Guide to weld repair broken equipment

[@darrellmellott6096]

That was a great job on the repair. I expect it will last a lot longer than the other side. The rectangular member that failed is call HSS (hollow structural steel). Most HSS is ERW (electrical resistance welded) when it is fabricated, but that one looked like it was fusion welded (probably SAW, but could be another process), which is why it was not fully penetrated. I got to watch HSS being manufactured when I was doing some procurement consulting for and engineering company and I was surprised at how it's made. It starts out as a roll of plate that gets continuously formed into a round pipe through a series of rolls (like any ERW pipe I suppose). Then the joint is pushed tight and fed a current to resistance weld it. The reinforcement is removed and the round pipe shape is then fed through more rolls that form it into the rectangular shape. If the product is ordered PWHT (stress relieved), it is run through an induction coil and heated to around 1100 degrees F. It is fun to watch a member that is say 6" x 6" and 1/4" wall go through the coil at about 25' a minute go in room temp and come out at 1100 F. Must be a serious amount of juice on that coil.

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Interesting and thanks for sharing 😀👍. The amount of knowledge I have gained from comments is unbelievable, I am sure others are appreciative too. The whole design of it makes me think they wanted it to fail where it did. 3/4+ inch steel on top of the arm and 1/2in with supporting braces on the base, clearly that isn’t likely to fail over the 1/4in thick square steel lol. I wish I could get into a steel manufacturing plant to take videos. I recently saw a video that showed square tube was made by feeding round tube through dies, that (which makes sense) is not how I thought they made it. It makes total sense on how you described as to how they would make bigger stuff.

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

As a heads up since I didn’t include it in the video, the repair was done with tig at 140-160amps and stick welding with 1/8th (3.2mm) 7018s at 120amps 😀👍

[@cpcoark]

I really enjoy these repair videos. Big or small, I like them all. I also agree on your comments about transferring the stress if the fix was too strong. Note: A torch cutting video would be great.I have always struggled with that.

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Torch cutting is one of those things that is very finicky. I swear some days I can get clean cuts and everything works, then the next day it’s bad lol. I will definitely do videos on it. What I have found is universally the bigger heavy duty torches cut far better than the small ones. I have both a smaller medium duty smith and medium duty Harris torch and both seem far harder to cut clean like the 40 year old beat heavy duty smith I have lol.

[@freezerburn04]

Always watching and learning from your videos thanks man👍🙏👋

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

No problem 😀👍

[@Hey_Its_That_Guy]

Great video, Greg, thanks. I think a lot of guys would have just welded that back up and called it good. You went the extra mile, well done. Also, you explain things really well!

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Thanks. I am lucky in the fact I am given the time to do a good job. The end result is driven so much by the prep work that long lasting repairs are really tough to do without adequate time.

[@Beefman-648]

I enjoy your commentary on the how and why of your repairs. I find it very useful. When utube is able to also capture the smell, it would be even more better😂 Curious as to how much cleaning, i.e. power washing or steam cleaning is done, if any before a repair like this.

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

That one wasn’t too bad luckily. I have a video coming out shortly with a different style packer blade repair and that one had 3/8th of an inch of pure sticky filth on it. No joke I sat there with a pressure washer for 15 minutes trying to clean the area (the size of half a shoe box) to clean steel. Powder coating can be easier to clean off than whatever that dumpster juice is. Getting it clean enough is a huge concern, especially with the forces involved. I only stick weld repair stuff like that, and spend a ton of time on the prep work. I am pretty lucky that I am not hassled as far as taking my time to make solid repairs. 20-30+ tons of force on a half ass weld on some unprepared material is guaranteed rework lol.

[@richarcruz7843]

Thank u Greg one of th most important focal point in this video is not to over strengthening/reinforce one side more than the other due to th force An weight distribution that’s apply to this hydraulic arms yes th force HAS TO BE DISTRIBUTED EVENLY 💪🏽💪🏽💪🏽💪🏽💪🏽…..thank u each one of ur lessons is Greatly appreciated to all of us thank u God Bless🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

[@michaelc9507]

I like your choice of the root pass tig. I can understand why obviously your proficient and comfortable is first choice of stuff! Nice detailed discription of the failure and repair. I know most weder / mechanic just finger point at the operator failure but digging into the cause to educate is the way to go.

