1969 Road Runner....another one!

[northerndave]

Excellent!! Glad you figured out how to shoe-horn that puzzle piece in there!!

 

[Propwash]

Bravo! Knew you could get it in CAPT. Looks great sitting in there man. Good work!

 

[detmatt1]

I'm shocked anybody has had a problem getting the 1 piece through the door! Glad you got it figured out, looking good!

 

[roadrunnerman]

kudos to you and your neighbor.Did it slide right thru the door or did you have to turn it or anything.

 

[detmatt1]

They slide right through but you definitely need 2 sets of hands.

 

[Basket case]

that hood might be a '68 with the holes cut so the '69 inserts will fit.

 

[Capt-Culver]

Thanks for the responses...

I'm almost ready to put the floor in (I think) ....however, I'm having 2nd thoughts. Certainly don't want to rush anything.

I want to put some rust bullet or POR 15 in the chasis and torsion crossmember. Also, I'm wondering if I should put some subframe connectors in before I put the floor in....what to do, what to do?

 

[northerndave]

the only benifit I could see from putting connecors in before the floor goes in is that you could get a weld on the top edge of the connector tubes. You have to be really careful to not mount the tubes too high though or your floor pan wont fit down in like it's supposed to. it could end up resting on the sub connectors.

 

[Capt-Culver]

My brother in law seems to have girls on the brain....and he can't seem to spare 2 hours to teach me the process of welding. I've been trying to get his help for the last month. Starting to learn that I can't depend on anyone if I want to get this thing started...let alone finish it. I can't believe I was naive enough to think that he was "100% commited"....as he said when he was standing right by my side at the time of purchase. Thankfully I have the support from the community here....not sure where I would be right now if it wasn't for you guys.


I have the day off and after dropping my daughter off at school this morning, it was time to play on Youtube and get some sort of knowledge about welding. After an hour or so of watching instructional videos, it was off to the garage.

I still have my old quarters laying around, so I cut some good metal out.

After cleaning both sides and cutting it in half, I finally had the chance to use my new 5/16 punch. I must say that it makes life a little easier. I couldn't imagine drilling all the plug welds this car needs. (although I do realize some drilling will be needed on pans)

Now comes the ugly part. Please be gentle in your bashing, remembering this is the first time if picked up the welding gun! Seriously though, any critique is welcome.

As you can see, I think I was a little too hot, and I didn't exactly fill in the holes completely.

It's certainly not pretty! Will it hold? I'd like to think so. Here is the flip side where I welded 7 more plug welds. Does that dis-coloration at the top from the welds on the other side mean I was too hot?

I definitely need more practice.

 

[larrysupersport]

Hey Capt. I grew up in Pataskala. Graduated from Watkins in 94. My parents still live on Hollow Rd just north of Beechwood trails. I'm working on a 68 Coronet, but I live in Denver now. Good luck

Larry T

 

[Capt-Culver]

Hey Capt. I grew up in Pataskala. Graduated from Watkins in 94. My parents still live on Hollow Rd just north of Beechwood trails. I'm working on a 68 Coronet, but I live in Denver now. Good luck

Larry T

No kidding! My wife graduated in 96. She lived in Beechwood trails since she was 12. I grew up on Palmer Rd south of 70. Ended up going to Pickerington and graduated from there in 95. But, I'm back out in the country again and love it. We live near Cumberland trails now off Columbia rd. SMALL WORLD!

 

[larrysupersport]

My brother graduated in 96. You'll have to ask her if she knew Andy Taber. We probably rode the same bus.

 

[roadrunnerman]

it looks like you got it a little too hot,also you need to make sure the metal is tight against one panel too another as you can see where the weld "slipped" between the two pieces.maybe try turning your wire speed down.if that is a new welder,it should come with a welding guide,then you can fine tune from there.Otherwise if that is your first weld,it is not bad at all.you just need to practice just like i will most likely have to myself since i haven't touched a welder in over 20 yrs myself. good luck and look forward to your next practice weld.

 

[detmatt1]

Those welds look fine and will hold. Roadrunnerman has good advice. I'll, add that you don't necessarily want to fill those holes completely all at once as you would be creating too much heat and risk distorting the panels. Not too dissimilar to stitch welding a but joint, you want to work your way accross the joint staying on the trigger for just a second at a time and skipping from one side of the joint to the other keeping your welds at least an inch apart so as not to build up heat in any one area. Not as critical when doing things like installing floorpans etc. I'll get my plug welds filled in and then grind them down and go back over them several times sometimes until there are no voids left. The discoloration on the backside of the weld is what you want, proof that there was good penetration. Keep it up! I think there is a link to a good instructional video on the Miller site.

