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welding to a tube, plastic involed

1K views 4 replies 4 participants last post by  Silverback 
#1 ·
I have a tube within a tube that has plastic between the tubes. It is part of a Nissan versa steering column. (see picture)
I need to weld a mount to it. Is there a way to weld it without melting the plastic? I'm thinking, maybe run water through it.
Freeze it overnight or dry ice?
 

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#2 ·
The only way you are going to weld the pictured bracket to the outer tube in the location pictured and have that plastic bushing remain intact is to disassemble the column.

The instantaneous heat of the welding arc, even a TIG welder, is going to push through that thin tube material just about as fast as the arc is struck.

Freezing won't help, all that will do is make the weld need higher heat as you have to get the tube hot enough to melt in order for the weld to fuse with it.

I would advise that if you can't disassemble the column that you re-engineer the mount to clamp around the tube rather than weld to it.
 
#5 ·
TIG welding allows you to control the heat going into a weld better, but it takes that heat 3-5x as long to make the weld so you'll likely melt more of the plastic with a TIG then a MIG if you're good with the MIG. If melting a little bit of the plastic is OK you might be able to make it work by spot welding it in a bunch of places with a MIG. Otherwise (and the best solution) is like others have stated, make a bolt on bracket.
 
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