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French Tickler buggy
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<blockquote data-quote="Bebop" data-source="post: 1570914" data-attributes="member: 5925"><p>I ended up spending waaaaaay too long to put this POS back together. Everything that could have made my life harder did.</p><p></p><p>For some reason, one of the knuckles turned out to be a huge PITA to weld to. Cast is always harder to weld than regular steel, and I've done my fair share of successful welding in it, but this one threw me for a loop.</p><p></p><p>One of the knuckles welded perfect and after a cool down in a blanket was ready to be installed. The other one had cracks all around the toe of the weld. Took me 4 full re-grind, clean, prep etc to get the weld to fully penetrate and be up to my liking. I ended up using some NI55 rod which made a significant difference in way the puddle behaved and edge control. I even tried to MIG it (which I've done sucessfully in the past) and this was the worst result of all my tries.</p><p></p><p>I cannot understand the drastic behavior difference between these 2 knuckles. The only 2 reasons I can come up with is that one of the castings wasn't as good as the other, or the welder (not the machine...) really sucks ass at this TIG welding thing. In all honesty, it's probably the later.</p><p></p><p>But the one that welded fine was looking kinda decent.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]207120[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Then, when I thought I was clear to install, the ball joints bit me in the ass. I had a spare set I bought when I installed the knuckles during the original build. Driveworks brand. They worked nice on my OEM 2005-07 knuckles, but for some reason were too big to be pressed on the Reid ones. Because I wanted to move along quickly, I went to the local parts store and got their house brand. They pressed in good but when I went to put the knuckles together, the taper of the stem was wrong and was letting them free-float in the female tapper of the C's. So I had to get a third set and this time I got Moog (like I should have gotten in the first place) and everything went together was supposed to. Of course this was a significant time waster.</p><p></p><p>When I had it all done good, I fogged the knuckles and arms black in order to hide the bright orange powder coat of the Reid knuckles. I made sure to finish whatever was left in 3 random spray cans of black paint (different shades of course) I had laying around. I'm saving money and making sure the result doesn't look too good. Don't want new shinny parts looking too good on my garbage.</p><p></p><p>Because I had time between my welding attempts and BJ issues, I ended up spending a few minutes putting lipstick on this pig. Properly shanked all braking hardware, painted the outers, cleaned up and repacked the big bells (they don't have an ounce of play after 3 years of riding) and changed the outer shaft seals.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]207121[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>The new arms have a terrible Ackerman IMO (lines up with the OEM holes) and will need to be redone for optimal performance, but I was trying to put it back together to go ride. I'll spend some time on that later.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]207122[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>But finally, after much cussing and sweating my ass off in my non-AC shop, she back !</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]207123[/ATTACH]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Bebop, post: 1570914, member: 5925"] I ended up spending waaaaaay too long to put this POS back together. Everything that could have made my life harder did. For some reason, one of the knuckles turned out to be a huge PITA to weld to. Cast is always harder to weld than regular steel, and I've done my fair share of successful welding in it, but this one threw me for a loop. One of the knuckles welded perfect and after a cool down in a blanket was ready to be installed. The other one had cracks all around the toe of the weld. Took me 4 full re-grind, clean, prep etc to get the weld to fully penetrate and be up to my liking. I ended up using some NI55 rod which made a significant difference in way the puddle behaved and edge control. I even tried to MIG it (which I've done sucessfully in the past) and this was the worst result of all my tries. I cannot understand the drastic behavior difference between these 2 knuckles. The only 2 reasons I can come up with is that one of the castings wasn't as good as the other, or the welder (not the machine...) really sucks ass at this TIG welding thing. In all honesty, it's probably the later. But the one that welded fine was looking kinda decent. [ATTACH type="full"]207120[/ATTACH] Then, when I thought I was clear to install, the ball joints bit me in the ass. I had a spare set I bought when I installed the knuckles during the original build. Driveworks brand. They worked nice on my OEM 2005-07 knuckles, but for some reason were too big to be pressed on the Reid ones. Because I wanted to move along quickly, I went to the local parts store and got their house brand. They pressed in good but when I went to put the knuckles together, the taper of the stem was wrong and was letting them free-float in the female tapper of the C's. So I had to get a third set and this time I got Moog (like I should have gotten in the first place) and everything went together was supposed to. Of course this was a significant time waster. When I had it all done good, I fogged the knuckles and arms black in order to hide the bright orange powder coat of the Reid knuckles. I made sure to finish whatever was left in 3 random spray cans of black paint (different shades of course) I had laying around. I'm saving money and making sure the result doesn't look too good. Don't want new shinny parts looking too good on my garbage. Because I had time between my welding attempts and BJ issues, I ended up spending a few minutes putting lipstick on this pig. Properly shanked all braking hardware, painted the outers, cleaned up and repacked the big bells (they don't have an ounce of play after 3 years of riding) and changed the outer shaft seals. [ATTACH type="full"]207121[/ATTACH] The new arms have a terrible Ackerman IMO (lines up with the OEM holes) and will need to be redone for optimal performance, but I was trying to put it back together to go ride. I'll spend some time on that later. [ATTACH type="full"]207122[/ATTACH] But finally, after much cussing and sweating my ass off in my non-AC shop, she back ! [ATTACH type="full"]207123[/ATTACH] [/QUOTE]
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