Hey folks, Does anyone know about frames and rust? I'm trying to figure out if what I'm looking at is too much rust. The word "rust" doesn't even appear in DOT regs, as far as I can tell. The first pic shows the rust, and the associated erosion. The next 2 pics, I tried to show the depth of the rust. I'm not worried about the frame breaking, I'm really only concerned with DOT inspections. Would an inspector cite me for this? The rust spots are right above the overload spring stops. Those brackets have a channel down through them so water can drain out. Those channels got blocked with dirt, and got build up and just kept building and rusting over time. Thanks y'all!
I’ve dealt with this issue many times on the coast. I inspect a lot of old trucks. I’ll pass them as long as I don’t see any cracks. Eventually, they will crack. Sometimes. If the rust jacking between frame rails is severe enough, I tell the client that it’s too far gone for me to sign off on it. I’ve never seen a creeper cop write up a rust spot like that.
Thank you! That's just what I needed to know.
Once the rust jacking gets bad enough,….
yikes. It looks like I'm taking care of mine early enough. I hope so anyway!
Just because you don't see any with naked eye doesn't mean much, CD is correct. But a easy way to find cracks is with a torch--on med flame. if there is a crack it will appear as a black hair line crack with just slight coverage with torch.
Speaking of crack, I found a couple cracks today on the rear of a 2,800 gallon tank sill. Weird place for an ALMAC to crack. Under the canopy.
Where that cracked looks like a weld flaw. Too cold when welded maybe and/or not enough penetration.
Makes sense. Hardly any weld stuck on the sill plate, proper. The curb side is similar. Build date is 05/2021 and this rig is a pavement princess.
The last crack looks like there was 2 passes going downhill which would have poor penetration. It would be interesting to see the fit up of the plates. You want to go inside corner to inside corner so you can put in a full strength fillet weld. Outside corner to outside corner or overlapped makes for a poor weld with low penetration. I worked at a shoddy place where an apprentice was in charge of building a kind of square fire box out of steel. Of course he wouldn't listen when I told him his fit up was wrong. Proper fit up makes it a lot easier to weld too. Guy had a big ego and thought he knew it all.
Damn. This is the Sister tank to the one above. Just a couple serial numbers different. The French Canadian fella at ALMAC that welded these must of had a bad week.
That's not good.
Found a third tank cracked the same way. I have a phone call scheduled with their CDE next week to discuss.
Definitely need some better quality control.
Design flaw?
This particular tank design has been in production for more than twenty years. I’ve been inspecting cargo tanks for ten years and never found a single crack in an ALMAC tank until this week. I agree with Welder Dave about it being a quality control issue. Made me take notice and give all the welds a second look. I have a meeting set up with the factory rep next week to talk about a repair.
Might be a simple case of needing to preheat the start of the seam but I'm not sure how the plates are fit up.