1950 Willys Truck re-rebuild by 50wllystrk

4 minute(s) of a 620 minute read

John, Showtime did a great explanation. If you get into welding or anything having to do with great amounts of heat and metal, you do change the properties. Once again, I didn't take no classes, and I'm sure they get into these subjects, but....

By past experiences, I know there are different types of hardenings of metals. I'm familiar with case hardenings also.

Here's speaking from experiences. I know if i take a piece of 3/16 flat steel. Let's say I just want to hacksaw through it, put it in the vise and hack away.

Now let's say it's a piece of 3/16 that I took a cutting torch to previously and now I want to hacksaw it. Quite frankly, I aint going there. From the heat of the torch I have case hardened the plate where it was cut with extreme heat. There is now an outer shell of hardened steel that will make the hacksaw feel like it's teeth are about half gone. Now if I cut with a cut off wheel, no problem, or, if I take a grinder and remove the outer layer, perhaps 1/32 of material, now I can hacksaw again.

Point is, yes the material properties do change. As you work with matals over time you become aware of what you're working on, and the next steps in the process, now you consider the tool you're gonna use to make the next step easier on yourself and your tools.

As for the frame and its strength in areas. I have considered the changes being made in it's structure, as for this fix to refill the rusted away material, I feel confident. This area is fairly stable area with braces above and below, not much flexing.

As for the area forward where I grafted in new plates, these are pretty extreme patches in flexing areas. Much of those welds had a considerable amount of grinding which removed the hard outer shell of the welds. Also there was alot of contour to the welds which doesn't give a perfered spot to begin a cracking problem. Now this doesn't mean I'm not gonna be checking the frame occasionally after I'm done and using the truck again.

I'm also pushing the boundries by not putting a reinforcement plate that overlaps the old and new parts of the frame. If I do have problems this will be the cure later. For now, since the area is very visable I'll know if there is an issue with this procedure.

No problem John, made me do a little soul searching to try to cover all angles of the project so far.

Tonight I got so far as cutting into the other side to see how much material has rusted away on it. Not nearly as bad, good deal, I should get it taken care of in the next couple nights.

Since I had the sand blaster out the other night I knocked off some of the surface rust and old undercoating on the drivers side frame rail. I'll hit it one more time with the sand blaster then start the metal prep, priming and painting.