses. And then post heat afterwards. Cooling slowly over 12-24 hours completely wrapped in fiberglass blankets.
I just pulled that book off the shelf.
8:37 That macros lens shot!
Great tech, thanks Nate!
Thank you!
Loads of Good Info!
Hey Nate great content as always. I appreciate your channel you're so informative and you've taught me a lot about working on my Jeep. As to the death wobble contents in your Q&A section. I would after suffering from death wobble look at the drag link connection. I would get death wobble at 20 miles an hour after hitting a bump, after diagnosing the potential issues it came down do a worn-out drag link. I replaced it with the rock jock heavy duty and my problem disappeared. Keep up the good videos sir
Ayyy thanks for answering my question Nate! In the rear it has air shocks which I assume the computer self levels and then it has some short coil springs. I was thinking about possibly cutting off the stock shock mounts for those air shocks and fabbing up some new ones that push the air shocks up a little higher. Then I could make some coil spacers or find/modify some bigger ones to match the new ride height. Thanks for the tip about the torsion keys too. I think I'll just try to find some bigger aftermarket shocks instead and see what I have to do to make the rest of the suspension work. Thanks again Nate, always love the content and it definitely inspires me as someone with almost no fabrication experience 👍
On case backhoe I've noticed a large cast arm on the modern ones. It says ductile iron do not weld. Somewhere I saw where ductile iron is a patented process. You are the next thing I'm seeing about ductile. Thanks for this video. Very interesting.
did the axles in my rubicon D44s, with a spark test i could tell the center was some kind of iron and the inner Cs were cast steel, so i heated the pumpkin to 400-500F and welded wit just regular MIG then immediatley "peened" the welds with an air hammer and reheated then wrapped with my welding jacket to cool, the cast steel didnt get the preheat just welded and peened, no issues a few years in
Peening the weld metal straight after welding has the effect of removing the stress risers from the outside of the weld nugget. Air hammer is the best method.
@@markfryer9880 yes.. im aware, thats why i wrote that paragraph
Did my reply help on the last UA-cam video? Good Job Nate!
Great information...! Interesting to see you still use some “old school” techniques while also some current tech. When I was in the hall (40 yrs ago)
we used to use Tempil Sticks to indicate correct temperature of the material for pre and post heat....I don’t know if the heat gun / temp sensor
had been invented yet 😜 or was probably too expensive. Also like watching your work....keep making the vids, we’ll keep watching. I show them to my grandson too.
Cool white board talk.
I worked at a Ductile Iron Foundry for awhile, it was hot bwah!
I remember one of the biggest customers was Cat.
Ductile iron has all those extra ingredients in it to make it more flexible, easier to machine, and easy to weld, its not as likely to crack like cast after welding. It's definetly superior to cast iron and idk about the mild steel thoughts?!??!
Good death wobble/alignment info here to, thats how its done.
Thumbs, cool show!
There are three main types of cast iron commercially available (there are hundreds of alloys within the types but that is irrelevant). The first and most common is generally called gray iron or flake iron. This is what you will see in the overwhelming majority of castings. It gets it's name from the shape of the graphite nodules formed during cooling and the general color after machining. The nodules resemble flakes (think corn flakes) of carbon (graphite) in a matrix of iron/carbon alloy. Imagine corn flakes inside of play doh. The flakes allow for easy machining, structural stability, sound deadening and rigidity. Unfortunately they also cause the material to be difficult to weld and more brittle. This type of cast iron is ideal for castings that don't need weldments and, don't see a bunch of dynamic load (body castings for machinery, etc.)
The second type of cast iron is called nodular or ductile cast iron. The main difference is the shape of the carbon nodules. Through a process of chemistry and heat treatment the nodules cool into spherical shapes. Think bb's inside play doh. From a microstructural standpoint, it allows much thicker "webs" of iron between the graphite nodules and significantly increases the ductility and weldability. Conversely, it lowers the machinability, rigidity, sound deadening etc. It is a higher cost material and is only typically used where dynamic loads are encountered (hence use in suspension components and piping).
The third type is called white cast iron. It is rarely used and is only for special applications. The carbon in the iron matrix is frozen into a carbide structure called cementite. It is very hard, difficult to machine, impossible to weld, corrosion resistant and brittle. It is mostly used in specialty chemical processes that can take advantage of it's corrosion resistance.
Bough the Everlast 225 lightening MTS because i liked the multi process so much! but its a little more budget friendly!
Thanks Nate
Love you amazing videos congratulation from HONDURAS
Thanks!
When are we going to start to see the J truck being worked on some more? I have a '78 J-10 that I'm about to start tearing apart to do a 6.0 LQ4 4L80 swap as well as Dana 60 14 bolt axles and would love to see some more of the truck on the channel.
So I went down the same road years ago about cast/ductile welding. I knew heavy axles where ductile from the dana axle classes with dana engineers(I was a Chrysler master tech) I still do alot of fab and welding but not a schooled welder. My welding supply rep for work(new job) said treat ductle like AR plate. Its higher carbon content. 7018's are what we used for the AR plate to mild steel so that's what I used. It fused in great. Held for years untill a nasty epic roll. Weld didn't break. It ripped a chunk of "cast" out. My preheat sucked with a rosebud and possibly cooled to fast. Cast anything us kinda like concrete, loves compression but hates expansion. Cooling to fast creates fissures in it wich I believe is the downfall of "cast" welding. Ductle is better but still has cast properties as it is a cast product. Your on the right path with the heating but slow the cooling as much as possible. My old welder/forging buddy said bury it in sand. Lol
Vermiculite works the best for cast......
In other parts of the world ductile iron is referred to as spheroidal graphite iron and comes in different grades such as SG 60-40-18. SG 40 for example is widely used in the automotive industry, say for, exhaust manifolds (with added molybdenum and silicone for high temp crack resistant operation) and differential housings such as what you're working with in the above video. Good luck with the build.
The video is great teaching tool. My only problem is where does someone buy these rods?
What do you have your welder set at for mild steel?
It depends on the welder, personal preference, gap, etc etc. There’s usually a chart on them, if not you can usually find a chart on the inter web to get you started. Your in the right place to learn- just practice. Good luck.