In the past 6 months I finished welding in torque boxes, floor pans and new quarters on my '73 convertible and a Fat Man Mustang II front
suspension on a '55 Chevy pickup, all with a 110V Miller 140 AutoSet. AutoSet can be your best friend. It came with a thickness gauge so you can dial in the thickness, hit AutoSet and go. The duty cycle on this unit is head and shoulders above an old Daytona MIG I have. Chances are, if you are even a novice welder, you won't outrun its capabilities for the type of work discussed on these pages.
A couple of things as a beginner or novice:
- Cleanliness. make sure the area being welded is clean and the tip and cone are as well. goes for your grounding clamp as well.
- Don't buy cheap wire
- Be mindful of dissimilar sized metals. You can burn lots of holes trying to weld thinner metals to thicker ones.
- Go slowly. Don't rush trying to lay down a 3" bead on sheetmetal. If you don't burn holes in it, there is a good chance it will warp from the heat.
- In spite of what I said about auto set, sometimes you have to twist the thickness dial due to the composition of the steel.
-Accept you will screw up. A lot...
- Use similar sourced metal whenever possible. If I am patching a Ford fender, I will cut a patch from a similar age, manuafacturer and thickness panel. I learned this by trying to weld 22 gauge modern sheetmetal onto my 1940 Ford. The old soft steel on the '40 basically turned to pudding.
- Stay away from any metal made in China. My personal opinion, based on experience buying some of those repop panels.
The Miller 140 shown above is a high value and forgiving machine. .