Can I weld without damaging anything,

One of my center stand mounting holes has been worn out of round. Someone must have let the bolt get loose & used it that way. The center stand all was also broken all though it is the later "heavy duty" type. I sleaved the inside crss tube & welded it up & I have new correct bushings & bolts. Now I want to weld up the out of round hole in the bracket and drill it back to round. My question is can I weld on the frame without damaging any thing electrical. The gas tank is off the bike so that's not a issue. Do I need to remove the oil tank? I don't realy think so but am no expert on this. I would rather ask a silly question than blow my garage up! Thanks.

I would disconnect the battery, and ensure that all electronic components are isolated.

I forgot to mention the battery is allready out of the bike. As for all the other electrical items, what do you mean by "isolated"??? I will make sure the ground wire is close to where they weld.

Welding produces a lot of RF so any wire is like an antenna picking up what it can. If possible, short out the + and - to ground before welding, this will eliminate possible pick up. If you have an electronic ignition, just disconnect it. Disconnect any other electronic device too, like LED bulbs... The rest should survive.

Jean

Don't worry, be happy.
Welded cars without disconnecting anything.
I welded up my sidestand lug a few weeks ago, but I did remove the alternater wires from the rectifier & the battery wires. I have boyer ignition. I would agree, to be safe, pull apart what you can easily get at. Cover up adjacant paintwork etc. with masking tape to stop the weld splatter.

There is no problem if you are only doing oxy acetylene welding, but any kind of arc welding can possibly damage electrical components.

You must have a post '70 model if you are using the 850-style stand. That means you really are going to be welding on the engine cradle. Will you be able to re-drill it in the frame? It might be more difficult trying to work around the frame tubes rather than remove the cradle and take it over to the bench to where you will have better access and won't need to worry about frying any electrics.

You have a point there. Access will be difficult so I will most likely try to get at it with a Dremel or small die grinder. Thais way I can do a little at a time and keep checking it. I don't want to get into taking the cradel out now, a full rebuild restoration may be in the distant future & will deal with it better then. For now I want to get it back on the road & sort out how I want it. Deciding on a seat tank bars etc. Thanks for all the advice guys..

I don't want to blow your bubble, but if you cant get at the holes to redrill you are only going to make a total mess with any type of welding,really the cradle wants to be pulled, holes filled right up and redrilled, you would be better off now making some larger spacers to take up the slack, but thats only my opinion

I noticed that nobody addressed the problem of screwing up the heat treating of the tubes. If you're using electric arc to weld, it's probably OK, but gas-torch welding could mess up the strength of the alloy steel in the frame tubes. I'm going from memory here, but I think the frames were heat treated after all the welding was done in production.

Some of the attachment lugs were put in using fairly low temperature brazing alloys (again, from memory, which gets less reliable as time goes by!)