A-frame Maintenance

Thanks for the compliments Mike.

In regards to painting the internal of the box section, thats a great idea with the airless spray gun.

I've got one of these garden sprayers in the shed and had thought of filling it with fish oil to spray the inside.


Still haven't done it though.

Now the new draw bar. The $2000 quote you got would be mainly labour as it is fairly labour intensive.

Firstly make sure your welding is up to scratch. If you can weld a nice bead with good flow and penetration on the arc, then mig welding will be easy. If your arc welder is decent, around 140amps and your comfortable using in, then that will be fine.
If you do get a Mig then steer clear of the $249 100amp gasless one, they don't have the amps to do the structural welding the drawbar requires. At a minimum get the $499 150amp gas/gasless one, spend the extra and hire a gas bottle from BOC (or similar).
Welding with gas is so much better, no splatter, better penetration and allot easier when your lying on your back welding above your head. Plus a 0.9kg spool of gasless wire costs $35 V's $35 for a 4.5kg spool of gas wire, an 'E' sized gas bottle is around 90-$110 plus 10-$15 a month bottle rental.

An 8 metre length of primed 100 x 50 x 3mm RHS cost $127 which included having it cut into 3 lengths. I used 2/2800 for the draw bar and the leftover 2400 length for the rear bar. some places will cut and sell you the lengths you require. The trusses were made from 40 x 5mm flat bar which was $20 for a 6500mm length. Also used a piece of 100 x 6mm flat bar at 100mm, then cut it on the diagonal for gussets, plus 2 50 x 50 x 3mm angle at 170mm for braces to attach the bar to the chassis at the rear.
See my photos for details.

You will also need a new weld on coupling plate, which is only around $12. Make sure your able to grind off and salvage things like jockey wheel holder, gas bottle holders, jerry can holders, and WDH brackets. I would recommend new safety chain, which is around $15 for a 1 metre length of 10mm rated and stamped chain. This is when you need max amps to weld the chain to the draw bar. You will also need some of the chain links for guides for your handbrake cable.


Make sure you've got a few good chassis stands to hold the van up to cut off the old bar (we used a 2ft excavator bucket and blocks of wood ).

We made the new drawbar on the ground. Marked the concrete floor with all the dimensions, cut and bent the RHS, welded on the coupling plate, gussets and angle. It was lifted under the van with a highlift jack, a large trolley jack, bottle jacks plus some very large 'G' clamps to hold it to the chassis. Make sure you have a few strong friends on hand that day.

Having said all that, does the draw bar really need to be replaced? Unless you want to lengthen it like I did.



have a look at the pics of my old bar.





It looked 100 times worse than it actually was when we cut it up. It still needed replacing though.

Yours doesn't look bad at all from the photo shown.

Got anymore?

Greetings kylarama, and Al, ;D

Thanks for all that detail on the steel needed to do a replacement A frame.

If you look back at the drawbar pic of mine, there are two samples of my arc welding: the gas bottle mounting which is not too bad, and the end of the double angle welded up underneath: I got so mad that I didn't even bother to grind it off. These days, I tenderly pat it and spray over it with tlc as a frequent reminder that I'm no good at vertical arc welding. Mongrel. Mig welding looks easy using the gas type (I googled "How to Mig weld" and watched 50mins of 10 5min Videos showing how). Mig welding is obviously easier because your welding hand is that much closer to the job, not 30cm away at the end of a welding rod so that when you flip the mask over your face, your hand has moved a bit maybe 5mm but the end of the welding rod has moved 30mm and you get started that much further away from where you should be!

That said, I take your point: no replacement A frame for me. ;D

I will keep maintaining my A frame: I know there is/was rust inside, and its a matter of applying regular applications of stuff to, not just cover it over but, slow it down and even neutralise it. I have to 'believe' the labelling on the Penetrol tin which says thats what it does....

... and with your comments, thanks: I'll get back to hitting the road again (after I replace some tyres on it).

Cheers
mike ;D ;D ;D

The beauty of the little MIG welders are that they are DC, unlike the old brute force job with the big iron core tranny, which are AC. This means that the flame is actually extinguished each cycle (50 times a second). Not good.

With a DC (or 3 phase welder) old arc welding rods are almost a pleasure to use.

Striking and holding an arc is so much easier. And if you haven't discovered auto darkening helmets ... they really are the bees knees.

Being able to 'see' took me from a 'D-' to a 'C+' welder ... overnight.