Rust repair?

[James Eric]

How would you go about making this repair?

 

[dieselcrawler]

Depending on your fabrication abilities, cut out the rusty section and weld in new metal, once ground smooth and painted you would never know it's been repaired. Hinge pin alignment is critical, and placement will affect door alignment as well.

We got welders, torches, and grinders, it can all be fixed. Beat to fit, and paint to match, as my buddy would say.

 

[George2615]

I recently just did a repair on a trailer like that. With the door raised I cut off the hinge welds then removed the door. (I didn't have any wiring to remove so you will have to do that)
Most of the rear plate was still solid except for where the hinges were so I bought some 1/8" x 3" and 1/8" x 1 1/2" angle. Cut it to length and drilled holes in it to plug weld it to the existing piece.

Basically I made a new piece of C-channel from the 3" and 1 1/2" angle that slid over the full width of the original on the trailer back and welded it to the original by welding the drilled plug holes. I welded new flat steel to the hinge plates on the door then made a lifting bracket to lift and support the door with a floor jack. Lined everything up and tacked the hinge plates to the new C-channel. Tested the door operation before final welding the hinge plates.

PS, I used vise grips to clamp the spring loaded torsion bar in place to keep it from unwinding then removed the cables attached to the door.

 

[James Eric]

Thanks for the help. It looks like I've got some cutting and welding to do when the weather breaks.

 

[weldingisfun]

I would go with dieselcrawler's recommendation. Let us see how it looks when finished.

 

[TCJatko]

I'd add some large drain holes in the bottom of the square tubing while you have it open. Maybe it will slow down the corrosion process if it's not full of debris.

 

[PILOON]

Whenever I fabricate using square tubing I like to pour some oil inside, tilt the object and plug the other end so as to have some oil sloshing around.
I even sometimes use a wooden (tapered) plug to close the tube.
Most of your tubing fabricated things rot from the inside out as there is no paint or protection inside and the sloshing oil will accomplish that for you.
Also plugging the two ends will prevent freeze bulging from frozen water.

The technique was fairly common in aircraft that was constructed with a tubing fuselage.
In aircraft we liked to use raw linseed oil and we plugged the filler hole with an expendable rive or small screw. .

 

[jbadkins7o]

Use cavity wax with the aforementioned repair and you'll get years more use out of it.

 

[TractorGuy]

I avoid using square tube whenever possible. I would try to replace the whole cross piece with channel iron. Make sure the material nearby isn't rusted out from the inside as well before you start. The problem with tube is it often does rust from the inside out and can look okay on the surface and be paper thin.

 

[Wnc3]

Use cavity wax with the aforementioned repair and you'll get years more use out of it.

And where do you buy cavity wax? (Afraid to google it because who knows what might show up)
What about filling it with the foams in a can? "Great Stuff"