I guess I should update. That last month or so has been a struggle. I have had problem after problem with my mig welder. On top of that, with mig, I'm at the bottom of the learning curve as far as troubleshooting. Thankfully one of my employees has years of experience with mig and has been coaching me through it.
Welding on the bench is cake. Anyone can do it. Welding on a vehicle, out of position, using muscles you don't even have is a challenge.
I can't tell you how many welds I did, hated, then ground out only to repeat the process.
Fun fact, just because things go well on an, for example, outside corner joint that's horizontal does not mean the same settings will work on the same joint at any other angle. It's wild. Gravity plays a big part as well.
I had so many bad welds I resorted to welding test coupons that mimicked the joint and angle so I had at least a chance of getting settings close enough to produce a good (enough) weld. Since the section of frame I'm adding will support the engine, front suspension and steering my life is depending on the quality of this work.
I never got the hang of vertical up but vertical down I could make work. So that's what I ran on the truck. Whatever worked best on test coupons was the winner.
In the end, the welds are functional. I hate them all and wish they were better looking.
It begins-
2022-08-14_06-44-14 by
Kevin Ames, on Flickr
2022-08-14_06-44-31 by
Kevin Ames, on Flickr
Had to use an old splitting maul to force the rails into position. Use what you have and all.
2022-08-14_06-44-44 by
Kevin Ames, on Flickr
One side plated and tacked together
2022-08-14_06-45-08 by
Kevin Ames, on Flickr
Two shots of the old frame on the floor directly under the new frame. Nice that the angles matched. The second pic I shifted to one side to get rid of the parallax. If I had this wrong the old frame
rail on the one side would be visible under the new frame. Success!
2022-08-14_06-45-25 by
Kevin Ames, on Flickr
2022-08-14_06-45-34 by
Kevin Ames, on Flickr
Rather than build more shit than I needed to I decided to try and reuse the core support.
2022-08-14_06-45-43 by
Kevin Ames, on Flickr
Too bad I trimmed too much and now have some huge gaps to contend with. Whatever. I'll handle it. I was at least able to tack it into place.
2022-08-14_06-45-54 by
Kevin Ames, on Flickr
Here you can see that the rear half of the support's attachment area is gone. I decided to box the underside with 3/16 plate. The plan is to trim off that corner flap and then make a triangular piece of steel to fit the gap and tie in the frame to the plating I added underneath.
2022-08-14_06-46-02 by
Kevin Ames, on Flickr
2022-08-14_06-46-11 by
Kevin Ames, on Flickr
Strong, like bull.
2022-08-14_06-46-18 by
Kevin Ames, on Flickr
And of course, I needed to refit the cowl and hood to make sure everything was going to go back where it came from. What a dumbass I would be if I fully welded everything and then found I'd made a mistake. I'm not going to be that guy.
2022-08-14_06-46-32 by
Kevin Ames, on Flickr
It will need some slight adjustments to fit exactly the way it did before I cut the frame. All of those adjustments are well within the range that came from the factory. I am good to go!
2022-08-14_06-46-40 by
Kevin Ames, on Flickr
Here's one of the issues I had with my welder. This was a very bad day at the office lol. I had run out of wire and replaced it with a spool that I bought a couple months ago. It would run good, then it would run terrible. I mean really terrible. The picture shows the cause. Rather than feeding nicely off the spool the wire was getting pulled into itself.
As it turns out the package must have been damaged and shipping and the plastic drum that the wire is wound on to was broken almost in half. The internet said there's nothing you can do but throw it away and get a good spool. I really didn't want to do that since I really wanted to keep working.
As it turns out a 2-in hole saw will fit the ID of my old empty drum. So I set up a contraption to feed all of the new wire onto the old drum. I used a cordless drill to turn it and use my fingers to guide it back and forth. While it's not very pretty it has so far been 100% functional!
2022-08-14_06-46-57 by
Kevin Ames, on Flickr
Today I was able to cut two fish plates out and get them welded into place on the right frame rail. I'm out of steel so until I get some more work is at a standstill. Fish plating the other side will finish the frame rails. All that will be left will be to fully tie in the core support.
2022-08-14_06-47-35 by
Kevin Ames, on Flickr
