grant40

This bike is special to me and I would like to keep it in rideable condition. I bought it used a couple of days ago and only noticed this split today. It is not like this on the other side of the frame. Is it possible to grind the paint off and do a TIG weld all the way along the split.

Andrew R Stewart 

I'll be the bad guy here and say that the cost to repair (if that is what is called for, I do wonder about the joint actually having a problem as opposed to just very low cost fabrication that shows in these features) is more than the bike is worth. Then there's the comment about the bike meaning a lot to you, yet is only a few days old. Is this a model you have been seeking for some time and only just now found? Is it the bike that some person you love had?

My suggestion is that lacking some great intangible reason to value this bike for far more than its market value is you should either ride it till it completely fails or find a bike in better condition. Andy (hoping this thread isn't a trolling)

Tusk

There is no corrosion in that spilt and it is painted. It has been there since fabrication and will be there in the same condition for the remainder of its life. If it makes you feel better, you can watch it, but it is not a defect.

unterhausen

Can't agree with the statement that it's not a defect, but I agree that it was always there since they made the bike. It's a manufacturing defect. Failure really depends on how much and how hard the OP proposes to use the bike. I am pretty sure these were made by squashing the stays and then the stay and dropout were held together by a couple of spot welds. As long as the spot welds hold, these cracks aren't going to matter. I have had the misfortune to work on a large number of bikes made this way and I don't recall seeing one that failed at that location. But it's possible the owners would just immediately give up on them and not take them to a bike shop.

Moe Zhoost

Seat stays are not highly stressed and then they under compression which will tend to keep this joint together. If this defect does actually progress to a failure, it will happen gradually and likely not result in a crash. I'd do nothing more than monitor this area. Take a quick look before any ride.

unterhausen

The thing that makes this situation different is that the OP only recently bought the bike. I wouldn't have purchased this bike knowing that defect was there.

guy153

Agree with people who say it looks like it was made like that-- the stays were pressed around the dropout and then presumably spot-welded. But you say it's not like that on the other side. But either way yes you can easily run a TIG bead down there which will strengthen it anyway.

grant40

I've been looking for this for a ling ti.e and was to exited to see the defect.

grant40

That's what I'm planning on doing possibly next week. The bike is just sitting in my basement now. If can't ride or work on bikes as I feel pretty sick.

guy153

Get well soon. Then weld and ride!

dddd

I suspect that the tube was flattened without regard for the location of the seam along the tube.

I really don't think that this split matters, as it's not really stressed in a way that would force the split to propagate upward along the tube.
This is the beauty of such thick-walled tubing, the stresses are lower and the metallurgy is less "notch-sensitive" to defects like this because typically there is still some ductility there.

Welding on the other hand is going to fry the paint, and unless your welder makes the right guess as to the grade of steel and knows what he is doing, the frame might end up weaker (more prone to cracking) after the molten steel shrinks and puts the metal along that edge in tension.

I'm pretty sure that the factory engineers didn't worry about the seam ending up oriented along the creased edge and splitting, because it wouldn't matter either way.

These Huffies have tremendous potential of the right frame size for the rider is found.
I recommend "sizing up" considerably on frames of this type (Schwinn EF frames included) because of the very short reach caused by the slack seattube angle.
A longer stem is a possibility to extend reach, but I strongly recommend that the handlebar width be increased with every centimeter added to the stem length, particularly going beyond 9cm. A wider aluminum bar is also going to have a larger, more comfortable gripping diameter, but is going to need to stay with 25.4mn (1") clamping diameter for any stem that you can find to fit the 21.1mm (.833") quill diameter.