Boron Steel

[Iain Westland]

how do you know its there? got the boron steel PDF from here but was wondering if theres any quick checks to be made.

Iain

 

[fingers99]

I've yet to do any work on any, but I hear that it's tougher than the other steels commonly used in cars (try drilling some?).

If you can get hold of the "real" workshop manual for the car in question it will advise on repair methods.

 

[badersbus]

What vehicle are we talking about , i may be able to help

 

[Iain Westland]

just a general enquiery really

Iain

 

[hotrodder]

The easiest check is probably google, stick a make and model + the HSLA/UHSS alloy of your choice in and hit return. Key thing is to always have a guess at a specific alloy rather than more general terms.

Might find this useful too

 

[Iain Westland]

cheers, looks like I will have to get t'internet in the garage then to check on newer cars.

Iain

 

[hotrodder]

Certainly very useful to have to hand considering how complicated things are now. Couldn't get the PDF for this one to work for some reason (it's pretty big, got things running the background and i got bored) but there's some content on boron steels amongst other stuff, no pics in the html version though.

 

[Iain Westland]

Thanks Hotrodder, just have to keep looking, but its only gonna get worse and with how litigatious society is getting I'd like to know what I am welding before the accident investigators start pointing at me ... its only a matter of time before the back street boys start getting pulled and I dont want to be one of them

Iain

 

[hotrodder]

Yeah, i'm glad that when i'm doing coachwork it's generally on/for something that was made no later than the sixties- nice soft, workable steel just a shame about the rust!

Just stumbled onto this article (been educating this evening), appears that if it's galvanised it won't be boron steel. That'll just leave umpteen different HSLA alloys then!

 

[fingers99]

It opens -- albeit slowly -- in later versions of Acrobat. But they seem to be using MIG plug welds............

 

[pedrobedro]

Download Foxit reader and get rid of Acrobat, it is tiny in comparison and has opened everything .pdf that I have downloaded, including the link you show there, instantly.

 

[badersbus]

Many modern vehicles are now using Boron ,UHSS , AHSS in manufacture. This has started to present lots of problems for the body repairer these days. In manufacture many components are laser welded , which at present cannot be reproduced , and is generally repaired by Mig brazing. This is used to reduce the heat needed in the joining process , as excessive heat will dramatically alter the steels structure , intoducing potential weakness. This is can be a major problemin components that are now "tailored blanks " , where by a chassis member say is made thinner in the middle of its length and thicker at the ends for example.
This is all done to reduce weight there by increasing fuel economy and lowering CO2 emissions etc etc.
I work for a large body repair chain , and we are a long way down the BSI PAS125 accreditation route , where licensed ATA VDA (vehicle damage assessors ) are a statutory requirement. The first thing i do these days when creating an assessment to repair a vehicle is investigate the correct safe repair method . What steels are involved , can they be joined , pulled etc etc etc. This is all before a cost can be created for the insurance companies.
Dont be under any illusions that this is concerned with the high end vehicles only, have a look at the new Corsa and Fiat 500 and see how much tricky steel is in those for example.
This obviously is a lot more work , but like autocare has said , only a matter of time before some one ends up in the dock with Mr accident investigator bearing down on you if you have not done your homework.
When i look back , it is a long way from welding over sills on MK 2 escorts to get them through the MOT.

 

[badersbus]

An interesting read ...
http://www.bodyshopmag.com/features/feature.php?id=1537

 

[fingers99]

The really, really, stupid thing is that they're using stronger steel to reduce weight, while at the same time making the cars much heavier by stuffing in air con, sound deadening, electric seats and GOK what else. Makes economic sense for the manufacturers, but no real environmental sense whatsoever.

 

[Iain Westland]

trade off, people want tangible items, safety isnt one but air con is, increase the inners and compensate in shell weight reduction, put the reduction down as a feature '23% lighter shell but 115% stronger' type crap while filling the void with 'must haves' and appropriate prices

 

[hotrodder]

They can't get away with making cars that rot away in a few years anymore. Need to get people to buy new ones so we have 'environmentally friendly' , safer, kinder to the person you just ran over (seriously,?#*&%!) etc etc as the new built in obsolecence

That PDF opened ok (but still a bit slow) today, virusscan was doing it's thing yesterday and i was burning DVD too which didn't help computer speed. Will give Foxit a try

 

[mike os]

so basically for a new "environmentally friendly" car repair you need several specialist and therefore uneconomic and very environmentally unfriendly (because of the redundancy) machines to do the job of one......great

 

[Iain Westland]

one hundred and eightttyyyyyy!!!!