Track Frame Wear Repair

[Welder Dave]

You can use dual-shield outdoors if you put up some screens and it's a calm day with no wind. Self-shielded flux-core is more expensive, especially to get the same mechanical properties as dual-shield. Dual-shield doesn't come in a basic general purpose wire. The base wire has mechanical properties comparable to 7018 stick. Self-shielded basic wire is more like 7014 or even 6013 and not designed for dynamic loading. Dual-shield has better pentration too. .045" is a good basic size and most can be run out of position/vertical up. You can turn it pretty high too, 300 amps plus. 1/16" is common for larger welds on thick plate without being too hot but usually needs a 400 amp machine or bigger. You really need to consider duty cycle of the welder when running flux-core.

 

[Mquinista]

You can use dual-shield outdoors if you put up some screens and it's a calm day with no wind. Self-shielded flux-core is more expensive, especially to get the same mechanical properties as dual-shield. Dual-shield doesn't come in a basic general purpose wire. The base wire has mechanical properties comparable to 7018 stick. Self-shielded basic wire is more like 7014 or even 6013 and not designed for dynamic loading. Dual-shield has better pentration too. .045" is a good basic size and most can be run out of position/vertical up. You can turn it pretty high too, 300 amps plus. 1/16" is common for larger welds on thick plate without being too hot but usually needs a 400 amp machine or bigger. You really need to consider duty cycle of the welder when running flux-core.

Interesting why u did not mention "pulse" system machines, as is a heck of diference in fusion.
Nevertheless i rarely use the wire welder in this type of jobs, the 7018 is the 4x4 for this purpose, as we never know what type of stell OEM used when building the part.
High carbon content steel may not be the best option for a repair like this, the carbon interacts a lot with heat and easyly gets microcracks.
I´ve been best succeded in this repairs using good quality boron stell, like a pieces of a track pads, it welds nice, is relativelly hard and resistent to shock and abrasion.

But certainly the Book mentions what type of steell to use and weld system.

 

[Welder Dave]

I don't know if you really need pulse for heavy equipment repair. It's good for solid wire on thinner material or metals other than steel. It doesn't really give more fusion if the welder uses the proper heat without pulse. It might give faster deposition and less distortion but again that's on thin material. Not much is that thin on heavy equipment welding. No real benefit with Dual-Shield Flux-Core.