We recently found a 3" crack in the left side of the k member just below where the oil pan sits on my sister's '66 Valiant. This is most likely originally from a wreck the car was in several years ago on that side, but wasnt found until we pulled the motor recently.
My dad has plenty of welding experience (mainly structural steel as an ironworker) but he heard a while back that there is some sort of special rod required for the frame/unibody on these cars. Anyway, I am wondering if anyone knows if that is or is not the case and what type of rod should be used.
Thanks in advance for any/all information!

Josh

The K-member is nothing special. Neither is the steel in the body. What welding process will be used? Is is safe to assume stick (SMAW) since you're asking about rods?

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Joshua

That you clean it out thoroughly. I had a buddy completely unitize a 1976 K-member that most of the welds had started to separate. We used a wire feed/MIG machine to do the welding...We also had the member tanked at a local machine shop and sand blasted to clean it up. Even after that there was still some oil/grime in the seams that didn't budge and made for some nasty flare ups when the metal got hot and caused the stuff to burn...

-D.Idiot

we've got a monster stick machine and a couple of different wire feeds between us. My welding skill is definitely not up to this task, but he should be able to knock it out without issue. What do you guys think would be better? I'm assuming stick, but only because I've had better penetration with that vs. the wire feed.

Wire feed is usually faster and looks better unless the guy wielding the stick is really good. The K-member really isn't all that thick so if you have a 200 amp wire feed machine I'd use it.

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Joshua

3/32" 7014 or 7018 should be fine. If you can't get it squeaky clean, then I'd go with 6010. The metal isn't thick enough to warrant a preheat.

If you can get your hands on a stick or 2 (they usually make you buy a whole box) of 308 green rod, the welds will come out much nicer and shinyer than the above. Its also nice for butt welds on thin material. But the base material needs to be CLEAN. And I mean super clean, otherwise the weld will become brittle.

I just use the standard wire with the MIG, nothing special. I degrease, blast, perimeter weld, smooth with a flapper disk....then paint.

Gotta be better than stock!