The last major repair area on the VL frame.......

Ok, to refresh your memory, originally I was going to take out this late 4speed trans plate, until I discovered that the frame had broken at both the front and the back of the original trans plate. Whoever in the past put this later 4speed plate over the top of the original to repair the area.

They tried to stickweld everything together to repair/reinforce the area. Also, there is a not uncommon diagonal break thru the left webbing area that was welded long ago. I've seen a lot of VL frames broken right in this area - see the arrows. But, I've never seen a VL frame that's been broken in front, or the back of the trans plate before.

The webbing, with all the nasty stick weld ground out of there. What I want to accomplish here is to clean up the area, reinforce the broken webbing, reweld the area, and try and do it so it resembles the original shape of the webbing. You'll be able to see this webbing behind the trans case, so it's important to me to retain as much of the original detail here as I can.

The pattern for the reinforcement plate.

Here's the finished rear webbing, with the reinforcement plate welded in and ground down some. After this area gets a slight coat of bondo, and paint, it'll take a good eye to tell the plates even in there. It still has plenty of the detail, and it's the forgings like this that give the VL frame it's character.

Next week I'll tackle trying to get this mess straightened out. I plan on boxing the lower section, where the forging broke, and plating the upper section after I grind out those nasty stick welds. I wish I didn't have all the grinding to do, but I have to know what's under those blobs. You can't redily see this area, but I want to make sure these areas don't break again.