Morris Minor Owners Club

I recently emailed a local welding supplier to ask if they sell MIG welders for car work and they suggested the Murex Tradesmig 141 140 amp. Is this ok for Moggie work ? Has anyone heard of this one, used it or have other suggestions ?

Sorry, but I think I may have asked this question before ?

iandromiskin wrote:I recently emailed a local welding supplier to ask if they sell MIG welders for car work and they suggested the Murex Tradesmig 141 140 amp. Is this ok for Moggie work ? Has anyone heard of this one, used it or have other suggestions ?

Sorry, but I think I may have asked this question before ?

If it is recommended by a dedicated welding supplier then it will be good, but possibly overkill for your purposes, depending on how much welding you intend doing, Murex being a reputable company in welding supplies.
Clarke or Sealey seem to have a good name, at reasonable prices. Look at www.mig-welding.co.uk for some frank advice.
(Or buy an SIP at your peril!)

linearaudio wrote: Clarke or Sealey seem to have a good name, at reasonable prices.

Oddly enough his first suggestion was a Sealey 'I could give you a Sealey/ Siegen 130 amp mini mig for E 330.00 Incl VAT'

That's a LOT! Check prices at Machine Mart. Wolf - places like that. The Mini lads certainly seem to 'hate' the SIP machines - although mine was fine until I fitted the stupid big reel of wire. On normal reel - it worked very wll.

I could give you a Sealey/ Siegen 130 amp mini mig for E 330.00 Incl VAT'

I got a much better price for a 150 Clarke incl delivery via the mig forum...

I struggled for 18 years with my SIP, but now need to unlearn a lot of the make-do techniques to use a decent welder!

rayofleamington wrote:

I could give you a Sealey/ Siegen 130 amp mini mig for E 330.00 Incl VAT'

I got a much better price for a 150 Clarke incl delivery via the mig forum...

I struggled for 18 years with my SIP, but now need to unlearn a lot of the make-do techniques to use a decent welder!

Bad luck!! 18 years... you must have had one of the first "new generation" SIP welders (badge engineered Italian jokes)! Perhaps BMC has one of the proper ones, though maybe he has just been lucky. There's certainly no way mine would contemplate heaving a 5kg reel through its rollers, even with the friction removed!

That's exactly my problem - the big reel is hopeless - but small reel fine.

That's exactly my problem - the big reel is hopeless - but small reel fine.

there are 3 sizes of reel though... The really big one is probably 'industrial' size rather than DIY.

Mine was useless with any size 0.6mm wire as it couldn't grip it well enough. With 0.8mm wire it hardly ever snagged up - never used the small reels in the last 10 years - too expensive at tyhe rate I was using them.
If your big reel is not working right, then I can only assume the reel is not spinning freely - mine only took a small finger touch to move.

On my 130 the 0.6mm on a 5kg reel stalled the motor, but mine has the reel laying on its side, maybe a face bearing under the reel may have helped, but I doubt it. Never managed to get a satisfactory weld out of 0.8, tended to bead too much on bodywork, or melt the metal if you slowed the feed up. For thicker sections I am much more at home with the stick welder! Each to their own!

Re the 5kg spools of welding wire, which work out much cheaper...if you have an empty spool, you can rig up something quickly and wind half of the 5kg on a new spool on to the empty one. Or maybe just a kilogram, and use that before 'topping up' again.

I think the quality of the wire speed control is the most important thing to check on a MIG welder, you need total control on how much weld you're laying down. I've had some which were pretty much 'go' or 'stop'......works out expensive in wasted wire and gas!
I was lucky when back in England and picked up a second-hand Murex for 200 quid - I can finally weld dirty crap to dirty crap, which I couldn't do with the 'economy' models. This is great for those welds which don't need to be 'pretty'....I save time by doing a quick 'pre-weld' to blow off a lot of the rubbish, then a second weld with penetration.

On my 130 the 0.6mm on a 5kg reel stalled the motor, but mine has the reel laying on its side, maybe a face bearing under the reel may have helped, but I doubt it

do you have the correct adapters? it must be pretty tight to jam the feeder, or your feed motor is even worse than mine was!!

Yep! Lousy feed motor! When (if?) I get a spare minute, I'm going to adapt an old 18volt cordless drill motor thats in my box of bits, give it a serious boost! The existing motor looks like it's come from a scalextric car