Welding on a truck

RCM only

On Fri, 12 Oct 2007 21:34:22 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, Ignoramus12693 quickly quoth:

Heavy doors need more than two sets of hinges, period.

Oh, and make him swear that he'll never tell a soul that you welded those hinges. The next time he abuses them and something falls out of a broken door, you'll be liable. -- Remember: Every silver lining has a cloud. ----

Commercial haulers always overload their trucks. Always.

Beef everything up, larger hinges, larger mounts. It's the only way you can be sure he won't break them again.

And Larry would know...being unhinged and all.

Often the gate material around the hinge fails rather than the hinge breaking or the weld failing. There's a lot of vibration in a truck door and vibration eventually results in fatigue. We sometimes had to design and test stuff to considerably better than mil spec to have it survive on trucks.

If the gate material is failing, the remedy is to use more hinges and/or use stress-spreader plates under or around the hinges. You can't fix bad design merely by making good welds.

abuse

Fit a safety chain with tensioner from one rear side to the other outside the doors so in the event of hinge failure the car behind won't be flattened.

AWEM

On Sat, 13 Oct 2007 05:03:12 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, "Tom Gardner" quickly quoth:

Ah, you betcha.

--LJ, humming Bowie's "All The Madmen"... -- Remember: Every silver lining has a cloud. ----

RCM only

On Sat, 13 Oct 2007 08:30:43 +0100, with neither quill nor qualm, "Andrew Mawson" quickly quoth:

A most EXCELLENT idea, Andrew. Add one top and bottom on both doors. -- Remember: Every silver lining has a cloud. ----

Andy, this is a really good idea. I will talk to him about it.

i

You can buy 'weld on' hinges at any welding supply place. They are nothing more than a plate with a 1/2" pin on one side, a plate with a

1/2" hole on the other side. Something like $6 each set. MUCH stronger than what you have now.

Make sure you put the ground cable > I have a scrapper with whom we have done a lot of stuff together (I

No charge !

AWEM

I would consider a different kind of design that would be resistant to damage.

___________ ___ __door_____|__| O | |_____________|

Above is a top view of a pivot rather than a hinge.

By using pivots you have several advantages. First you get the doors swinging clear out of the way while you are loading or unloading so the hinges can't get whacked.

Second the pivot are as beefy as you want to make them and rather than having the weight of the doors supported by the stamped out thin sheet metal. you have a large bearing area. It is easy to add grease zerks to this design also.

In the event of wear, you can replace pins and add washers to realign the doors. ( Make your pins from a slightly softer material.)

If it is desired to have a stronger door to pivot connection, you can mill slots in the pivots and weld inside the slots.

If the hinges are insufficient for the task, perhaps advising him to up his insurance coverage for when they fail while he's driving it down the road and dumps something in the path of another motor vehicle? Some enterprising lawyer may also ask him who did the welding on said hinges. Sucks, I know, but it's the landscape of modern life.

I would suggest a four to five foot long hinge pin with extra heavy wall pipe sections six inches long slipped over and welded alternately to door and box. To fail the pin would have to bend and peel all the pipe pieces off the box or door. Randy

Cut some 1/2" pipe into 6" pieces, enough pieces to go from bottom to top on each gate, and weld them alternately to the gate and the box. Use a steel rod that fits the ID of the pipe and, voile, you have created a built-in piano hinge that should survive just about anything. I recommend that the pieces of pipe be stacked on the "pin" prior to welding to insure that they line up. It's a cheap and relatively simple, way to do it.

Jim Chandler

Good idea - Might think of using a copper clad grounding rod as a center - and use it to align all lengths of pipe when welding. The copper might keep any splatter from welding to the rod.

Martin

Mart>