good reading... some of which I agree with, and some I dont, but the ideas here are sound -
Mall Crawlin Unibody Welding Bible
The biggest thing that ive found is making sure the frame is ABSOULTELY clean of all undercoating, zinc, dirt, and other crap...
intend to spend as much or more time grinding and cleaning the frame as you do actually doing cool stuff like cutting out parts and glueing them to other parts.
From the front OEM spring hanger to the rear OEM spring hanger, I run these -
10ga CRS, 3/8" holes - lots of them...
They are semi "L" shaped, and support the vertical part of the frame on the outside, and more or less hold the bottom of my frame from being crushed farther up and in... These have been more than adiquite for the type of wheeling I do. :wierd:
I am a big fan of plug welds and not as big a fan of the stitch weld to the uni-body - the stitch welds cause huge heat effected zones, all right in a line, and after the material about 1/8" away from where the weld is cracks, then your whole added 'structure' didn't do anything...
Where my 3 link mounts, I made some more plates out of 12ga with the plasma, and glued them on with a more than $100 welder...
the piece that mounts to the floor is 10ga, formed down to grab the inside of the frame, and welded to the floor and the plated side of the frame.
mmmm constraining crap in more than one plane...
For my front limit straps, I took some 2" x .125 flatstock, welded it to the frame, hammered it to contour to the frame, and welded it some more, then welded a tab to it...
Ive also plated a few points where my traction bar crossmember is welded, and where my flat belly plate mount is welded, but I dont seem to have any pictures of that... but more of the same idea - some 12ga, 10ga, and 1/8" stuff with holes in it, welded to the thin crap, then bigger, importiant things welded to the less thin crap...
As for material, I think that 10ga is more than sufficient where parts will be plated that will regularly see rock contact (I.e. from the front LCA mount to the front leaf spring hanger) and 12ga is probably overkill for anything that wont, unless there is huge localised loading - like the 3 link mount...
I see absoultely NO reason to plate any part of anything with 1/4", and would have a very hard time justifying 3/16" anywhere as a plate material...
Now - My lower control arm mounts should have been made from 1/4" - cuse I bent the 3/16" that I made by dragging them over rocks... - but they are welded to 12ga plating the frame, that hasn't moved at all... :roll:
:shrug: these are just my thoughts... :wave1: Take them for that and nothing more...