 I'll assume you are talking about the upper lift arm. Gosh.. I've seen so many of those repaired on N's.. everything from very good jobs that were pinned, and undercut and welded in stages.. to pieces of rebar taked on with a big stick welder where the weld looked like a chicken with an intestinal infecction had been up there. All were holding and had been long term fixes. There was some discussion at some point about whether those arms were cast steel.. or cast iron. If cast steel.. you are good to go.. if cast iron.. you may still be good to go. Welding a small arm isn't the same as welding say.. a block.. where part of the block is cold.. and part is hot.. and then you have expansion / contraction problems. Once you lay some decent weld on that arm.. the whole things gonna be hot. If it were me.. I'd 'V' it out real good.. heft.. I'd try to weld it in stages, and get it penrtrated ALL the way thru.. and just keep tieing the layers in. Buiold up to regular dimensions.. and then I would probably weld a brace on either side., or top and bottom. Then conture a tad with an angle grinder. I think a mig will give a better look, and make the welding easier.. but it's hard to substitute a big beefy stick on a high setting for deep penetration. I built a set of ramps for my 4000+ pound jd-B using 1/2 plate and our old lincoln 250 stick welder at work.. man that thing can glue two pieces of 1/2 inch plate together faster than you can blink.. I'f you've got nickle rod, and are using an arc welder.. i guess you might as well use it.. though I', not the guy to get welding tips from... I'm deffinately amature at gluing metal together.. I've only got a small buzz box at home .. though i've done some neat work taking my time. I glued' some new thread onto my adjustable lift arm after the threaded rod stripped. I used a long grade 8 bolt for the thread donor, and a big nut for new threads. Undercut deep, and welded them on.. ground them down, and chased the threads. That arm is now in service on my N and is pulling hevy loads with no problems. Iff all else fials.. nothing was lost but your time, some welding practice, and a few rods or a few feet of mig wire/gas. And you can always just put a new arm on.. used ones are around.. though as they are hard to remove.. i think the repair idea may be better. On my pic.. I cut down the lower body tube to make room for the nut so that the overall size and dimensions of the lift arm are the same. I used a file and a grinder to make the nut the same shape as the oem lift arm. I did the same for the bolt, which was welded at about an inch above the threads. a 3/4 x 10 bolt was the exact same diamater as the original shaft. I squared both up.. tacked one side and then deeply v-cut the other side and welded it up.. flipped it over.. cut out the tack weld, v-cut that side then welded.. overlapping the welds on either side.. then ground down to conture the shaft. Takes time.. but a good weld repair can look good if you have patience. Soundguy
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