• 4 Stroke Husqvarna Motorcycles Made In Italy - About 1989 to 2014
     TE = 4st Enduro & TC = 4st Cross

  • Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

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Need Advice for Repairing Y-arm TE449

C

coleman1495

Husqvarna
A Class
Hello,

I had a bit of an issue with my TE449 the other day. The bolts on the rear sprocket came out when I was riding and one of them collided with the Y-arm. This took a bit of a gnarly gash out of the Y-arm.

Now I am a little unsure of what I should do next. I have new sprocket bolts on order but I am not sure if I should be worried about this gash on the Y-arm. It is a small mark but it is almost through the Y-arm. I am worried that this may lead to a crack forming. After all I ride this poor bike though just some seriously rough crap. A picture of the gash is below. My photography skills suck but hopefully it will give you folks an idea of what I am talking about

I was thinking maybe I should try to have the gash welded in. If I decide to do this is there any special precautions I should take when it comes to welding it? This does not look like simply aluminium but perhaps has magnesium of titanium in it. Can Joe Blow Welder fill this in like its aluminium?

IMG_1774.JPG
 
You are looking down on the Y-arm (or swing arm). Above that shown in the picture is the rim where the rear sprocket would be bolted on.
 
I suppose you could have it welded, but it probably is OK and a fill in weld would only make it pretty, but not stronger.
 
Coleman 1495,
It looks like there is a weld right there anyway to me, to the right and at the bottom and coming up around the swingarm. It looks like your gash or gouge is in the extruded tube section of the swingarm where the rear axle block slider slots are attached?

Take it to a reputable shop that has a large (At least 300 amp Tig unit) that has a reputation of happy customers and a known volume of Tig work on aluminum fabrication.

A fast in and out job with a larger output welder will give a better concentration of that heat to weld it quickly, is the thing to do here to fill it in. The Tig welding machine should have the capability to get a puddle going nearly immediately after it's cleaned properly and prepped for welding.

Use a 1/8" minimum or 5/32" pure tungsten.

Don't sit there and preheat it with a torch or anything else first because the shops welder is too small and won't get it hot enough to get a puddle going. That time waiting for it to come up to temp to get a puddle going and its associated heat spread could cause it to anneal a section of the swing arm. Not good.

Aluminum is a great conductor of heat and it spreads fast through the part.

So weld it up fast and get out.

This is a 3 to 5 minute job.
 
Excellent, thanks for the advice.

Just to be clear the frame can be welded like aluminum? It looks like some kind of aluminium alloy as oppose to just aluminium.
 
Now are you talking also about the frame? The frame of the bike itself is a high tensile steel tubing. Probably the likes of 4130 chromemoly.

The swing arm is aluminum. Or Y-arm as you refer to it. It's partly made up of aluminum castings welded to machined aluminum forgings. Nearly all aluminums in these types of applications are mixed with other alloys for strength.

Since there is dissimilar metals in that alloy. It probably looks that way because it has a layer of oxidation on it. That layer of oxidation actually burns off, if not cleaned properly at a much higher temperature than is required to melt or actually weld the aluminum under it.

So it must be removed before its welded. So clean it well and wire brush it with a new stainless steel brush.

4043 filler rod would probably be a good choice.
 
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