I'll try the "heating up" tricks next time I do some welding and let you know how I get on. Today I peeled a little more of the deadening off the floor panel, and I thought you'd like to see what I'm gonna be replacing (and the quality of the welding on there currently!).
Beta floor by duncancmartin, on Flickr
I'm thinking I will replace the whole panel in 1.2mm zintec - I have a swager/bead roller that I got from eBay, and it will put a few mm of depth into the panel, so I can make it look pretty much the same as the existing one (though that's about a 5mm dop, and I don't think the throat depth on my machine is big enough to do the middle swage sadly). While some of the metal in the existing panel looks OK, I suspect that if I take a knott wheel/clean and strip disk to it (and also strip the underseal gunk of the underside), it will turn intoa bit of a sieve! Doing it as one panel will involve cutting out a chunk of the existing welding - probably just as well as it looks like this:
Dodgy welds on beta floor by duncancmartin, on Flickr
It seems to be fairly strong, but it is very tall and ugly as hell! the car has not been on the road since 1996, so I don't know whether these welds have ever seen a MOT man, but I'll probably just chop the whole thing and replace (as best I can) with one panel.
I'll probably get more welding done tomorrow or Sunday, so I'll post some pictures then.
Cheers
Duncan
Beta floor by duncancmartin, on Flickr
I'm thinking I will replace the whole panel in 1.2mm zintec - I have a swager/bead roller that I got from eBay, and it will put a few mm of depth into the panel, so I can make it look pretty much the same as the existing one (though that's about a 5mm dop, and I don't think the throat depth on my machine is big enough to do the middle swage sadly). While some of the metal in the existing panel looks OK, I suspect that if I take a knott wheel/clean and strip disk to it (and also strip the underseal gunk of the underside), it will turn intoa bit of a sieve! Doing it as one panel will involve cutting out a chunk of the existing welding - probably just as well as it looks like this:
Dodgy welds on beta floor by duncancmartin, on Flickr
It seems to be fairly strong, but it is very tall and ugly as hell! the car has not been on the road since 1996, so I don't know whether these welds have ever seen a MOT man, but I'll probably just chop the whole thing and replace (as best I can) with one panel.
I'll probably get more welding done tomorrow or Sunday, so I'll post some pictures then.
Cheers
Duncan