Floor pans and hobby welder

1WildII · Dec 28, 2003

would just a hobby wire feed gasless wleder be good for welding in a new floor pan? Its for the Front short pass side. Any help would be appreciated.

Chris

candy-a-Mach1 · Dec 28, 2003

It would work, and has for many. Wire feed WITH gas is easier, and makes much better looking welds. Just practice a lot first to get your settings right, clean the weld areas well and have fun !

There are lots of links in this forum about replacing pans, by the way.

Good luck.

allcarfan · Dec 28, 2003

good ol lincoln 120

zookeeper · Dec 28, 2003

A couple months ago I used a gasless welder for the first time and was amazed at the quality of the welds and the ease of use. I'd say practice a bit and got for it!

Fostang · Dec 28, 2003

Short weaving motions and let er rip.

t_chelle16 · Dec 28, 2003

candy-a-Mach1 said:
It would work, and has for many. Wire feed WITH gas is easier, and makes much better looking welds. Just practice a lot first to get your settings right, clean the weld areas well and have fun !

There are lots of links in this forum about replacing pans, by the way.

Good luck.

I agree. Gas is a lot easier. Our welder is a Lincoln wire feed flux core/gasless. I practiced with that for a while and although the welds were functional, they were far from pretty and it was somewhat difficult to do. Before doing my floorpan, we got the kit to convert it to MIG and the difference was like night and day. I didn't do any more practicing; just went to town on my floor pan and the welds looked 10 times better and were much easier to do.

Between the two, I would definitely recommend going with gas. But if you only have the gasless, then yes, it is possible, just do some practicing before attacking your floorpan.

-Chelle

TurboDoctor · Dec 28, 2003

You can go gas-less but the smallest wire you can get is usually .035. If you go with shielding gas you can get alot smaller and in turn yield less heat. I personally have never bothered to try to use gas on 110-130 amp welder, simply not worth the cost. The flux core will work just fine. Just like every one said though the key is to have the metal clean so you can conduct a good flow from the ground and electorde wire. I also suggest usuing some anti spatter for the nozzle of the gun and spray on anti spatter for the area around the welds. Flux core really likes to shoot bbs off fluc and weld all over the place. Not a big deal but with anit spatter it becomes just a simple wire brush issure.

1WildII · Jan 8, 2004

Ok, now the same welder, would it work for a full floorpan replacement, as in from the front where the pedals are to the back under the rear seat? Im curious if it is capable to do such a large area, I dont want to be driving down the road and fall through the bottom of my car lol. Thanks for the help.

Chris

68rustang · Jan 9, 2004

1WildII said:
Ok, now the same welder, would it work for a full floorpan replacement, as in from the front where the pedals are to the back under the rear seat? Im curious if it is capable to do such a large area, I dont want to be driving down the road and fall through the bottom of my car lol. Thanks for the help.

Chris

If it will work for the front it will work for the whole floor. What I think you are asking about is the duty cycle. but being that it is sheetmetal you are going to be stitch welding in short sections anyway so it shouldn't really matter.

oboebrian · Jan 9, 2004

Like 68 stang said you're stitching the floor pans in (i.e. creating tack welds every 2" and jumping from side to side). This will keep heat buildup and warping of the metal to the minimum. A MIG setup (i.e. with the argon mix) is like night and day difference when welding sheet metal on cars (believe me i've done welding with fluxcore and with the gas, gas is a lot easier to use w/o burn through).

I have a hobart handler 135:

http://www.hobartwelders.com/products/handler135.html

I've never had a problem with it and love how it welds.

Also make sure you get a good, approved autodarking hood. Don't get the old style hood that you have to lift up and down all the time. the autodarkining hood is one of the best investments for the beggining welder.

Make sure you wear either denim or leather when welding (to avoid going up in flames).

Make sure you buy a good set of leather welding gloves.

