How would you repair this?

[Baby Grand]

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My welding skills aren't the greatest but they aren't horrible either, so I think I can manage to make it look decent with the help of a little grinding. My biggest concern is the possibility of new stress cracks forming where the metal is welded. Is there anything I can do to help prevent this?

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You shouldn't have any problem with stress cracks, unless the step is flexing a lot under load.
To address that, you can always add some material on the undersides to stiffen 'er up.

 

[ALtheWelder]

I had a MF T0-20 many years ago...just stick a stove bolt [head up] thu hole and tight'n her up. Not a bad repair, you can grind the head of the bolt to look somewhat like the other risers before installing it.

 

[The kid]

My two cents. buy yourself a can of anti splatter spray since your using a flux welder. no matter how good the grade of flux wire you have without gas shielding, your going to have splatter. Being this is a footrest with inverted dimples. Splatter cleanup would be a PITA. Use the spray. When i had a flux welder I loved the stuff. Splatter wiped right off without grinding. Next, if you don't have a any copper sheeting around. Small enough to cover the hole, then buy yourself a copper welding spoon (harbourfreight) $8, and shape it flat. Welds will not readily stick to copper. Press the spoon against the bottom side. Take your flux welder and puddle up your weld in the diameter of the inverted dimple your wanting to duplicate. Then drill out the similar hole. Shape it with a round b@st@rd file. It's the same principle as filling in rust holes. Just my :twocents:

 

[xtn]

Mill an entirely new set of steps out of billet.

 

[snowjoker]

If you weld on that thin material you might end up with a worse looking mess than you have now..What if you burn through it and make a bigger hole you cant fix? Leave it. Let the tractor talk its history!

 

[MasseyWV]

Last night, I began welding each of the broken "cleats" and managed to make good progress until I ran out of welding wire which always seem to happen at the worst possible time.

So far, I've filled in all of the missing metal and have formed a ridge to the height of the originals, but still need to fill in around the edges of each cleat and fill a few shallow spots here and there. Overall, the welds seem to have good penetration which leads me to believe they should hold up well in the long run. After I have them both welded and ground into a decent shape resembling the originals, I'm thinking about smoothing everything out by using a small amount of JB weld smoothed and filed/sanded as needed.

In the mean time, I've begun sandblasting each of the step plates, which is taking forever because my blast media is nearly worn out from all the sandblasting I've done recently.

IF you are restoring that tractor, then you should be aware that those step plates are worn. Those dimples originally barely had a hole in them if any, and from what I see, there is a varying amount of wear on the tread plates. If you fix one, you got to fix them all.

The step plates are somewhat worn but the holes have always been there, as indicated by some of the "cleats" at the rear of each step plate showing minimal signs of wear. It appears that they were manufactured by stamping flat steel and punching out holes, then forming the stamped holes into little "volcano" shaped cleats. The process of stamping the holes left a somewhat sharp edge at top of each cleat but most of them are now semi-rounded at the top so I've devised a method to re-stamp them using a homemade steel drift, thus raising their height and restoring some of their original sharpness for better traction.

If you weld on that thin material you might end up with a worse looking mess than you have now..What if you burn through it and make a bigger hole you cant fix? Leave it. Let the tractor talk its history!

The steel is thicker than it looks in the picture. I haven't measured it, but a visual glance makes me think it's about 3/16" thick, not quite 1/8" but close. It welds quite nicely without any burn-through.

 

[undercut]

Well done! I think you've taken the repair a lot farther than I would have. Would love to see a picture of your repair once it is completed!

For "The Kid", thanks for the tip about the copper spoon. Might come in handy if I need to fill in a hole.

 

[Redneck in training]

While it is somewhat minor, I'm completely restoring the tractor and would like to make everything look as original as possible. Currently, the tractor is 90% apart and the step plates have been removed as well. Here's a link to my TBN thread about my ongoing restoration progress.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...rating/241531-my-1966-massey-135-tractor.html





The back side is smooth. However, I'm torn between the suggestions of using a carriage bolt and simply building it up using tack welds, so what I think I might do is attempt to build it up using tack welds and if that fails I'll use the head of a carriage bolt shaped and drilled to match the original profile.

My welding skills aren't the greatest but they aren't horrible either, so I think I can manage to make it look decent with the help of a little grinding. My biggest concern is the possibility of new stress cracks forming where the metal is welded. Is there anything I can do to help prevent this?



That's an interesting idea, but unfortunately I have no idea where I could find a piece of carbon suitable for the task at hand or I'd be happy to try it. Suggestions?

If you really want to make it like original make a drawing of the dimple as best as you can. Then go to a machine shop and and they will turn it for you on a lathe. Then weld it from bottom to the plate.

 

[MasseyWV]

Well done! I think you've taken the repair a lot farther than I would have. Would love to see a picture of your repair once it is completed!

Today I picked up a spool of welding wire and plan to resume working on the repairs very soon, possibly even tonight. I'll post some pictures later.

thanks for the tip about the copper spoon. Might come in handy if I need to fill in a hole.

Using copper as a backer plate for repairing body steel is something I've used for many years as I welded in patch panels or repaired body steel on old cars I've restored. I typically use whatever I have laying around, copper pipe flattened or shaped as needed, copper slugs, brass or bronze pipe fittings, etc... I've even used pennies if nothing else was available. Granted, I'm anything but a professional welder, especially on thick heavy steel, but repairing thin body steel is something I've become somewhat familiar with over the years.

 

[weldermike]

How about trying to replicate the damaged cleat on a different piece of sheet, then once you get it perfect, cut out the old, weld in the new and blend it in. Try making a homade dimple die with a larger opening on the bottom to stretch it.