Morris Minor Owners Club

All them fizzing balls of weld tend to be caused by trying to weld to iron oxide. This is the nasty brown crusty stuff that builds up between to seams. As has been said the mig like lovelly clean metal so all that crusty stuff gotta go. Before you start cleaning up with a grinder give all the seams a going over with a ball pein hammer and you will see this stuff fall out. If you simple try and clean the surface the mig will blow through and you get lots of spitting. Lastly despite what you see from most garages simply welding something over a rusty hole is not good enough.
All the best
Rod

Tom

PM sent

Do your initial learning 'downhand' on nice clean metal scraps. Once you get the hang of that - only then turn attention to the car! And be sure to unplug the alternator from the loom before doing ANY welding on the car!

linearaudio wrote:
Now if I catch a hot bit I tend to shrug it off rather than flinch and lose my bead!

Exactly ,we are men ,burning skin has such a sweet smell...

Tom, lets see some pictures....

Oh what an exciting weekend...

Started Friday night utilising some of the hints and tips, the Father-in-law popped over Saturday and turns out he's a bit of a dab hand at welding so got some good hints, I seem to be making progress....

Picture One.

First efforts - pre coaching and advise.<br><br>

Picture Two.

Improving, learning not to rush it, but to try and build a pool of weld before slowly moving on...

<br><br>

Picture 3.

I'm still getting lots of sort of "sooty" marks on the metal, but these easily wipe off.. Is this normal?

Also, I'm starting to move on and join bits together....<br><br>

My only concern is that these bits of steel that I've been practicing on are all about 3mm thick. It seems to require full power on the welder, and quite a fast wire speed.

I've picked up some car panels from a local scrapper but haven't managed to start on them yet (ran out of wire just when the fun was starting!! ) These panels are going to be much, much thinner, how will I need to vary my technique for the thinner steel?

Your help last week was really appreciated! Further hints gratefully received!!

Cheers,

Tom

For thinner material, start at low amps and low wire feed and slowly work up again like before. You'll find you won't need the settings as high to get the same effect. If the material is really thin you might need to release the trigger more often to stop the weld getting the material too hot and it blowing through.

The big test when welding the car is you don't know how thick the material is. Some of it may have corroded inside so you could be welding material of various thicknesses.

I have days where my welding is quite good.. then like what I did today it looks nothing better than chicken poo! I find welding under the car very difficult as the weld pools just form small stalactites!

I'm no expert but...

Thinner metal is more difficult to weld because it's much easier to blow holes in it, especially if the stuff you're welding onto has been made even thinner by corrosion. Steel salvaged from a modern car is likely to be thinner than the stuff a Minor is made from.

You'll get less soot and spatter if you grind/sand the metal around the joint perfectly clean before you try to weld it.

Remember when practising to look at the other side of the sheet afterwards to make sure the weld has penetrated all the way through. If not, you'll need to turn up the power or move the torch more slowly (try weaving it from side to side a bit).

It's good to start with thicker steel as it's slightly easier with greater room for error. Once it looks good on that move to thinner.

As others have said, do check the penetration on the back to make sure you're getting all the way through.

usually turn the current down for thinner stuff, and shorter runs (1/2" - 1"ish) then let it cool a little (just pause for a few seconds to let it cool from cherry red hot).

If it's really thin and hot, I keep the gas running over it it while it cools in between welds. Not sure if it really helps, but it seems to.

Those welds look good. It always takes me a while to get back into it. When I've finished a project the last few welds always look far better than the first few!

Good luck with Clover.
Andrew

Guys,

Thanks all for the help!! After lots of practice on bits of steel I've now managed to weld up the front bumper bar!! My first bit of real welding on the car! I only blasted a couple of small holes whilst I was doing it, managed to fill the holes and grind back and it looks pretty respectable!

Thanks for the invaluable advice!

Now time to turn my attention to the brakes!

Helenginger wrote:
Now time to turn my attention to the brakes!

I would go welding those up....


I'll get my coat! ...

Practise piece is looking good. When you get to the thinner steel on the car you will run into a couple of problems with the way you are welding at the moment.
First is obviously that you will have to control the heat better,as you mentioned you have some thick steel there. If you try and work that much heat into a thinner panel it will disstort something terrible and look nasty.
Also as has been said you will most likelly blow lots of holes. When you make up your patch panels use good clean 18swg steel. Start you weld with a spot,as it begins to pool work the molten metal in a half cicle and then let the trigger of. You should have just a small round spot weld with a oops I typed a naughty word in the middle. Practise this a couple times to get a feel. Now just before you notice the weld pool start to cool through your helmet start another spot overlapping the last one and continue in this fashion. You should end up with something that looks like overlapping coins. For thinner steel this is probable the most controlable method especially for a beginner and requires less grinding wihile giving lots of penetration.
Rod

Dean wrote:

Helenginger wrote:
Now time to turn my attention to the brakes!

I would go welding those up....


I'll get my coat! ...

Maybe the brakes next... Nothing gets away without being welded now!! I'm running short of stuff to weld around the house... desperation struck this morning and I turned to welding cost hangers together!! I'm making excuses not to do the car, but felt much better after finally tackling a small bit!!

Just jump in the deep end and go for it, practice makes perfect. Like I said earlier, some of my welds look great.... but under the car looks pants. I think for me it's to do with not getting the steel shiny and clean enough to take the weld. When it goes for it's MOT I think the tester will be shouting "look at this chicken s**t" a lot! It's annoying but I will get it right one day.