Welding Cast Steel?

[kpr]

running welded knuckles on my trueno. also done some for a mates fc3s, which is more similar style part to what you posted. put a big V in the parts to be welded, tig welded them nice and hot and let them cool slowly. the toyota parts seemed to be made from better quality material

[Jase]

i think you've over calculated on custom tubular arms,

personally i'd engage my scots brain and do a large part myself and have the rest tigged up by a competant or even professional welder,

actual materials by the most part can be raided from an engineers scrap bin,

jigging it up and drawing any profiles etc to be cut is easy.

other options are casting/machining custom items, machining from a billet or your boogy plan.

not many engineers like welding cast steel and even less would be willing to put there name to it.

And remember the cheapest option is certainly the most expensive,

if one of those lets go under full load you could eat wall or perish

[drtdvl]

Could be an interesting read about control arm design: http://forum.205gtidrivers.com/index.ph ... opic=98092

[drftnmaz]

i guess im one of those dodgy drift boys....

but i weld cast suspension biits all the time as a job, do ~3 sets a week and have tested them through fairly extreme conditions (i snapped a strut +3 other arms & steering rack in a crash a few weeks ago) but steering arms i had welded up didn't move, they were one of the few bits i didn't have to replace to get back out on the track

i would recommend using a mig welder, its far too easy to make a good looking poor weld with a tig and have seen other peoples break before... (if you must use a tig then use appropriate type of filler rods)

the other important thing is the design, often you can make the parts stronger than before you started with careful placements and extra weld, and as said above V each bit before welding is fairly crucial

EDIT: for track only cars....

[mikuni]

i think you've over calculated on custom tubular arms,

personally i'd engage my scots brain and do a large part myself and have the rest tigged up by a competant or even professional welder,

actual materials by the most part can be raided from an engineers scrap bin,

jigging it up and drawing any profiles etc to be cut is easy.

Good point man. And it's heaps of fun doing this type of thing. I think I'll grab some tube and dummy something up massively over engineered so it will be safe - easier for me than modeling something in CAD.

This option would save a bit of hassle as I could then make some mounts for the smaller rose joints on top of my existing subframe to raise the pivot point at the body and reduce the amount of RCA I need at the hub.

[Testament]

i would recommend using a mig welder, its far too easy to make a good looking poor weld with a tig and have seen other peoples break before... (if you must use a tig then use appropriate type of filler rods)

the other important thing is the design, often you can make the parts stronger than before you started with careful placements and extra weld, and as said above V each bit before welding is fairly crucial

EDIT: for track only cars....

as agricutural as it sounds arc welding is not a bad option either. you can get alot more engery in quickly through a 2.5mm or 3.2mm electrode than mig or tig which is of advantage for better penetration when welding thick stuff without putting as much heat in. But you better be a good welder.

regardless of which method the preheat is key

[Spencer]

So custom sold lower arms it is! if you get this thing that slammed and keep the suspension geometry sweet its going to be awesome

[mikuni]

So custom sold lower arms it is! if you get this thing that slammed and keep the suspension geometry sweet its going to be awesome

That's right. I'm slowly getting to some decent solutions with all of these problems. Have found a sweet source for teflon rose joints off shore, so hopefully shippings ok. Then I'll start making up something like these.