yep, moved it forward the 1.25 inches they say to, and the spring hats back 1/4 in to help with caster.

I set the front clip back on and measured center of wheel to fender edges to make sure it was centered. and turned the wheels to check out tire rubbing with the fender.. looks good.

and I ran out of welding gas with 2 inches to go.. man. luckily the local everything hardware/feed store has become an Airgas distributor, and open on Sunday.. so I was able to go get a refill.

sam

 

thx.. I did some grinding to smooth out the welds. You can make yours look good too!.. Use the outside edge of the grinding disc to flatten the weld slag (my discs have a sharp square edge) . The bottom face to shorten the slag pile.

I grind with the edge at 45 degree angle, and then bottom face and edge at 90 degrees both ways enough to clean it up.. then take my sanding discs (36/50/80 grit) to blend the weld pool into the parts. the sanding discs are mounted on the angle grinder with a rubber pad behind.

all this will also help you discover any places where the weld wasn't complete..

Sam

 

As a welder in a previous life I can tell you that you did a really nice job. Keep them coning as you are getting closer. For whatever the reason I enjoy seeing people get there projects done. I learn and they are that closer to driving.
jim

 

thanks.. I get a little better each time. wanted to TIG them, but got impatient, and probably not a place to start practicing TIG anyhow.

Sam

 

Good choice. TIG was what I loved the best but it followed many hours of practice on the bench with scrap metal and making tube trees.
But I do agree practice makes perfect.
jim

 

Sam that crossmember looks good! I also took your advise on boxing my frame. I am going to run all my plumbing on the outside of the frame, only going to put the conduit on the inside of it. thanks again

 

I was contemplating selling my Hobart and buying a Miller TIG welder because I couldn't get it to work right and the welds looked so bad. I got with one of my friends that welds for a living and had him come over to see what was wrong and we finally figured out why a lot of my welds looked so bad. The welder was out of whack. I had listened to my friend that runs a body shop and used the wrong diameter wire (.025) for the front cross-member so the heat and speed were really weird. It worked OK for in position (straight, flat, horizontal) welds but the moment you got out of position (i.e. vertical or overhead) things started drooping and dripping badly.

I discovered totally by accident that the ground was connected for flux core wire not solid core. The guy I bought the welder from had been welding fence posts and things outside as I recall.

My gas bottle was almost empty so there was little flow and the regulator hose had a kink in it. I need to remember to shut off the gas when I am done welding for the day to conserve the supply because apparently the regulator and welder leak the bottle empty over a period of time.

I swapped out my gas bottle at Tractor Supply, I like that they are open on Sunday. Put on a fresh spool of .035 wire. Connected the ground properly for solid core wire and cut out the kink in the hose from regulator to welder.

Now it runs beautiful beads with very little spatter and no dripping or drooping on out of position welds.

I may go back and grind out some of the more critical areas on my front end and re-do them.

The guy who helped me with the cross-member is not one of my friends that is certified and welds professionally. He knows how to weld body panels though. I thought he knew more about welding than he does.

It was one of my certified friends that told me to go back to my .035 wire and helped me diagnose some of the other problems with the setup on my machine.

I haven't mentioned it to the other guy because we are all friends and I don't want to alienate him from the group.

 

Wow that is quite a story but it does illustrate the point that if you have bad welds on a mig it is probably the machine or at least the first place to look. Glad to see you got it all straightened out. When the machine is right I used to love welding.

When I was learning to weld the old guy teaching us would really get on us if we didn't shut down the gas when we were done. He said it cost to much to just let it leak away. So to this day when I am done I always stop and turn off the gas.

I agree it would serve no purpose to say anything to your friend.

If you are feeling poorly about some earlier welds, now is the time to grind them out and re-do. Trust your instincts as I am sure they are good.
jim

 

yep, thin wire for thin stuff, and thick for thick. I was welding chassis with thin wire as well.. my son brought me a 10lb spool of 035, and WOW what a difference..

you should seriously think about rewelding some of that.

electrons flow positive to negative(the electron landing zone gets hotter). For flux core you set the ground to the wire coming out of the gun(DCEN, Electrode Negative), so the WIRE heats up and drops on the weld surface(and why you usually get more splatter, drop & splash) . For gas shielded (MIG) (DCEP, Electrode Positive), you set the surface to be ground, so you have the weld surface heat first and draw the wire into the molten pool.

we are talking relative temps here.. both are darn hot. but flux welding tends to have significantly shallower penetration for the same heat.

When Gas welding, this trick (setup as for flux wire) sometimes helps on sheet metal, to minimize the heat on the surface.. usually forces you to turn the heat down and that reduces burn thru.

Sam

 

I will reweld now that I have it sorted out.

I'll update my thread when I get some respectable beads down.

 

and if you have your grinder handy, we won't see any of the 'non-respectable' beads!!..

Sam

 

That explains why I was able to weld the holes in my trans cover using the .035 wire last month before I switched out to the .025 wire for the frame.

Now I realize how totally backwards that was!! The .025 wire should work OK for the holes in the floor I need to close up and to patch the hole in the firewall from the old steering column.

By the way, I found some coupons in 'Hot Rod' this month that will let me get the 1000# folding engine hoist and a 1000# engine stand at Harbor Frieght for about $150. I am going for them after work.

 

cool. most of my tools are HF as well.. got the big honking toolbox and top 5 yrs back now.. love em.

and when welding on holes in sheet metal, it sometimes pays to back the hole with a copper spoon/plate. weld won't stick, and it sucks up the heat fast.. here are a bunch from Eastwood.. I also use copper pipe smashed flat as a spoon, and a big HD magnet to hold it there..

Eastwood Company: Search Results for copper backing plate

Sam

 

Those are pretty cool but what I did was buy a wooden hammer handle and a cooper end cap that was about 1/8th thick. I cut a section out of that cap and attached it to the hammer handle and there you be for less than $10....

jim

 

'copper end cap'??? end cap of what?

I was just pointing out that there are lots of different shaped tools..

mine was 0 cost.. had the pipe in the shop, and the hammering was free!
sam