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Part of making solid repairs is to use what you are best at. The one thing tig provides is a no stress 100% root pass, and for me that was worth it. So much of a multi pass weld comes down to a clean flat root pass, and the fact I barely had to touch a grinder by time I fully welded it out made it work really well. I swear on odd cut/non perfect fit material with limited access it’s guaranteed I am going to have some rough stick bead on a root pass that will need some work 😂.

[@Millwrightmike]

Greg love the videos I've became so much better from learning the past 3 months welding that I'm basically a pro can run perfect beads most the time

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

That’s the best news I have heard all day. Glad to hear you can run solid beads. Your hard work is paying off 😀👍

[@garthland]

great repair,man! Too bad we don't have scratch-and-sniff for videos,LOL. I got in an argument with a farmer who's Peterbuilt I had lengthened the frame on.He took issue with my 'fish' plates not being welded all the way around,skipping over the frame splice weld. He couldn't understand the concept of crack propagation-farmers!

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Even an old garbage truck that has been doing cleaner work has a distinct odor when you get the steel hot lol. A scratch and sniff would work great lol. Before working on garbage trucks I thought they would smell like the garbage in my can, but come to find out the odor is quite a bit different. I don’t know what people throw out but the accumulation of filth is quite the odor 😅.

[@garthland]

@@makingmistakeswithgreg I know that smell well-rancid BO with a touch of pepper!

[@rudyrivera7426]

Great job/video! Greg! Keep them coming! Thanks for sharing!

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

No problem 😀👍

[@rjay1674]

Once again, a great explanation.😉

[@mkearn724]

Nice video and repair Greg. These are the types of repairs that I would enjoy doing. You get to do a little bit of everything with this repair….. torch work, layout and alignment, a lot of weld, and beefing up with plates. I figured that you were gonna use backers once I saw the amount that you were gonna have to remove. Then my next thought was, this would be an idea dual shield repair. A bit more ductility, and you can dump a lot of filler pretty quickly. Always enjoy your content Greg

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Dual shield would have been the way to go. I didn’t have any laying around the shop so it wasn’t an option. Believe it or not the municipality I work for has 2, 400 amp capable machines and when I started they didn’t have dual shield or spray arc gas mixes lol. I had to make requests for those things. The welders used short circuit to weld all of the things I have done with stick lol.

[@Ca21431]

Great video! With 1 exception, over 30yrs driving a front loader I've learned that they always look for a way to blame it on "driver abuse" even when the equipment is worn and tired, nothing last forever!

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Great points lol. A good operator stops when one part is broke, a bad operator keeps going until multiple are broken lol. It’s amazing how beatup older equipment can get. A lack of maintenance will surely speed it up. A good operator will make a huge difference in longevity of equipment.

[@Ca21431]

@makingmistakeswithgreg 100% spot on!!

[@Trump985]

I agree but it's usually even worse, the operator shuts it down when there is a problem, then the owner or manager throws a fit and orders the operator to "run it till it blows" then when it comes apart and shuts the job down for days instead of a couple hours like it would have taken to fix it before it blew apart it's "operator error" and they "never said that". Everywhere I've worked over 30 years it's the same story!

[@rfraser6097]

This time of it breaks again the operator can blame it on the welder

[@waiakalulu1568]

With these garbage contracts there's huge amount of pressure not to allow the trash to build up at the customer's place otherwise you could lose the job. So the machines stay in the field long after they should be downed for maintenance.

[@whodathunkithuh1001]

14:53 - Very important consideration. Over reinforcement can cause future failures.

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

I have seen a lot of failures where someone puts a ton of thick reinforcements on commonly broken areas of frames and stuff, and then leaves some area untouched. The untouched areas end up breaking because everything around them is 10x stiffer.

