picture:
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~vath/327/68/Subframe/P5020080.JPG (http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/%7Evath/327/68/Subframe/P5020080.JPG)

i mean I know I had a boat load of rust pitting, but were these subframes all welded sloppy and half ass?

and also why is there one hole for the shock on the right side where there are 2 holes on the left???

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/%7Evath/327/68/Subframe.htm scroll down...

WEIRD

LMAO...
There was a thread a while back about cleaning up welds, how bad they are lol
Mine where a bit better than that...not much thu, and have a bit more 'meat' in them...
I was concerned about then thu...If a welder who welds all day welds like that, what else is wrong?
I knew where a bent up 69 sub frames was..junked, so I cut a few welds...they penitreated nice and deep.
So I left mine as they where.

I hope u have painted or sealed the steel, very quickly? Following day at the most...

My ’67 (October ’66 LOS) looked similar but with less weld. Your welds look pretty think and goopy—mine were thinner with less puddles. I had my subframe sand blasted and powder coated. After they sand blasted it I took it home and cleaned and finished the welds. A more experienced welder saw the original welds and was shocked. He said they did a horrible job and even pointed out a place where the gas had run out—causing a ton of splatter.

My sandblasted subframe was a little smoother but not much. I chose a hammered finish powder coat to hide the pitting and dents. If I had to do it over I wouldn’t do a hammered finish—just a semigloss black.

I had my subframe glass bead blasted and it was much easier on the steel than sand or Garnet which is what they mostly use today.
My subframe came up much smoother than the examples above with the glass beads.
It also has to do with the operator and him knowing what pressure to blast at..

Yes! After I blasted mine you could see several places where the invidual welding was trying to strike an arc on the frame. Skipped spots, splatter, wandering welds- you name it. Almost looks as if mine was done by a welder's apprentice on a Monday or Friday!

As time was of the essence I did not correct any of the problems- I figure if it has held together 30+ years it should be fine.

great pics Jim, thanks for posting them. always nice to see before and after like that. :)

Yep, mine were like that too. Plus there was a lot of splatter. Since I'm not going for a numbers matching resto I added 8 beads where I figured they were necessary.

Ya gotta remember the Camaro was just everyday transportation back in the day. Chevrolet was on the lower end of the GM chain back then with Cadillac and Buick being the more expensive lines. The idea was a car that appealed to the masses and was affordable. As Scott points out, as poorly as the craftsmanship was they seem to hold together very well.

Mine looked just as bad. Welds were done by wat I think was a drunken line worker. I cleaned up the welds, rewelded a few, and painted the frame. My frame looks like crap because of all of the pitting and I may still pull it out from under the car, tear it down, and redo it.

Has anyone used a filler that has stood the test of time to cover up the pitted areas?

Just an observation of mine, my battery tray was horribly pitted as are the frame parts under it. When I got 2 coats of POR on the tray, it was less noticeable. Maybe its just the way POR flows and dries but it covers alot of sins in my humble opinion. Other products might also do that too.

Mine looked just as bad. Welds were done by wat I think was a drunken line worker. I cleaned up the welds, rewelded a few, and painted the frame. My frame looks like crap because of all of the pitting and I may still pull it out from under the car, tear it down, and redo it.

Eh, I don't think they were drunk, just that the welding tech is not as good as it is today. :D

As a Boilermaker welder for 26 years, it is hard to even look at these kind of welds, let alone know they are holding up my Camaros!! I guess they are doing the job, but WOW they are UGLY!! If I welded like that, I would have not ever worked, as ever weld had to be certified, and inspected.

Yes! After I blasted mine you could see several places where the invidual welding was trying to strike an arc on the frame. Skipped spots, splatter, wandering welds- you name it. Almost looks as if mine was done by a welder's apprentice on a Monday or Friday!

As time was of the essence I did not correct any of the problems- I figure if it has held together 30+ years it should be fine.
It seems "everyday" was a Momday or a Friday, and the apprentice had a apprentice! LOL

Welds like that should only be performed in a "scrap yard", and only under close supervision! lol

LOL this is a funny thread, well at least I dont feel so bad about not fixing all the welds and pitting. And yes "supposedly" my powder coater sprayied my frame with an Eastwood rust prevention / powdercoat prep solution the same day i got it blasted. I'm gonna go check it out this weekend when I drop the rear diff housing off to get powdered with my frame and control arms...

JIM68

and also why is there one hole for the shock on the right side where there are 2 holes on the left???

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/%7Evath/327/68/Subframe.htm scroll down...



Anybody?????????????????

Anybody?????????????????

I think someone may have missed drilling the hole originally.

The factory welds on these frames are a joke. We take every frame we re-build and blast it down to bare metal. From there we take a grinder, and grind out as much of the old welds as we can, on every seam. From there we re-weld the entire frame, about 9 inches at a time, skipping all over the sub to prevent heat warping. Then we take a wire wheel, and clean up all the welds, and remove the spatter, to make the frame look great. After that, we blast it again, and powder coat it.
We just re-did one this week, and it turned out amazing. My new welder laid down beads that looked like a stack of dimes.

Tyler

And yes "supposedly" my powder coater sprayied my frame with an Eastwood rust prevention / powdercoat prep solution the same day i got it blasted.
Cool..."supposedly"...shops gerenerally run a production line...hung up and blasted then moved directly to the paint room, and sealed/painted as a matter of routine.

