84 Big Red....welding the front end solid???

[Nitrochicken]

Alright guys......84BR. Front end completely shot, rust and corrosion everywhere. It's just gonna see light duty around the house.....what info can y'all give me about welding up the front end? Maybe some pics?? And please don't hate lol

[aqqus]

Almost anything can be repaired. Post some pics of the carnage and it will be easier for people to give the advice that you seek.

You will need to build a good solid jig to hold the forks and neck in position before you start cutting the frame apart. You will need DOM tubing, not pipe. Tubing is flexible and not brittle like pipe is. If the neck is rusted off the down tubes you will need to cut back until you get good fresh metal to weld onto. Once you get the bad metal cut out you will need to cut and install slugs in old frame. Slugs are pieces of tubing that fit inside the original tubing to reinforce and strengthen the joint. Plug weld the slugs in place (drill holes in outer tube and weld thru the holes) before fitting the new pieces then but weld old to new. Joint will be stronger than original steel.

[Nitrochicken]

Okay.....let me rephrase. I got the trike in decent shape but the front shocks/springs are ate up pretty bad along with everything else in the forks. I'm interested in making the front forks solid.....pulling the springs out, having no suspension. Let's see where this goes now.....thanks guys.

[YTZ drew]

I think the tubes are steel and the legs are aluminum, so you wouldn't be able to weld them together. I would think that you could disassemble the forks and replace the springs with solid "spacers", but if the length wasn't exactly right, you'd have up and down play and a constant rattling, Also if the bushings in the forks are shot, the tubes might wiggle around a bit.

[Nitrochicken]

It's all steel.

[kowboy]

Essayist thing to do is buy a set of solid forks or different sprung forks for the trike. In my opinion essayist and cheepist. otherwise take the fork Gaters off and take the welder to them.

[big specht]

I got one here that some one welded up all ready I will try to get a pic of it wed

[Chopsaw]

Essayist thing to do is buy a set of solid forks or different sprung forks for the trike. In my opinion essayist and cheepist. otherwise take the fork Gaters off and take the welder to them.

I'm having flash backs from the movie Deliverance .

Whats a fork Gater ?

[Dave_D]

I got one here that some one welded up all ready I will try to get a pic of it wed

I'd like to see. Getting to the point of just welding mine up

[Nitrochicken]

^^^^^lol. Ya a pic would be good. I've already pulled all the guts out just waiting to see an example before I screw something up.

[tripledog]

30 years of crud and grime seem to have welded the forks solid on my '84 ES. I am looking for a 200M front end to replace the ES forks that weren't good when they were new.

[Nitrochicken]

Alright.....said screw it and found a 200m front end to bolt in and fab up. Should be pretty sweet when it's said and done.

[Dave_D]

I'm still hoping to see the pic of welded front end