[@googlegok9637]

Good tip to take the level measurement at the pin , not the top of the plate. BUT very easy to overlook in the heat of the action-

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

The amount of stuff out there that isn’t built plumbing/level/true is staggering lol. I swear every time I try to make something that’s broke perfectly square/true it doesn’t work because it wasn’t from the factory lol.

[@DIYVariety]

Interesting and thank you

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

No problem 😀👍

[@JD-526]

Nice,👍👍👍👍👍

[@michaelbigelow367]

Love this one Greg! I couldn't agree more on how you did this. The question to plate or not to plate is a great question. I made a comment on a repair I did on an excavator boom on one of your other videos and I like the use of backer plates. My question is could you have used dual sheild with a suitcase wire feeder run off an engine drive with an .045 wire? Oh and which welders did you use and were you using your generator to power them? Great work and thank you for all your work doing these videos for us!

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Dual shield would have handled that job without issue, be it run off an engine drive or with a power source. .045 wire would work great too, plenty of heat input. I actually did the repair at my work but I used my esab rogue 200. I have a miller 350 power source (and a 12vs feeder) that would have worked fine, but the esab allowed me to tig weld and switch to stick to knock the job out. On an infield repair (outside of a shop) I would have looked at a suitcase feeder all day. I am not a huge fan of hardwire in spray or short arc on old dirty material. I prepped the stuff clean but it’s still beat up old steel. Dual shield would be able to have far less issues with porosity and other weld defects. I swear I can fab all sorts of new steel up with spray and short arc, with zero issues. The second I start welding some super prepped but beat steel It’s guaranteed to get some porosity in the hardest to fix area 😂.

[@michaelbigelow367]

@makingmistakeswithgreg I can't tell you how thankful I am to have your input on these things. Thank you Greg!

[@oby-1607]

When an irresistible force meets an immovable object, something has to give. And what I am talking about is the lack of a proper pressure release valve. Oil is uncompressible and when too much pressure is applied, something has to move. The other point is to understand what steel was used in the manufacture and try to match it in the repair. No matter what repair is used, time and fatigue eventually win.

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Since I don’t really wrench much on garbage trucks I don’t have a great understanding of their hydraulic systems (I just weld broken stuff). The amount of completely broken stuff I have seen makes me wonder if there is even an over pressure bypass on the hydraulic systems. A significant amount of failures seem to stem from what I would argue are design flaws. A great example would be the compactor wall inside the garbage truck, most of them at the dpw will extend beyond a reasonable point causing damage to the wall and possibly contributing towards the compactor blade cracks. Why the rams would even allow things to over extend is beyond me.

[@jake-mv5oi]

I was thinking the same thing. Should be designed so the relief valve lifts prior to damaging itself.

[@chaddisisto4915]

Thanks for another great video, I have been watching yours and other’s videos trying to learn. I was wondering if I could send some pics of what I have been doing to get your opinions and suggestions? If possible how do I get them to you? Thank you

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Sure, send them to “Weldingoldschool” at g mail, minus the parentheses. I will look them over and give a opinion 👍

[@chaddisisto4915]

@ pics sent, thanks again

[@G5Hohn]

Nice work, Greg! Is it true that they’re closing the Leinenkugel brewery in Chippewa falls? I thought I read that recently and it’s sad to see if true.

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

I heard initially it was the one in downtown Milwaukee however last I heard that one will stay operational and the one you are talking about will close. That place has been open for something like 150 years, it’s sad it will be gone. Edit: apparently the other one I was thinking of will close too, so 100% of all of the product will be made at millers major brewery in Milwaukee.

[@theseldomseenkid6251]

Great informational video. Do you ever magnaflux parts?

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

When I worked for a bit in a machine shop I did, but doing repair work for the DPW I don’t. They don’t have the budget for a setup and for the most part I am able to spot and fix problems. The hard part on repairs is knowing how far to go on a repair. Being able to see more cracks could help making a lasting repair, but if the metal is cracked/fatigued internally you won’t see that from the surface. On one hand you don’t want to waste days of labor fixing things that aren’t a problem, but on the other hand many of the repairs suck to do and are difficult to get prepped. Sometimes you just hope for the best lol.

