newbie worried about kit

[bobrick]

hello all

i have a quick question that i hope some of you welding guru's may be able to help me with.

i few years ago i brought a clarke 105en welder for a project i was considering doing (build a buggy under £100) haynes book. however it never took off i welded a few things with it and my welds were not great. anyway,

now i have started a rebuild project of a defender 90. the rear x member as usual needs replacing and i was wondering if my little welder would be up to it i have read on here that clarke can exaggerate their machine performance somewhat. the max current of my welder is 100A.

also can you use gassless wire with gas.

finally i purchased an auto helmet off ebay last week for approx £20 (from america) before finding this site and reading all the helmet threads im a bit concerned that it maybe was a bit to cheap. i really fancy an auto style one as i found it difficult before with that small period of not being able to see

anyway cheers for looking and hope you can help me out

will

 

[madkayaker]

Hi and welcome. I have one of those £20 auto helmets as well. It works fine but not to the same quality as an expensive one but better than trying to flip down and line up at the same time. Gasless wire seams to be to hot for thin stuff as for using with gas shouldn't think it would be a prob but I'm not a real welder there will be one along shortly.

 

[wyn]

If you think the welder might be a bit small to cope with the chassis you can do it with multi-runs....just weld on top of the weld until you get the thickness you want. Also "vee" the joint so you can get the weld through the full thickness of material.

This is a pretty common practice with stick welding.

 

[English Steve]

I would be a bit wary of using the little Clarke for a Landrover rear crossmember. Assuming you will be using one of the pattern crossmembers with the extensions on it, you will be trying to do a 3mm lap weld where the extensions are joined onto the chassis rails. According to the Miller calculator you would require around 160 amps to do that joint properly (I know the Miller calc generally reads a bit high, but...). Don't forget the Landrover will pull 3.5 tonnes most of which will be hanging on that crossmember and your welds

Never tried gasless wire with gas, but can't really see why you would want to. In this case, using gasless might actually help because it runs hotter and may help with penetration?

All the above is just my personal opinion BTW, I would want something a bit more powerful for that particular job.

Oh, and welcome to the forum

 

[fingers99]

If those dimensions are right (I avoid Land Rovers!) then I'd want more power.

Why not use the Clarke to tack it in place and then hire a bigger welder for the day (or weekend rates are often good) to do the "real" work?

 

[dannyweld]

hi, you could build up the welds no problem, i'd buy proper wire for the job though, remember lives could depend on your work, good luck.

 

[paulmowers]

Borrow a stick welder, mind you it takes a lot of skill / practice to do positional under a motor, and some serious personal protection!!

paul

 

[malcolm]

You are not supposed to use gasless wire with shielding gas. Something to do with the flux core not burning off and contaminating the weld.

100 amps is nowhere near enough for a Landrover rear crossmember. You'd get no penetration and even if you built up the welds they still wouldn't be stuck to the metal. You ought to be looking at 150 amps for welding a Landrover chassis. A friend used to borrow my old Clarke 155 for his Landrover, but tended to be running on the higher settings. His 90amp wasn't any good for the job. I'd invest in a Clarke 160 or similar - something capable of taking a decent sized gas bottle.

 

[bobrick]

hello all

cheers for your replies and advice sort of confirmed what i thought from looking arround on here previously i guess i had better get in touch with weldequip

 

[Afterimage]

I did a lot of welding on my Landy with a Clarke 100EN welder,and found that on full power using no-gas wire (better penetration) it was just about capable of welding Landy chassis parts together (2mm steel).