Mike536

Hey guys,
I need some expert advice. One of my wife's friends crushed his Lower Control Arm Support and ordered two more "beefer" ones. I'm going to weld them on for him but I have an issue. I'm a welder by trade so thats ok. What i'm wondering is what is the wall thickness of the tube of the axle. I'm going to use stick to weld them on but i don't want to burn through. I can keep the Amperage pretty low on a 3/32" rod. About 58 - 65ish with full penetration. (Got to for welding Armor plate) To make matters worse I'm welding it on Saturday morning and he leaves saturday afternoon to drive across country.

Also has anyone ever welded these on with stick? I've seen online alot of Mig used for this job but not stick so much. I got mig as well but my push/pull is broken right now.
The control arms are still attached to the brackets. Are there any tension on these? I really have no clue about mechanics. (Sad I know!!) I don't want to take a bolt off and something shoot out at me.

Any help would be great.

mkjeep

I don't know anything about welding, but when you unbolt the control arms, do one, the bolt it back up, then do the same with the other. Make sure they get torqued back to 125 ft lbs with the weight of the jeep on the ground , not in the air. DO NOT UNBOLT and take off BOTH CONTROL ARMS WITH THE JEEP ON THE GROUND WITHOUT JACK STANDS SUPPORTING THE FRAME and a jack under the diff.. If you do, the whole jeep will squat several inches really quickly and scare the shit outta you.

BIGJ

good info, thx,

about to pull trigger on TF control arms myself and put 'em on when i go on my next R+R

Mike536

Thats great info. Thanks thats the kind of stuff I like about this site. you can bump ideas off each other. Thanks again.

Anyone else have any info on the welding? Has anyone ever done this job before? is it very hard?

dpoelstra

Not sure of the exact thickness, but it is very thick. You won't burn through.

I just had a bunch of welding done and it was done with a wire feed welder with the amps and the wire feed turned up. Could be over half inch thick.

Turn it up and weld hot.

Mike536

It's funny you said turn it up and weld hot. Everyone thinks thats the best way to weld but really it's not. You can get just as much penetration by welding colder and you have alot more control of your weld puddle. When we do welding tests with the military they actually had alot of our plates sent to get tested. No problems at all. We also set-up some our welds different then civilian schools. We brough some of our set-up plates to one of the colleges and they couldn't weld them at all. They didn't believe that we welded then in that position. I'm pretty sure that the set-up is the same as the americian set-up for a flat butt in any postion. Sorry off topic.

dpoelstra

yeah....Ummmm, don't know if I understood all that.

My experience welding stopped in High School, where I was pretty good, but that was 25 years ago.

So, turn it down and weld cold?

Point is an axle tube is very thick and you will not burn through.

G Timmy

you wont burn through welding that low. just make sure that you don't keep the heat on it to long > you can easily warp the tube...and you wnt know until you try and drive it.

CTNEDGE

I just put axle sleeves in with plug welds. Wall is about 3/16.

jkman77

axel tube is about 3/8'' thick. and if not carefull you can burn through it.