I'm a fairly new visitor to this board, the factory frame welding topic may have been dicussed before, if so please skip.
I have restored/modified several cars in my 45 years of working with cars. My first one was a 40 Ford two door standard, then a 39 Ford two door deluxe and so on. So I've been around this stuff for a while. My current project is a 72 Corvette - I've been here to ask for information several times and always been rewarded with knowledgeable responses. This Corvette needed some frame restoration so I decided to media blast it. This is a race car with rollbar already welded in when I purchased it. I decided to blast as much of the frame as I coul with the body on and think I got most of it done. With the exception of the top portion of the frame rails. I used an industrial compressor and a 200 pound sand blaster with medium grade slag as the media (Black Beauty). I was not as worried about the semi course texture left behind as I was more concerned with being certain that the frame was totally cleaned. And it was!
Then upon inspecting the frame I noticed that the right side front corssmember top weld was not in good order; the welds on the sides showed tiny welds with some penatration. A closer look revealed that the frame had recieved the entire weld and that there was no weld penatration on the crossmember. There was no pitting or any evidence of tearing between the two pieces. Then I really checked all of the welds and found most of them to be small with little penatration. Now, as I mentioned, this car is going back to the races and all factory welds will be traced over by a professional welder this week. Re-welding does not effect the value of our car.
I think it is important to check your welds on some of these older Corvettes. Obviously, 99% of them are fine and that my Corvette is an anomaly, but it wouldn't hurt to go out to the garage and take a close look at yours. Sorry for the length of this post.
I have restored/modified several cars in my 45 years of working with cars. My first one was a 40 Ford two door standard, then a 39 Ford two door deluxe and so on. So I've been around this stuff for a while. My current project is a 72 Corvette - I've been here to ask for information several times and always been rewarded with knowledgeable responses. This Corvette needed some frame restoration so I decided to media blast it. This is a race car with rollbar already welded in when I purchased it. I decided to blast as much of the frame as I coul with the body on and think I got most of it done. With the exception of the top portion of the frame rails. I used an industrial compressor and a 200 pound sand blaster with medium grade slag as the media (Black Beauty). I was not as worried about the semi course texture left behind as I was more concerned with being certain that the frame was totally cleaned. And it was!
Then upon inspecting the frame I noticed that the right side front corssmember top weld was not in good order; the welds on the sides showed tiny welds with some penatration. A closer look revealed that the frame had recieved the entire weld and that there was no weld penatration on the crossmember. There was no pitting or any evidence of tearing between the two pieces. Then I really checked all of the welds and found most of them to be small with little penatration. Now, as I mentioned, this car is going back to the races and all factory welds will be traced over by a professional welder this week. Re-welding does not effect the value of our car.
I think it is important to check your welds on some of these older Corvettes. Obviously, 99% of them are fine and that my Corvette is an anomaly, but it wouldn't hurt to go out to the garage and take a close look at yours. Sorry for the length of this post.