After blasting mine, i cussed the welds also. Reckon welders had welding helmets back then? Maybe they just closed their eyes and went for it! (-:

LMAO
Maybe they just closed their eyes and went for it!
I can still weld better than that with my eyes closed lol

There was a comment in another thread re doing continus welds..something about if 1 cracks the crack can conture thru the whole weld, creating breaks stops this.....maybe worth consideration??

The show rodders here, when making welds 'invisable' weld up, grind off, then finish with a little body filler or epoxy for small im perfections.
When I do this on panels etc, I build anything with weld for minium filler.

this frame was blasted with course sand and burned out to a sspc 10 white blast. check all welds for sructural elements. weld back into queationable areas and prime with epoxy primer. you probably need to shoot two coats of primer to seal the metal. i would not recoment powder coating a rough as the blast work show in the picture. good luck with your car.

Jim68, I seem to recall using the second hole you are referring to as an inspection point for checking whether the coil spring is seated properly in the frame pocket. No idea if this was the factory intended use for the hole or not.

Anybody?????????????????


My impression is that the second hole is for aligning the individual pieces of the sub onto a jig for welding during assembly. There are second holes in both of my shock perches, and there are also a couple more in the crossmembers and the towers for the upper control arms as well as near the rear body mount bushing holes. My guess is that the pass side shock perch skipped a step in manufacturing and didn't get the jig hole punched into it on your sub. You can see most of the holes in this picture:

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~vath/327/68/Subframe/P5020083.JPG

None of the welds look good but I have never heard of a subframe falling apart from poor welds. An ugly weld does not mean a weak one and a "row of dimes" does not mean a strong one. Maybe JohnZ can help with this but I think that the welders only had seconds to make the welds on production. Ugly they are, but their endurance is a testament to their integrity. Kevin

i would reweld everything! omg...i didnt realize early model stuff was welded sp poorly.being a certified welder myself i would never use that frame as is. thats scary!

i would reweld everything! omg...i didnt realize early model stuff was welded sp poorly.being a certified welder myself i would never use that frame as is. thats scary!
I wouldn't say "scary". These welds have lasted 40 years with no reports I've ever heard of with them failing. Ugly...yes, but not really scary.

The picture of the driver side shock perch seems to show a cracked weld on the lower edge of the perch where it attaches to the rail, right above the spring pocket. It also looks like there is a crack on the shock perch on the same side near the shock mount hole. I would address these if they are indeed cracked, and inspect the remainder of the frame for similar cracks. This is what I did, followed by adding additional welds along the seams between the factory welds. I did not fully weld the seams.

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~vath/327/68/Subframe/P5020080.JPG

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~vath/327/68/Subframe/P5020083.JPG

As a Boilermaker welder for 26 years, it is hard to even look at these kind of welds, let alone know they are holding up my Camaros!! I guess they are doing the job, but WOW they are UGLY!! If I welded like that, I would have not ever worked, as ever weld had to be certified, and inspected.

We have boilermakers come into our plant quite often for when we have big jobs and I admire the quality of the welds they put out. Those of us on this forum that are in industry are used to seeing show quality beads and when we look at nasty welds like the ones on our subframes ( mine included :eek: ) they seem unacceptable , even though they do the job and have been for 40 years. I can appreciate the assembly line welder has to weld fast to keep up , but us guys restoring our cars go to great lengths to get the best quality we are capable of. We can't help ourselves. :sad:

at the school i was trained the dana corperation was trains.the people who makes fordtrucks.....well i've welded with there welders. they run extremely hot and fast. its possible to get high quality welds today but back then the only thing that was available was stick welders. maybe some mig but mostly stick. by using the s-maw process Stick-Metal Arc Welding production was slow when welding was needed and quality was poor because welding schools were never heard of before. the plants usually took people off the street who said they could weld and couldnt.this is the reason for thecrappy welds on older cars.

I cant agree with this completely. Ive been welding for a long time and I know for a fact that quality welds were being made before the late sixty's. And there were plenty of welding schools then. Mig welding has been used for a long time even though smaw had been around much longer. :thumbsup: Kevin

The picture of the driver side shock perch seems to show a cracked weld on the lower edge of the perch where it attaches to the rail, right above the spring pocket.

Yes I did see those and called the powdercoater, I'll either have him weld it or pickup the frame and MIG weld them myself.

thanks

Sorry to bring this up from the dead, but I was asked in a PM to see pics of our frame with before and after shots, so I thought I'd throw it in here for all to see.

Here is the blasted frame before grinding out the old welds:

http://www.t56kit.com/projects/simmons/63.jpg

This is our welder Russell grinding out the old welds on each seam:

http://www.t56kit.com/projects/simmons/81.jpg

Here is the frame after grinding:

http://www.t56kit.com/projects/simmons/83.jpg

Russell welding up the seams little by little:

http://www.t56kit.com/projects/simmons/46.jpg

The close-up of his welding skills:

http://www.t56kit.com/projects/simmons/48.jpg

Fully welded final product:

http://www.t56kit.com/projects/simmons/50.jpg

And installed back into the car:

http://www.t56kit.com/projects/simmons/18.jpg

You can see many more on the website in my sig under the project section.

Tyler

Im curious about your rewelding process on these subframes. You guys take almost all of the weld out before starting to reweld. You have no jig to help hold this thing in place and I know for a fact that welding 9" or 6" or any inches at a time, and restarting, does not eliminate warping. The distortion comes from stress, not too much heat. How do you know that you have not distorted the geometery of the frame after all this welding? Kevin

I was just going to 86 the the stock frame and use a Chris Alston Frame. Has anyone used one of his frames? Maybe I should asked this in a new thread?