My attex 8x8 military trainer

[hydromike]

I had some time today to start some welding, and thought it was going well. I welded a few of the cracks on the outside and then flipped the tub over and everything I welded broke apart. Crap!!!!

Whenever I weld ABS, I find that I just about always have to weld both sides of a crack. It takes quite a bit of practice, and sometimes it's not pretty at all, but I lay the bead, and then use a heated up 1/2" wide prybar to sort of "mush" the entire bead and surrounding plastic together. I repeat the process on the opposite side of the crack, and it seems to hold up well. On my tank trainer, I have several cracks that have reappeared over the course of a couple of years of decent abuse, but they're mainly in the high-stress areas. Some of the cracks on your trainer likely aren't due to repeated stress, but rather impacts with something. You might get real good results in one area, and so-so results in others.

Since I don't do a whole lot of plastic welding, I picked up a cheapie hot air welder. It's not a very elegant piece of equipment, but it gets the job done.

EDIT:: Come to think of it, aside from the holes drilled in the dash on that upper, it was in pretty decent shape. You know, you could really break some new ground and just slice that yellow upper in half, and graft in the rails from your trainer, and add the requisite 4.5" from a third upper body.

[racerone3]

I will add my 2 cents here. Mike and I have had a TON of discussion on the topic of putting tanks back together, and I think we have used vastly different methods to get pretty similar results. He is using the hot air welder, I'm using the airless. He has never used ABS Goo... I use it like I use beer and peanut butter (AKA: too much)

I will agree with what he said. YOU MUST WELD BOTH SIDES OF A CRACK to get any strength. I drilled holes and used stainless wire to lace together all the cracks in my tank, then welded both sides. on top of that i did a few layers of a glass/ goo hybred. Fiberglass cloth with really thin ABS GOO instead of resin. I'm only 3-4 months out, but no cracks have opened back up... with the exception of where my brother in law rammed the LR corner with a Pimpfoot

For a nice ARMY/ Baby Sh^t green mix of ABS goo, use a lot of yellow, and a little Black. Black ABS pipe from a hardware store is a great source of raw plastic to melt down.

this is the welder I'm using : Urethane Supply 5600HT Model 6 Airless Plastic Welder | eBay

I get my welding rod from ABS Welding Rod | U.S. Plastic Corp.

[marshgunner]

Well I have not done any work on the trainer for a few months now, but I hope to soon,either that or let someone else have some fun with it.

[jpswift1]

Bring it back to life, Marshgunner! I was so excited when I saw this post to this old thread.

[hydromike]

...either that or let someone else have some fun with it.

Really? It'd certainly be a really big effort to get the 'ol girl back together, and I don't know how many people would want to try it. I mean, **I'd** try it. It's a big worse for wear than 5 was when I got her, but it's really just a matter of spending time to get it back into two big green pieces. Lots and lots and lots of ABS rod and goo.

We only know of about half-a-dozen or so that are out there, so I hope this one can be saved..... Worse comes to worse, I have a bay open in the ABS ICU.

[LarryW]

Oh man you can do it! You have great advise here. Give it a whirl!

Race, thanks for posting the tip on the yellow and little black abs for a similar color. Good idea! That back right corner of mine was cracked and it did get bigger.

[Duck89]

Stick with it marshgunner! With some determination combined with the advise from the knowledgeable people on this site, you can do it no problem! You don't see a lot of those tank trainers around it seems, so you have something unique. Good luck!

[smooth_oakislander]

Looks like a nice project you have there keep us posted how its going.

[marshgunner]

Hey thanks guys for the pep talk on getting to work on it. I really did not want to get rid of it but after seeing it sit for a few months I just lost some intrested in it. But if I do let it go I will keep everyone in mind.

[marshgunner]

I was staring at the rear damage of the trainer today and trying to think out how to repair it and noticed that their is a mold line on the back half of the tub. So I was thinking if I could find a useable lower tub I could cut along the mold line and use from the back two axles rearward and use the good tub section to replace the back half of the trainer. I have not looked at a 6 wheeler tub to see if the mold line is in one of those to.