• Hi,
    I recently bought an old 700c full suspension aluminium frame in order to build up a SSFS bike.

    The problem is that there is a small crack on the joint piece near the dropout.
    As it is a FS frame, the frame consists of several parts, i.e. we are talking about the "chainstay part". As this part is not that big, I could even imagine having it hardened after the repair.

    I have thought how it could be repaired and would like to hear your thoughts. BTW, I have the feeling that the crack did not come from
    excessive stress, but because of non-chamfered (too sharp) edges on the part.
    The current situation is this:

    The area where the crack is, is solid, i.e. not a tube. And I had the idea that the crack could be milled out completely (a 3mm mill head for example would be wide enough) and then the gap is TIG-filled with aluminium:

    By the way, this is the whole frame:

    What do you think?

  • No one? By the way, its 7005 aluminium, at least thats what it says on the tube. Not sure if the pieces at the end of the tube could be 7005 as well?

  • I'm not a metallurgist by any means but I'm fairly if you milled it out, filled and then annealed it, then it'd be safer than it currently is and shouldn't fail any sooner than the non cracked side does.

    Edit: You should definitely make sure there isn't more of the crack that's not yet visible, I'd fear that there may be.

  • Apparently I'm lucky, just found out that 7005 aluminium is quite easy to repair as it does not need annealing after welding, just a two-step ageing procedure of baking it in the oven for 6 hours at ~95°C and then for another 4 hours at ~160°C , and that's it.

  • Here we go, your miss is going to be so happy that the oven (and probably flat) is going to smell old oil chain cooked ahah

  • Obviously the part needs to be completely clean before

  • clean and paint removed... should be.

  • are you planning to do the work yourself?

  • just the milling and the baking

    the welding will be done by someone who knows his business

  • It terrifies me that Indra is giving advice on a safety related issue.

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Advice needed on milling/welding/repairing aluminium dropout crack

Posted by Avatar for jetski @jetski

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