Buy a set of these clamps (or similar and cheaper versions from harbor freight):

http://www.eastwood.com/itemdy01.asp?T1=19074&Dep_Key1=WelDg

Those are a lifesaver for when i was doing my floor patches and other welding/fabricating.

Here's my lil write-up on floor patches (same idea on how to do your floorpans):
http://www.desertmustangs.com/1972coupe/Floor-Patch-Panels/Patch-Panels.htm

Here is another write-up on floor pan replacement:
http://personal.ecu.edu/boydd/tech/floor/floor.html

I hope this helps you out!

t_chelle16 · Jan 9, 2004

I whole heartedly agree with everything Oboe said.

Like I've said bevfore, I've used both flux core and gas. There is a HUGE difference in how easy it is to weld and how nice the welds look. Doing an entire floorpan with flux core is possilbe, but I wouldn't want to do it.

Again, like Oboe said, an autodarkening helmet is a very nice thing to have. I did my floor pan with a regular helmet. I kept having to place the nozzle where it should be, pull down the helmet, try not to move the nozzle, then start welding and hope I was looking in the right direction so that where I was welding was in my field of vision. With an auto darkening, you just put down the helmet, get yourself positioned, and start welding.

Definitely don't weld in a t-shirt. I did it once. I also welded w/o gloves once. I ended up with a "sunburn" on my hands an wrists that took over a month to heal. Of course they don't make extra small welding gloves (I'm still bitter about that ) so I've just been using leather gardening gloves and they do just fine.

Those little clamps Oboe showed are clecos. I love those things; they're great! Basically, you drill a hole where the metal overlaps, put the cleco in and tighten it. The prongs that go in the hole spread out and get shorter so that the 2 pieces of metal are held together tightly (sort of like a reuseable rivet). When you're done, just loosen it, pull it out, and fill in the hole. The ones I have use a wingnut to tighten them so you don't need the extra tool.

-Chelle

blueovalguy · Jan 9, 2004

To answer your original question, yes you can use a small hobby welder (stick welder) for your floorpans. I used one like this

on my floors, and rear quarter panels with no problems. I used the Eastwood stitch welder attachment for the quarter panels, but just went right at it on the floors.

oboebrian · Jan 9, 2004

Personally i would recommend against a stick (i.e. arc) welder because it's not as easy to use for the first timer. With the MIG setup you just have to make sure your tip is roughly at the proper angle to the metal and pull the button (i.e. more precise). With the arc (or stick) welder you have to draw the arc to start the welding process.

This means you have to practices a lot more to learn how to draw the arc and bring it back to where you want to weld (along with the proper welding angles for penetration). With a lot of practice you can just flick your wrist to start the arc w/o to much inaccuracy, but it's a lot more work and practice for the begginner when compared to the MIG setup.

The advantage of a good stick welder is that you can (depending on the amperage and duty cycle) weld thicker materials than MIG setups.

But this is from my experiance MIG and Arc welding

TurboDoctor · Jan 9, 2004

If you a good welder, stick welding the pans is the best way to go. Only problem is most people cant even weld pans in with a mig, with out burining holes every where. But if you can weld, go stick. Theres plenty of reasons why arc welding is better than mig welding but mig is simpler for the novice welder with out first hand welding experiance. I have a Miller 250nt, 250 amps and I weld 18 gauge metal with it all day long every day. Any home hobby machine like 100-130 amps will do what your wanting to do with it and more.

Homercidal · Jan 15, 2004

Interesting thread. I'm looking to get a welder to do my 69, but I've heard that gas MIG is the way to go. I don't doubt that, but the reason is because the gas keeps the weld from flash rusting. I've been told that stick welding will leave slag in the weld which can rust from the inside out.

I've already got a small stick welder that doesn't seem to run at even 100A, and although I've never tried welding sheet metal, I'm sure it would work ok with practice (BTW - I love welding, but that stick welder is SUCH a pain to use. I can't wait to try a MIG.)

So, what's up with the junky weld from Sticks? Everyone that does body work uses MIG.

-Homer

Floor pans and hobby welder

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