[@jaiganeshbabu3705]

Sir..Can you give an idea of how to evaluate welding rod quality. Especially e6013 compare with one brand to other brand. I'm from India. Here lot of locally produced e6013 manufacturers are there. Price also cheap. In this crowd market.how we select good rod. Can you give an some lecture to me.

[@waiakalulu1568]

A lot of these places have in-house welders that patch things up good enough. So when you get into the complex discussions of balancing loads and symmetrical repairs they're, like, "naw we'll fix it if the other side breaks." By the end of a 5-year garbage contract, the margins can be so low compared to their rise in costs. They can't justify a big repair until a new contract comes through. Think about being stuck in a contract with 2019 prices.

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Great point. Because I work directly for a municipality that owns the trucks, their profit margin is technically zero lol. They will do stuff that a normal company never well. I can’t imagine how a garbage company that is contracted makes money. The municipality I work for has been thinking about privatizing the garbage truck fleet, because of the stupid cost of maintaining the trucks. Right now 1/6th of the fleet of drivers are out on “light duty” due to injuries, they are running trucks that should have been scrapped 5 years ago, and the cost is absolutely atrocious to run the whole thing lol.

[@MrFearless16]

Where do you advertise your business?

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

So the work you saw was done for a local municipality I work for. I personally occasionally do side work repairing things but most of my free time is spent making videos 😀👍

[@SteveoDaily]

Some bin lorries are loaded by a robot arm so not watched closely for cracks.

[@tallyman15]

Nice repair work. That is a nasty area to work. Worth hazard pay.

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

I ended up dumping the junk that was in the hopper on the ground, and it was pretty nasty despite not visually looking bad. I don’t think those trucks ever improve in smell with age lol.

[@JulietHotelFoxtrot]

That's not really the appropriate truck for that kind of route. It would be better to use an open top truck with a claw crane. For one, it's safer for the workers because claw crane doesn't require lifting heavy, jagged or bulky items manually. For two, as the operator learned, these type of trucks aren't intended for bulky items. I hope the company takes this into account in the future.

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

You’re 100% right. Unfortunately the municipality basically turns the oldest most worn out garbage trucks into special pickup trucks. The trucks are one step away from being auctioned off. They have already been through hell and back, but they don’t seem to last much longer doing special pickup lol. No joke the load in the one from the video had a ton of junk and clearly the compactor wasn’t going to compact it. The straw that broke the camels back for sure. Your idea is far better, and it’s funny you mention that it’s easier on workers. Right now 12 people are out on injury list from the group of garbage drivers. I wonder why lol.

[@JulietHotelFoxtrot]

@@makingmistakeswithgreg I'm sure you see this in your work -- when people feel mistreated by their employer, the equipment is one of the first places this shows up. "Frank, the ram on this truck don't look right." "You think I give a flying Fck, Tony? They don't care about me, I don't care about their stuff." Paycheck error? Someone's walking off with some company property in retribution. Bring up a safety or equipment issue and get told to stay in your lane? Didn't realize that little genie in the bottle light on the dash was important. We just kept driving until the truck stopped.

[@dcraft1234]

I can't imagine how little an F a garbage truck operator would give!

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Somewhere between 0 and 1 lol.

[@MrObsvenchilde]

Take the heavy waste to the dump folks

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Definitely agree, and the truck does too lol.

[@sebastianleicht]

2nd

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

Close but no cigar 😀👍.

[@jasoncousins1343]

Shit like that always freaked me out because of unseen pent up force that can kill u quick if u don't take precautions

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

There can definitely be stored or unreleased energy in something like you saw in the video. Even the shear weight of something can be a serious threat if it were to “come loose”. Your thought gives me an idea to do a video on how to identify dangerous situations and keep all your body parts lol. So many potential dangerous situations don’t seem that way.

[@jasoncousins1343]

Its usually made from hardox 450 type of material

[@makingmistakeswithgreg]

The steel cut super clean, but didn’t feel or file different than mild steel. I know the packer blade itself was definitely some sort of alloy, it was way harder than a lot of the other steel.