2cv refurb

[Citroenboixm]

Hi guy , great site!

I have owned a 2cv for the last 12 years as my daily car. It is now in need of a lot of work to keep the mot man happy. I plan to make it a future ongoing project and am going to take my tine to make it good as new. After receiving a £8000 quote from a well known 2cv garage to restore the car, I have decided to do it myself.
I'm a d&t teacher so have a little experience of mig welding but nothing on this scale. The car needs new boot floor, rear light panel, inner wings and a bit if the b post.
I have just bought a Clarke pro 90 mig.
My experience of welding is usually with thicker metal, so I'm a little nervous of blowing the car to bits lol.

I will upload photos of the car in it's current state soon and keep an update of my progress.

I believe most of the replacement panels and existing metal is about 0.8mm thick.

I assume I'm going to need minimal power and low wire speed???
Would I be right in thinking I would be better off with 0.6 wire rather than the 0.8 that came with the machine??

Sorry for all the questions and cheers for any advice

Mark

 

[keith19]

Hi Mark, and welcome to the forum

The Clarke Pro 90 should be ideal for a 2CV. The 0.6 wire will be better for thin stuff, but sometimes you can get away with 0.8 if you're using the 'thin metal technique', just tacking in short bursts. Study up the tutorials, especially the thin metal technique ones. Check through the projects too, there is a guy restoring a 2CV van on there, really excellent stuff.

Basic advice is get some thicker metal, say 1.2 mm, and get used to working with that before going down to 0.8 mm. Weld only really clean metal, especially while learning to weld thin metal, or you will get all sorts of problems. Practice makes perfect, but it takes some time for all of us, so don't get disheartened when nothing goes right, there's usually a logical explanation. Helpful crew on here, always ready to pitch in and help answer questions; makes it a really great forum.

 

[ger]

Heres mine......

I bought it already done...couldn't face another project right now after completing a bare metal resto on this....

All 2CV panels are available, and its a very, very simple structure !

Check out some of the rebuilds here....Thousands of great reference pics

http://www.2cvsrus.com/res_ar_e.htm

I'm just enjoying mine, reliving my yoof

 

[Citroenboixm]

some photos:

 

[Citroenboixm]

Cheers guys for your responses. Panels arrived today woohoo!

 

[steveo3002]

clarke 90 should do you fine , i use mine with .6 wire and dont have many probs on thin stuff

 

[Citroenboixm]

Hmmm have cut out most of the rusty bits now :-). Replaced a section of c post as this was rotten beyond repair. I had a few probes fixing this in. Cleaned it up then tack welded it in place, so far so good. When i came to complete the weld I blew quite a few holes in it. I'm using 0.6 wire and had set it to low power and low wire speed 2.5 / 3. When I have been practicing on flat sheet it's mostly fine. Can't get the mig to run smoothly ( nice sizzle sound) it's more like a machine gun.
I'm a little concerned the weld I have done isn't strong enough :-(
Any ideas?

Glad the rest is spot welding lol

Mark

 

[Sean]

Ah all the usual places then

forget practicing with .8 wire you need .6 and you need to practice on really thin stuff. Not sure how low the clarke90 goes my sip goes down to 25a had a cebora/BOC that was 30A and you had to be really carefull.

you will find the bulkhead is 0.5mm and all traces of that PU stone chip/sound deadening has to be removed or you'll just blow holes

any sign of pitting on 2cv metal and you'll blow holes - as you have found on the C pillar you have to have the the metal shiney bright and you'll learn just how little heat you have to put in there. You can run a seam but you will not be able to do much more than join the dots if your new to this stuff

Youll need to make yourself some chill bars and spoons from old copper pipe to support the weld if you try to seam weld bits.

most of the areas you have to do are covered by the excelent range of repair panels that are available from the likes of ECAS

have a look at the stuff Gasmark5 is doing to his van inspirational!

youll find a few of us from 2CVGB on here now and again

Sean

 

[Citroenboixm]

Is it right also that for such thin stuff argon/c02 mix would be better than straight c02 that came with the kit?

Cheers for help guys.

Ohh Sean btw have joined the website!

 

[stormin]

Is it right also that for such thin stuff argon/c02 mix would be better than straight c02 that came with the kit?

Cheers for help guys.

Ohh Sean btw have joined the website!

Absolutely, I just changed to Argoshield light yesterday and can't believe the difference on thin stuff. Much more stable arc, was able to turn the wire speed up a bit too.

 

[Gas mark 5]

there is a guy restoring a 2CV van on there

Hullo

I think everyones covered the important advice, 0.6 wire, argonshield makes life easier, but I'm still on pub C02 and just about managing.

The only aditional thing I can think to add, if you're butt welding a thin repair section to existing metal, take the time to make sure the edges line up perfectly, if there are any small gaps you'll tend to blow straight through.

Have fun!

 

[Citroenboixm]

Aggfh not going well lol