any one good at mig welding here?

[mikeeyb185]

car failed its mot on friday i have 10 days to get some welding done around the sills and some nere the wishbones, the bloke at the mot station gave me a number phoned him he said 300 quid i said fook that its a ford ka m8 97 its not worth it so ive borrowed a mig welder off a m8 just need to get some sheet metal and some other bits and im ready to have a crack at it myself.

ive downloaded the haynes welding manual but its a load of crap tbh has any one got any good tips on how to weld or point me were to find some decent info on welding?

i have only done some puddle welding before so i need some good info guys cheers

 

[tigro]

if u do a half arsed job of the welding it will fail the MOT again and you will have more work to do, chances are the rusted, cracked part will need cutting out and replacing, so £300 seems about right if u ask me, might be worth getting rid of the car to be honest, specially when things like that go wrong

 

[Seedy_r0m]

MIG is only for good metal, so as tigro said, make sure what you're going to weld is clean & solid, otherwise you'll blow right through it.

It might be worth getting some scrap metal from your local breaker yard just to practise on before attempting it for real.

Try welding the test pieces at right angles, butted up against each other & overlapping.

When you do start it for real...

Have one of your m8's watching out for fires (interior carpet, wiring etc).

When the replacement part is sitting in place, place a small tack weld at one end.

When the tack is red hot, you have a few seconds to lightly hammer it to make it flush, place another spot about 6" from that & so on.

The reason for this is that the heat will distort the metal & the spots will help keep it in place.

I'm not sure on the reg's for welding sills if you can get away with a certain length of weld every so many inches, but hopefully one of the other guys can assist.

 

[manster]

cars need fully welding now. welding cars is a dirty crappy job . make sure you can get the car lifted high or over a pit. if you are crouched under the car all the weld spatter goes all over you and burns. do plenty practice on some thin steel but take my advice if at all possible get someone else to do it. £300 is a lot of welding get a quote from somewhere else.

 

[Dutcho]

More or less as above, you need to seam weld everything now and you will play the chase the hole game, nothing beats welding a rusty ford with an arc now there's a skillfull game.

 

[TBC]

rofl yeah i seem to remember MMA welding a carmany moons ago. 1.6mm rod and large brass blovk to sink the heat (less holes).

I don't really do a lot of welding these days but i am a coded stick and mig welders as well as extensive experience with TIG and gas welding. including welding of Bronze, copper, high carbon steels, aluminium and stainless.

heres the thing with welding, the best and easiest weld is accomplished through cleaning the area to be welded correctly and back to metal, if you have lots of rust chase it out and replace with good plate. Forget completely any form of gasless mig welding (waste of time in all honesty). use argon/co2 mix for mild steel i.e car bodies.
to setup your welder you will require a spare piece of same size plate and practice on it to get your current correct. you don't want to be burning holes everywhere, garages rarely offer a proper welding service basically most of them can satisfy an mot inspection but truth be told this full welding balls came along because the is expected with so much welding it will be properly done in a few places lol, sills at the factory are spot welded.

good car body welding is not at all easy, especially for a novice. thats becuase it is positional, meaning you cannot move the work so you have to be able to weld at almost any angle to an acceptable standard. if you do attempt this job remember flashes from welders can cause anything from sore eyes to temporary blindness!! so select a good shield and probably a number 9 dark glass for such low current welding.

i suppose this leads really to you should if at all possible get an experienced expert welder to look at it for you, it is rarely neccessary to completely replace a sill on any car, just to get it through an MOT test often patching the old one to get a pass is very much more efficient. the chassis welding around the wishbone also would likely not in itself be a big problem chassis even on a KA will not be too difficult to put right with welding.
the charging out rate for a qaulified welder is likely to be in the region of £40 per hour so £300 does seem a little on the high side. but then again if that is for a full sill weld then the car would have to be stripped out inside because of the fire risk!!! this is very high on that sort of repair so make sure if you do it yourself you have someone watching inside even after carpets pulled back with a bugget of water on standby.

well i probably put you off but with experience it really isn't impossible to do it your self at all, good luck with you efforts.


tbc

 

[Rs2k_Rider]

another good note to take notice of is the sound proofing, yes it is flamable lol... and will ignite. I have a mate who works at a body shop, been there a few times when the sound deadening has gone up..out comes the CO2 lol !
Even did it on my escort on the floor panel join inbetween the front back back seats... rotted at the seam, so welded a plate in,.... whosh up the stuff went and it was cleaned inside an out lol !

