Drilling/welding Pre-cautions

Drilling I don't know what you would do other than make sure you wasn't about to drill through a air line or electric wires, welding on new trucks unhook the batteries or it is very possible to smoke ECM'S and other expensive electronics

 

Avoid welding or drilling into the upper or lower flanges. Also try your best to keep any drilling at least 1.5-2" away from either flange. Sometime's it's tough to do.

 

I had to drill about 8 holes in my frame when I installed my Timbren's, and it was welded when the frame was lengthend. Powernut and Mack both made good points. What size, and how many holes?

 

Just follow what the others have posted here for drilling and you won't have any issues. When ya go to drill use some cutting oil or if ya don't have any use motor oil on the bits.

As for the welding part. You really don't want to be welding on the frame unless you are dang good at welding. The extra heat that the welding puts into the frame could cause some weakness. Throw in more weakness if ya quench the weld with water. Also a welded joint will at as a stress point and will break sooner ot later. Like the others said just unhook you batteries or ya might be buying an new ECM (do this anytime you weld anywhere on the truck).

 

wherever possible use existing holes


I just welded on mine the other day and did not unhook the batteries, don't think I'll worry about the ECM on a 3406B though

 

im no engineer, though its not a career i would turn down, but i have a sneaking suspicion that your frames have these stickers as they have been heat treated to give extra strength. this means that by heating (and then cooling) a particluar area differently to the original treatment you are taking a significant amount of strength from the material. so ideally you would have to strip your chassis, do the required work, stick the whole thing in a dirty big furnace, cool it appropriatly, and then put your running gear/cabin back on... probably best to ask an engineer about any welding/drilling or anything that heats the chassis above the "critical temperature" of 600 and some degrees C as around the weld you get a heat affected zone with significantly less strength
phew.. sorry for the essay..just got rambling

 

their is nothing wrong with drilling in the frame just stay 1.5 inches away from flanges,, the flanges are the strengh of the frame, try to bolt as much to the frame instead of welding it to the frame.. eveything we do is bolted to the frame, i can't remember us welding anything to a frame except for ground studs

 

interesting. are the frames heat treated at all?