2 guys garage

[Andrew Longman]

I saw a bit of an episode of 2 Guys Garage on Speed about welding. It featured a welding shop run by Lincoln at IMS that repairs and fabricates parts for the teams.

Two questions.

They made a comment that seem to indicate IMS manadated all sorts of metalurgical inspections of parts to pass inspection. Huh? Is that true. I thought that testing was done by the team and suppliers.

They also made it sound as if the teams could not do there own welding in the garage areas for safety reasons and have to bring it to these guys. Huh? Is that true? What do they do on other race weekends?

Is this another TG manadated monopoly like catering?

Or was I just not paying attention and heard it wrong.

I did learn a bit about welding and that many car parts are no long cast but fabricated because while it is more expensive it can be repaired.

[Ankf00]

car parts are no long cast but fabricated "fabricated" as in "forged?"

[Andrew Longman]

"fabricated" as in "forged?"

No, they showed wheel supports that were lots of welded together bits and pieces. Plumbing parts too.

[grafddrx7]

No, they showed wheel supports that were lots of welded together bits and pieces. Plumbing parts too.

Technically, a properly-welded joint will be stronger than the surrounding material... To me, if it's a Crapwagon, it's the actual tub I'd be worried about, safety-wise, rather than any ancilliary pieces.

For the most part, the guys working on the cars are good at what they do, regardless of the series... It really depends on the starting-point of what they have to work with...

[Andrew Longman]

Technically, a properly-welded joint will be stronger than the surrounding material... To me, if it's a Crapwagon, it's the actual tub I'd be worried about, safety-wise, rather than any ancilliary pieces.

For the most part, the guys working on the cars are good at what they do, regardless of the series... It really depends on the starting-point of what they have to work with...

Sure. These guys did beautiful work. It just seemed odd if it was true that if you run at IMS you have to use these guys.

And I was surprise to learn how much stuff, even in a modern carbon fiber car, is still fabricated from welded metal. And I was surprised that stuff like that is repaired not replaced. For example, a guy came in from D&R with a cracked header to be fixed. I would have thought you just replace that. But I guess I should remember it was D&R :gomer:

[Joelski]

To fabricate something means to build it by hand reguardless of the material used. Whether you're laying up carbon fiber on a mold, cutting and welding pieces of metal, or turning a chunk of billet on a lathe to make wheels, that is fabrication.

[oddlycalm]

car parts are no long cast but fabricated because while it is more expensive it can be repaired. That's part of it. Castings aren't very strong, relatively speaking, and both fabrications and forgings are more suited to racing applications. Most casting processes are aimed at efficiency of production for parts that have complex shapes where maximum strength isn't an issue. That's also why, even on race cars, engine blocks and heads have nearly always been castings, at least since 1920. Bugatti used to machine the block and heads from a single metal billet but the complexity and cost to do that, even in those days, made the practice impractical.

The opposite is true on production cars where there are very few fabrications. Volume production relies on processes like stamping and casting to lower cost. Parts like transmission gears are made of powdered metal that is compressed to a certain density then sintered and re-struck by finishing dies for final sizing and finish. No machining, no grinding. The process is more like making pills than traditional car parts, but the parts are strong enough for production cars and the cost reduction is massive.

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