Hole in my frame, what to do?

I've been going over my frame and noticed that there was an uneven spot on it. The spot is in the lower front part of the frame, in front of the kick stand. Poked at it with a screw driver and things started chipping off. It seems as if water has been stuck inside the frame and rusted it from the inside? There is now a hole in the frame :



What should i do with it? and is there any special care that should be taken for the rest of the frame since water has rusted a hole in this part? I ground of the paint and took a deeper look into the situation:




I have no experience with this and need some advice. Should i take it to a machine workshop and have someone reinforce the frame, or should i just weld shut the hole myself? I am a little sceptical about doing the welding myself.

I'd cut it back a bunch and then either replace the section or cover it with a plate welded over it

for me that would be a ,,, take to a professional job,,.. have em go over the whole frame .you don't want that thing to crack on you while ridding...

me personally.
i would use a burr on a die grinder and start grinding the hole out until i had it to the same wall thickness as the rest of the tube.
then section a piece of tube and weld it in and blend the welds out to make it look as if i had never been there.

or you can do like these guys did and remove all of the lower tubing and replace it with chro-mo tubing.



leon

Please do as 531blackbanshee told you, is a good option a mechanical result is optimal. You should use a TIG welding machine.

Put some JB-WELD on it

dkoz wrote: for me that would be a ,,, take to a professional job,,.. have em go over the whole frame .you don't want that thing to crack on you while ridding...

+1
That's what I would do if I wasn't that professional.

.

Nebr_Rex wrote:

dkoz wrote: for me that would be a ,,, take to a professional job,,.. have em go over the whole frame .you don't want that thing to crack on you while ridding...

+1
That's what I would do if I wasn't that professional.

.

I've decided to bring the frame over to a qualified professional tomorrow to get it sorted out. Wouldn't want it to crack when riding, I take no chances on this.

Thanks for the advice from all of you. I will post what my solution is when I have it fixed.

let us know how this turns out.
because sadly this is not all that uncommon of a problem and is only going to be more of an issue as these bikes age.

leon

Leon, do you think there would be a big benefit to chrome molly down tubes being used to replace damaged ones, what type of bender would need to be used?

Not to hijack of course

you could gain some strength and lose some weight using chrome-moly.
i have a homemade bender i bend 1 " .083 with manually.



but you can't go wrong with the
www.jd2.com/p-32-model-3-bender.aspx .

leon

yes unfortunately a common problem with older bikes but an easy enough fix as others have said cut it back to good metal and long as your happy with your welding skills you can fix it yourself. cut a patch from tube which fits well and weld it in place.