Frame welding opinions, please.

me and the garbage man would be rolling on the ground

when all else fails throw the garbage guy $10 to buy some beer and theyll even load it in your truck for ya! :laugh:
i remember salvaging stuff in an old farm house outside ashland ne years ago ,we were salvaging some neat old wood trim/baseboard in front of house as the back of the house was disapearing under the bucket of a cat excavator! :S
that cost me more than $10,i had to buy pizza for the demo crew! :woohoo:
and yes i traded the baseboards for some model A parts to a guy restoring his house,ah those were the days! :woohoo: :laugh:

trianglelaguna wrote:

me and the garbage man would be rolling on the ground

craigs got quite an art collection dont he? :laugh:

who is that-Craig and Larry?I got the pink Georgia marble for my fire place mantle 1 step in front of a wreckers ball.They were tearing down the old train station here in town,and the window seats were pink marble.Lovely.bj

650ed wrote:

As Plummen said, if that's the result of rust it's likely that other sections of the frame may be rusted even though the rust is not visible on the outside. If it's not rust, did it happen as a result of an accident or other impact that may have bent the frame? I've never seen a frame just split like that from normal use, but I guess anything's possible. Ed

Not sure on the cause(s) of the frame split (and I believe it is a split with rusty edges)...but I won't know that until I actually push on the split.

Thanks to all for their opinions...and thanks to PLUMMEN for the imagery of him mud-wrestling with the trashman....

Kind of looks like rust down in that frame as well-lighting is not the best so hard to tell.Plus that really doesnt look like a stress fracture-looks more like rusted thru from inside and weight of bike pulled it over on itself.Just guessing tho.bj

id bet its caused by water getting in frame from a point higher up where 2 frame tubes met but werent completely welded,water settled in bottem of tube and rotted it out.weight of bike on kickstand probably finished it off.
when you have a frame plated its common to drill a small hole in bottem of tube to allow chemicals to drain for same reason

Mcdroid wrote:

...

Maybe a four-wheeler bumped hard into the bike's right side while bike was resting on its side stand. :pinch:

Good Fortune!

i bet we would be very surprised if we could get a light and a camera down in some of the lower frame tubes on these 30 + year old bikes.

leon

thats not a hard repair, even if there is some rust.
the proceedure is to cut out the bad tubing,get 2 smaller diameter tubes to slide inside the origonal, drill holes in the frame to weld the sleeve in, slide the new tubing over the sleeve and drill holes in it to weld it to the inner sleeve, then weld all around the new tubing and the frame, weld on the side stand bracket.
I have fixed many a bent and damaged race car roll cages this way, it will be stronger than the origonal frame was when done

it looks like its right before the bend,hard to slug into a bend.

The only rust I see in the picture is surface. That being the case more than likely it was caused by one of three things. 1) Mild side impact at the bottom of the frame impacting the kick stand and making the break. 2) Someone abusively dropping the weight of the bike over on the kick stand and breaking it. 3) Metal fatigue from years of being placed on the stand possibly with abuse as in option 2. If it were mine, I would simply knock it back straight with a hammer. Then I'd turn my mig welder down really low and make repeated "tac" welds to keep the heat down in the chrome moly tubing. After that I'd give it a shot and keep an eye on it. There really isn't much else you could do unlesss you're experianced in fabrication enough and have the tools required to replace a section of tube using a tig welder and the proper filler metal.