 

[Donny]

Capt, your work and eagerness is awesome! Those welds looks very good, good enough to do the job! The better you get welding, the hotter your torch will be, not too often is too much heat a consideration in welding -- assuming that you're doing welding often. I flirt with disaster on most of my welds, sheetmetal butt welds is a dance with burn-thru disaster, but, if done right, and on the edge per se of disaster you have good penetration. How did your cowel get dented outward anyways? Weird! And, that fender, man, someone had fun with Bondo back in the day! You'd be amazed at how heavy Bondo is when lathered on parts, I get stuff in that is so heavy, and find out its loaded with filler, I'm sure Jeff knows what I'm talking about! lol

 

[Propwash]

As always, Donny, Matt, and Roger have some great advice.....I'll add a couple drops to the bucket. Get comfortable with your welder before you jump in full bore. Find yourself some scap thicker metal to practice on. It's much easier to weld on. Mess around with your settings. Also your welding positions. Weld flows in differently between inverted, flat, and side. Gas you'll run typicaly between 25-30 depending on nozzle to weld distance and if there's breeze/wind. Open porosity holes to the surface...not enough shielding gas, nozzle back too far, need to shield from the wind, clean the inside of your nozzle.

Burning through/undercut at toe of weld....Too many amps, running your pass too slow.
Not enough penetration....amps too low
Gun kicking back...wire speed too high, amps too low.
Molten metal balling up on feed wire...wire speed too low for amp setting
Crackling and poping while trying to weld..Area trying to weld too dirty, poor ground, amps too low, wire speed too high for amps.
Divets in weld center...pulling away too quick. Weld pimpling up...Not pulling away or actualling pushing into weld when stoping the arc.

These are pretty vague examples and there is definitely more variables that go along with, but mess around with these basics and it may help you get a bit more in the ballpark with your welder. Best way to learn is pick up that gun and strike an arc. Every welder creates his own technique with his own machine

good luck

 

[Capt-Culver]

Taking a break from the garage.

Thanks for the feedback! Good stuff....good stuff. The way I figure it....I'm never going to learn unless I try. I'll be doing some more practice welds before the real deal...trying to dial in these settings.

This morning was dedicated to that nasty POR 15 stuff. This was my first time using this product. A couple suggestions for those that have never used this product. It is an extremely thin material. A little bit goes a long way. I bought a quart. I poured about 25% of it into a work pot to use on my torsion crossmember...and I only needed about 10% of that. You can't put it back into the can...so, I just wasted a bunch of it. It's sitting out in the sun now as we speak trying to dry up so I can pitch it. All the paint supplier had was a black gloss. I suppose it doesn't matter what color or finish it has. Hopefully, no one will ever see it again.

Ok, I'm going to refrence back to my first post in this thread.....when I said I knew I was going to make mistakes. Here is one of those mistakes. The rails already have weld thru primer on them for anticipation of the floor going in soon. And while I did mask those rails, I apparenlty didn't secure the tape tight enough and some POR 15 got up under the tape. It's not a huge mistake, as I should be able to grind it away once it dries. But, like everyone keeps saying....2 steps forward, 1 step back.

Going to eat my sandwich...and get back out there. Have a good day and thanks for the replies on the welding.

 

[roadrunnerman]

that's the great thing about this site. somebody will ask questions and somebody will answer,then somebody else will fine tune the answer so everybody can get things done right.

 

[b-body-bob]

Find yourself some scap thicker metal to practice on. It's much easier to weld on.

I went the other direction, figured if I could weld 22 gauge I could weld 19 gauge automotive sheet no problem.

Keep practicing until you're sure you're doing it right. Then practice some more I've got a whole box full of coupons that are welded together in different ways.

On the question of "will it hold?", weld a few up, and rip them apart. The metal should rip, not the weld and you shouldn't be able to see that it came apart at that nice round hole either.

I might have posted this in here before, but my brother-in-law wouldn't help me either. But he never once acted the slightest bit interested. Some day I'll get to tell him no when he asks for help, but until then, instead of his help I have a welder and know to use it.

Good luck with that weld through primer, I am not a fan of the stuff. Hopefully it'll work out for you though.

 

[Donny]

Darn automatic aperture cameras, your pics are too dark, the AE read the background light and set the F stop to that light exposure. Often, you'll have to 'trick' the camera, hold the shutter down half way and read a darker area, then move over to the area you need to image. That's what I do, it works!