Can Hss Steel Be Repaired

Honda releases auto torso steel repairability, welding matrix on I-Automobile

By on June 8, 2022
Education | Repair Operations | Technology

While cautioning that machine body shops must always defer to the OEM repair procedures for the specific vehicle in front of them, Honda has released a handy full general steel repairability matrix to the industry.

Honda shared the certificate with Honda ProFirst certified repairers and with the broader industry in conjunction with I-CAR, which posted the document Thursday on its Repairability Technical Back up portal news feed.

"Nosotros are looking into posting it on the Gratis side of Service Express in the near hereafter," Honda collision marketing assistant director Scott Kaboos wrote in an e-mail Friday.

The matrix covers Honda'due south steels from 270-megapascal mild steel — the but mild steel left on Honda vehicles — up to 1,500 MPa ultra-high-strength steel, and you'll note that even the weaker higher-strength steels (340 MPa and 440 MPa) tin't be straightened with oestrus and aren't always sectionable. At 780 MPa, yous tin't even common cold-straighten a part.

Welding

Much of the matrix deals with what welding is permissible and how best to accomplish it.

Have a slick new automated squeeze-blazon resistance spot welder? You tin use the automatic option on all steels through 980 MPa — but not on the gigapascal steels of one,180 and 1,500 MPa. (We should point out I-CAR welding instructor and industry teacher Toby Chess' warning that auto settings aren't infallible, and shops should even so do a subversive exam first.)

"Manual Setting Required," Honda writes of the ane,180-and-up MPa steels.

The matrix also explains that squeeze-type resistance spot welding can receive zinc-based weld-through primer on all steel grades. However, note that no other welding is mentioned as a candidate for weld-through primer.

Honda in 2022 reported it found on other welds that the zinc tin can contaminate the weld pool, particularly when as well much weld-through primer is used — "which it oftentimes is," Honda collision instructional designer Chris Tobie said then. (And if the surface isn't prepared correctly, the primer does y'all no practiced by flaking off anyhow, he said.) A meliorate pick would be to make a weld, and so utilize a corrosion-inhibiting primer later on the weld is washed, Tobie said at the time.

Clasp-type resistance spot welding is the exception to this no-zinc-primer rule because the joint holds "no matter what," Tobie said so. You lot however have to properly prep the metallic surfaces being welded, he said.

A July 2022 Body Repair News discusses those restrictions further.

The new steel matrix also tells you the necessary size of a test plug weld and spot weld's tearout (greater than or equal to 4.v times the square root (√) of the console thickness) how wide a diameter plug holes generally need to accept on actual car based upon the panel thickness.

It also discusses the parameters for Magazine plug and butt welding and MIG brazing and lays out which MAG wire may be used.

This is crucial. For steels 590 MPa or stronger — grades which make upwards about one-half of the next-generation Honda Borough'southward body in white, for instance — shops can't use their staple ER70S-6 wire. Its tensile strength is merely 482.63 MPa, which means the weld will fail before the adjacent steel does, which means the car won't crash in the controlled manner Honda has designed.

A shop must instead upgrade to Bohler X96 wire, which is 980 MPa. Tobie in 2022 recommended shops not even bother using ER70S-6 wire at all, reasoning that swapping wire in and out of a welder runs the risk of the technician slipping upwardly and using the weaker wire to weld steels information technology'southward not strong enough to join and proceed the vehicle crashworthy.

Finally, the matrix includes a handy key to the diverse welding symbols Honda uses in its OEM repair procedures.

This cheat canvas doesn't supercede the demand for a shop to use Honda or Acura OEM repair procedures.

" Always follow the model specific torso repair manuals for detailed repair procedures ," Honda warns, in red, bolded blazon.

But the matrix is still a valuable resource, and is the kind of thing that ought to be posted on the wall well-nigh trunk technicians or an estimator's desk-bound every bit a hedge against misreading or misunderstanding repair procedures and making a big mistake on an estimate or actual vehicle. It also could help an adjuster avoid incorrect assessments of what parts tin can exist straightened or sectioned when predicting the severity of the loss.

Share This:

Source: https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2018/06/08/honda-releases-auto-body-steel-repairability-welding-matrix-on-i-car/

Posted by: brinkleyhiout1960.blogspot.com

Share this post