I have divots worn into the slider section of the steering knuckle. I believe that this was caused by loose tolerances permitted during manufacturing of the liner backing plate used on the poor quality brake pad sets that were on my jeep when i bought it. Being on a very limited budget i plan to tack the divots with a welder to build them up and then grind them back to original specification. Has anyone done this before? Any tips or advice?
Wire brush it to get the rust off and hit it with a MIG. Don't over do it because the carbon in the knuckle will get pulled into the weld making it very hard and difficult to grind.
I've done this on a ZJ both front and rear and on a YJ.
I used a stick welder with a high nickel content rod. Either way, it's important to preheat your knuckle. This serves two purposes, it drives out any moisture prior to welding on it, and more importantly, you want to preheat a larger section than you are welding. If you just hit it with an electrode for a few seconds, then you focus A LOT of heat in a very small section for a very short time. This can lead to stress cracks. Pre-heating allows the surrounding metal to blend better with your filler metal.
controlled cooling would help even more, but when I did mine, I didn't worry so much about the cooling, and all was well.
It will not crack, you do not need to pre-heat, and you don't need high nickel rod. Quit reading the internet on how to weld cast ferrous metals.
It's nodular iron and welds with a MIG just dandy for what you are doing. In fact, I weld the spacers for the WJ conversion to the knuckles with no more prep than wire brushing to remove rust. No pre-heat, no special post cooling other than to keep them out of drafts, and I have no stress cracks in the knuckles, none in the welds, none in the spacers and exactly zero failures.
Thanks for the feedback, I will attempt this later and post results and/or lessons learned. This forum is second to none and I appreciate those who take the time to share their experience and wisdom. :cheers2:
Well in my limited experience as a toolmaker(30 years at Ford Motor Co) we... and I mean some very top notch tool & die welders... always and I mean ALWAYS perheated cast iron, nodular or not before welding or brazing and always after also to stress relieve. You can heat it up with a propane torch for god sake....it only has to get to 600-800 degrees. It's just good sound metal working practice to do so.:thumbsup: Only time we didn't was when it was an emergency.
My thought is; I hate when welding is referred to as "burning".
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