I was going to change the airbox on my bike today since it ws damaged, and when i cleaned some hard to reach places on the frame while having the airbox detached i found two really big cracks under the rubber protector on the upper rearshock mount, see picture.

I had to zoom in to make the cracks visible since the frame is black, but it is identical on both sides of the shockmount, and the picture is tilted 90 degrees, but i hope you can make out the location anyway, i can always upload another picture if not.

Obviously i need to fix this, but what mehod of welding would you guys recommend, and what material is the frame made of? Is it chromoly?
Should i try to reinforce it or just weld the cracks together after stripping the paint and cleaning them up?

Edited July 6, 201412 yr by mic

Might be better getting a second hand frame?

Then he'll have 2 to repair!

Get it braised, and it will be fine. Just clean the paint off and v the crack out slightly and take it to your welder a

Chromoly, yes, Mig or Tig will do it, find a good welder!

try to find out what caused it as well so it does not happen again. maybe get some bracing over the cracks. It looks like a stress crack caused by the lugs holding the top of the shock

Either get it brazed or get it TIG welded with dissimilar (Armoid?) metal filler.

The cracks are probably due to residual stress from the original welds.

If you look closely to the welds, you can see that it's bad welding that's the problem ( the welds are too far to one side)

My Bultaco has the same bad welding, so not much has changed over the years.

Thanks for the feedback, I have found a guy that is a licensed welder after talking to my local bikeshop.

He will weld it next week, can't wait to get it back so I can ride again?

Now it's fixed, the guy who did it used tig to patch things up, looked alright to me and I'm happy to have a working bike again.

Edited July 30, 201412 yr by mic