Amazon: Freebie Amazon project

[Gordon Hunter]

I was hoping I'd be able to reproduce an original looking spot weld mark with it, but I'm not there yet. I need a bit more practice.

At worse, it'll be a bit of a gimmick, but hopefully there'll be some application it will come in handy for.

At best I'm hoping it will be neater than plug welding without the hassle of having to grind down the plugs.

I'll try to get into the workshop again before Christmas and I'll post results here.

Gordon

[Gordon Hunter]

OK, I've tested this little unit about as far as I need to.
It isn't really up to the job even though as advertised it should do 17 gauge to 20 gauge.

I only got one decent penetration (indicated in picture) so my conclusion is -plug it with MIG!

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[940_Turbo]

That's a shame, it looked like a nice alternative to plug welding lots of holes. Time to get the Roper Whitney hand punch out I guess.

[Gordon Hunter]

With the time it took to keep the arc active, the heat travelling up the shield was starting to melt the gun's casing. I was maybe expecting a lot for it to weld chassis thickness steel and rows of welds.
Think this would be a great wee spot welding add on for someone who only does stick welding and needs to weld thin sheet occasionally.

[Burdekin]

Thanks for that Gordon, I was wondering if they were any good. You can also get these mig attachments http://www.alexshanks.com/spot-weldi...15-single-p315 for plug welding and if you have a timer on your welder you can set that or just count if not once you know how long to hold it for to get a nice flat plug weld. Then it's just repetition with minimal grinding to clean them up if necessary.

[Gordon Hunter]

Thanks Mitch.

I'll be using one to plug weld it in.

[Gordon Hunter]

I managed to sneak out under the radar and get some cutting and folding done...

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As this is only the prototype I won't bother cutting the holes yet as I want to see how it measures up to the car.

[Gordon Hunter]

Well, it turns out the new section of chassis rail was a good fit first time...

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So I've gone ahead and punched out the holes for the captive nuts and the drainage holes. The one on the left is not as far in as the original as the throat on my large hand punch is not long enough, but as long as there is a drainage hole at the bottom of that arched section before the rear axle it should be fine...

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I have shot-blasted the trailing arm mounting bracket and reshaped it using some steel plate and large hammers. There is something quite therapeutic about whacking great lumps of steel with big hammers...

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[Gordon Hunter]

I have re-used the old captive nuts after cleaning up the threads.
I used the mounting bracket on the other side of the car to take measurements and then welded the bracket on to the new chassis section.
Offering it up to the car shows that thankkfully everything is in the correct place and ready to go in.
I'll start to tackle the floor tomorrow.
As I might be gas welding a repair panel in over where the floor is spotted to the chassis, I'm considering removing more of the curved chassis section so that I can avoid the heat from the acetylene kit soaking away when I make the join.
The other option is to use the mig to fill in a mm gap between the two panels.
Not sure which way to go yet. -Mig will need more tidying up and give me less options if I need to plannish it flat, but gas would need a lot more planishing and there might be accessibility issues. I'll think about it in the morning...

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[940_Turbo]

It's looking good. I do wish Father Christmas had bought you a camera that actually focuses though;-)