 

[2primo]

have a look over @ http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=6
tbh offering advice in a post is a difficult ..
As per above practice on some offcuts 1st set the welder up to your preference
you can hear a good weld spitting and popping will create bird poo like welds and they will be weak
it took me years of building 4x4s buggys and carts with some experts by my side to be competent
i could show you how but tell you in a post nahhh have a look on you tube for pointers ....
ohh and get a empty washing up bottle the big cheap ones work best and fill it with water and keep it by your side theres loads of nooks and cranny's in cars tha fire extinguishers wont touch watch out for fuel pipes ....
if you catch on run buddy !!!

 

[Seedy_r0m]

Oh, and wearing a baseball cap back to front whist welding is acceptable.

Wearing it back to front whilst nowhere near a welding plant, hanging around street corners, and you might as well have "Billy Smarts Circus" stamped across your back.

Best getting yourself the most brightest coloured, garish Kromer possible.
That particular version of headgear is class.

The more disgusting & heave inducing it is...the better welder you are

 

[smirnoff_rules]

lol , great tread this .. by the time u have this welding done u will wish u paid the 300 .. lve been in the trade for over 25 years now and l hate weldin ,,

its the shittest job in the world m8 ...and by the way it sounds over priced to me .. have a drive around some back street garages m8

 

[mapman]

any one can weld its if the car can take the weld lol .
we weld a race car now needs new back end every time we welded it blue big holes due to rust.good luck fixing it m80 you can pick up a mig for 50quid

 

[Seedy_r0m]

lol , great tread this .. by the time u have this welding done u will wish u paid the 300 .. lve been in the trade for over 25 years now and l hate weldin ,,

its the shittest job in the world m8 ...and by the way it sounds over priced to me .. have a drive around some back street garages m8

At least no-one from Mumbai/Bangalore is going to take your job from you m8.

Sometimes I wish I was back in amongst the muck & grime, the main thing that turned me away from the fabriation side of things was blowing an ounce of sludge out of my nose at the end of a shift.

LoL, one of my gaffers decided it'd be a great idea to supply us all with extractor units which blew "clean" air from a unit which was strapped behind your back, through a tube over our backs & down through our masks.

Great idea, but after a night on the beer & curry, it whipped all your farts direct from ar$e to nostril under under a second flat.

Even worse if someone else aimed their rear at your filter whilst your were welding away oblivious to everything else around you.

I, of course did not indulge in such childish & immature behaviour

 

[mikeeyb185]

thanks for all the replies guys and sorry i wasnt around vermin have cut me off because i didnt pay the bill fook em

any way i know a bloke that said he will do it as a foreigner on sunday while im on firewatch for 150 is that worth it? or will i be able to get it done cheaper

 

[manster]

thanks for all the replies guys and sorry i wasnt around vermin have cut me off because i didnt pay the bill fook em

any way i know a bloke that said he will do it as a foreigner on sunday while im on firewatch for 150 is that worth it? or will i be able to get it done cheaper

IT ALL depends on how much welding there is m8 but £150 is a lot cheaper than £300 if you want to keep the car get t done because if you try to do it yourself and BURN/BLND yourself you wll regret it. Good luck and keep us posted on how you get on

 

[Kris]

I don't know what sort of money it usually is for that sort of work but I remember when we bought my girlfriend's car (a cheap VW Polo for £325), he said he would throw in an MOT at his own risk. Was only a private seller but can't see it costing that much for him to still let the car go for that money when he threw in a new tyre too.

 

[Nickybah]

welding tips

Interesting thread

Only thing to add which I don't think has been mentioned is NOT to forget to disconnect your car battery before you start and make sure you have a good earth connection for the welder (on the vehicle of course).

Also regularly clean up the nozzle and tip shield and If you have to weld out in the open try and set up some kind of wind shield or the argoshield gas won't have the desired affect.

As a lot of people have already said, mig welding on rusty, thin metal can be a real bitch, and be prepared for lots of cursing as hot globs of metal spit into every possible clothing trap on your body (worst ones are those that get into your socks & shoes, ouch!!).

Having said that there's little more satisfying than a good seam weld.

Find my mig comes in really handy for all sorts of jobs around the house and garden, must have saved myself a fortune over the years.

Good luck