Weld quality on stock Banshee?!

[Kamajii]

Hi everybody,

I just recently got my hands on a 1998 Banshee and I am currently rebuilding it (near stock) from the ground up.

After having entirely disassembled it I stripped the frame and upon further inspection I was quite stunned by the overall quality of the welds. Please note that they're stock, no repair welding has been done.

As you can see the weld beads run rather vigurously, and not consistent at all. Sometimes the "same" welds on opposing locations in the frame look totally different. Generally, there is weld splatter all over the frame.

 

On a couple of welds there is quite a bit of porousity. I gave one a try in an attempt to re-fuse it (I'm a TIG welder), but the bead seems to be contaminated down to the metal. The below picture is stock, not reworked:

 

I ground down one of the larger blobs on a bead, and it is full of pores (that was not even visible until I ground it):

 

On many welds there is a lot of excess material that did not fuse anymore. Partly this only concerns the run-out of the bead, but on some welds there is a ton of un-fused material layered on top:

 

 

So generally speaking, as I do own a couple of other Yamahas, I have never experienced such a range of catastrophic welds 🤨

Am I missing something...?

King regards,

Sven... from Germany 🥶

 

BTW, I'll try to document a little on the project on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sven_knst_wrk/

 

[registered user]

i never looked that close at factory welds. some of them dont look good but i wouldnt worry much about it. for normal riding its good enough

[Keno]

Mass produced mild steel frame. 

[SKEETER]

Sure that didnt come from Carolina?  I can spot DDQs finest metal fab work anywhere..