Trailer cross member question

I'm convinced that even if Ronnie Milsap had Parkinsons, he could have done a better welding job......good grief.

 

Put away the "certification" and look and read. You may be "certified" but you did not read or even notice that some einstien tried to weld 6061 Aluminum to steel. Any "welder" should know that cannot be done!

No kidding! it has already failed; there is no welding aluminum to steel. What is the temp/settings for welding aluminum to steel with stainless filler?

 

Looks like an aluminum crossmember under a reefer. The only steel one's are under the slider/landing gear/fifth wheel plate.

 

Good eyes spotting that inked evidence that it's 6061 Aluminum, without doubt.
When I first looked (on this crappy screen) I saw a nice bright surface and thought it to be possibly nice clean cold rolled flat stock,, and surely didn't expect anyone would be that idiotic to try to use an aluminum stock to weld to steel. Unreal!! He'd have better results with bondo & duct tape!

 

You know I wondered about that too, but who uses aluminum crossmembers? Secondly the metallic tinge of the weld beads looks like stainless. Thirdly, the black oxide on the edges aluminum patch is common when steel is arced near aluminum. Fourth, dirty aluminum welded with aluminum will be covered in aluminum oxide that is white in color. Fifth, dirty aluminum of any arc setting is porous and molten not beady and shiny in any respect.

If it should be aluminum crossmember, you couldn't weld it anyway since heat treated aluminum looses almost all it's strength after welding and will needed to be heat treated which is not possible in this case. Not that the DOT would know about that.

Anyway, this idiot spent no time cleaning the weld area which is critical for welding aluminum. You shouldn't, but you can get away with welding dirty steel. Aluminum, there is no chance of welding dirty aluminum with any temp/setting any equipment.

 

Every crossmember on my trailers are aluminum(except slider,ect) Seen them bend like that when a forklift goes through a rotten stringer on an old trailer. Still just replace it, no special tools and easy to do.

 

Gotcha. Just never seen aluminum crossmember. I work for large frozen food company and never noticed a refer at work with aluminum crossmember. All our reefers are steel crossmember, but I don't survey every reefer that comes in the yard.

Either way, that guys first failure was not cleaning the metal. Should have cleaned it if it was steel or aluminum. If it was aluminum he had to just replace it as he he had no skills if he couldn't do that.

 

I've seen many reefers w/aluminum cross members.....more common than u may think....many of the foodservice&heavy usage places will NOT spec them this way due to the abundance of daily heavy equipment usage in the trailer....but many long haul fleets will spec that way for weight....since they get loaded/unloaded at probably 7-10% of the time that a heavy ltl unit might see.....we have 5-7 local guys in the NE do 8-10 drops&as many pics a day....plus loadin unloading daily at our barn....they can run out the floor on a NEW heavy haul in less than 2years.....so every application is different....as for the repairs in this thread.....obviusly Laredo road service....lmao

 

Thanks, that explains a lot. They are looking to hire mechanics in my area all the time and their shop it across the state from me. Looks like they are hard up for good mechanics.

Magnet?

Thanks, now I know TWT is a bad company. Got to agree with those that say it is not legal. It could get you a ticket and put out of service. Not saying that it would get caught by an inspector but it should. Thanks for the info.

For some companies not so much. For other companies you could not just use one page of the DVIR to list all the problems on each and every piece of equipment they have. Good job catching the problem. You don't know how many times frame problems go overlooked in the trucking industry.