Mig sos!

[Ruffgeezer]

I've done a little welding before, usually on small stuff mounted in a vice, or a little exhaust repair here and there, but I like to try and learn more skills where I can, hence my first foray into the world of sill repairs on my scruffy C15.

I have spent a couple of hours on the van so far, I'll quote here what I've posted on the brown forum, so you can see what I've been up to: (if you are short on time, feel free to skip to the bit where I'm **** at welding!)

So as avid subscribers to the news 24 thread will know, I had a pre-MOT done on the van just before Christmas, on the whole the result was looking pretty good until this happened:

Prod, prod, CRUNCH! ******!

The problem probed:

So yesterday, the back workshop was clear ready for work to commence. Did I mention before that I've never welded a car or van before? Ok, well I haven't.

Stage 1: have a dig around inside and see what is there that might catch fire:
Remove the trim clips and pull this plastic trim off:

Ah, that'll be the rear lighting loom, best not to weld that then!

Scabs from the inside:

Wiring removed (string is to pull it back in when the work is finished)

After this, I loaded the van on the lift (it's a Bradbury Toocalift for those wondering) and with a deep breath, made the first incision. The flange in this picture is to prevent water from splashing on the door bottoms, it's useless and traps water to the sill and rots them out, what I've done here is used an air grinder with a cutting disc and cut along the top edge where the upper sill panel attaches to the flange.

I get an hour a day at this, so progress is slow, this is day 2, and after a brief period of "WTF have I done?" I got stuck in to the spot welds on the flange with the angry grinder, it didn't take long to break it free:

And after a little persuasion with a sharp chisel:

In the picture above, you can just make out a chalk mark on the sill to show what needed to be replaced, another job for the air grinder, and this is all starting to look a terrible mess...

...as was the floor below!

Well I started to clean around the edges with the grinder, ready for a new plate, but as so often happens, once I started poking, I found more soft bits, oh and some treasure, a colbalt hacksaw blade no less.

The net result of the extra crunchy bits was that I chopped off rather a lot more than I thought I was going to need to, and that rounds out today's work, tomorrow I'll be making a template and cutting the new plate to shape.

I'd be grateful for any advice or points based on what I've covered so far, I'm more than a little apprehensive of carrying this out, but given what the van owes me, I'd be a fool not to have a try!

My problem really is that although I can produce a passable weld on things like exhausts, what I have so far produced on the van is not dissimilar to sparrow with the ****, so I've got a picture of the mess in the hope someone can point out what I'm doing wrong.


This was the first run I did, although I thought I had the wire speed up too high, I knocked it back a bit before moving on from here:

I'm using an Eland Mig, set up as follows:

Sorry these pics have come out terribly, what I can't seem to get is a consistent bead of weld, if I raise the voltage, it just takes lumps out of the new plate, realistically, am I going to be best to grind this off and start again?

 

[Lawnmowerboy]

Yeah, I'd start again with a thicker bit of plate (say 1.5mm) and clean off all what looks like the zintec coating where it's to be welded, the thicker plate will take more heat out of the weld thus helping to stop it blowing through. One question, Can you actually weld or have you even welded before?

 

[Ruffgeezer]

Yeah I have welded before, but I've never done any bodywork, most of my experience (if it can be called that!) is with exhaust repairs.

Here is the last job I did, it's still a bit spattery, but we don't keep the correct wire for stainless, so I had to make the best of it I could:

 

[Exuptoy]

I wouldn't worry about thinking you've cut out too much, you could be looking at what I have in the garage. A 73 T@ VW Camper.

Seriously though, trying to comment on how YOUR welder is performing is hard work. I would get a piece of your plate on the bench and run a few welds with varying settings and write alongside each one what you have set it to.

Set the power then hold wind off the wire feed then hold the trigger and slowly increase the speed until it sounds like the proverbial frying bacon. If you doing it this way will give you a feel for what does what. ALso don't forget that on th bench the workpiece is flat. You will have to adjust again for overhand or vertical and maybe back off the speed of the wire a little more. It really is trial and error until you are happy.

Click on the tutorial link above and check the settings by putting in your welder settings. It may give you an idea to start with before dialing in a little closer.