Progress Thread The "grátis" 1966 Coupe - final sheet metal repairs

I have a few pieces of advice,And I offer them as just my opinion and I mean no offense:

• Turn it Down
• Move Faster
• Try smaller circles so you can move faster
• Weld smaller sections at a time so you won’t get a lot of burn through
• Do lots of tack welds to hold panel before you burn it in

Again I mean no I’ll will,you are making great progress and just wanted to offer some help
 
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I have a few pieces of advice,And I offer them as just my opinion and I mean no offense:

• Turn it Down
• Move Faster
• Try smaller circles so you can move faster
• Weld smaller sections at a time so you won’t get a lot of burn through
• Do lots of tack welds to hold panel before you burn it in

Again I mean no I’ll will,you are making great progress and just wanted to offer some help
No offense taken. You’re looking at the first beads I’ve ever ran in my life. I can use all the help I can get.
 
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I can’t get these welds to stick to the frame rail. I doubt the ones on the left are good considering the trouble I’m having with the right side.

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Here’s what we got so far. I don’t think I’m going to get the floor pan in before the end of the week at this rate. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow and the day after.

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Try it without the weld through primer ,see if it’s any better
Weld through primer is even hard to weld through ,the best welds are on clean metal
I ended up turning up the voltage to the recommended setting for 16 gauge, which is the gauge of the frame rail metal. The previous welds were adhering nicely to the toe patch, but they weren't hot enough to penetrate the frame rail. I had to drill those suckers out three times before I got it right.

I forgot to weld the toe patch to the top flange of the frame rail. I suppose I'll go ahead and drill a couple of holes and correct that.
 
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Yes!, your started, Whoo hoo!
I'm throwing my 2 cents worth in too...Use the weld thru primer but clean each spot thru the hole with a flattened drill bit or drill wire brush.
That way you don't have to burn the paint out of the weld hole but have the weld thru protection around your spots.

Keep on it! Your gonna get better.
 

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What settings should I use when I’m welding thicker metal to thinner (like torque box to firewall)?

One of the problems I had was no penetration of the thicker metal on a lower setting and blowing through the thinner metal on the higher recommended setting for the thicker metal.
 
You will have to play with your wire speed.
Usually when I weld thick and thin together. I tack the thin piece to the thick piece across the whole section with tons of tack welds. Then I angle the gun towards the top-almost like welding in a channel so I can melt the thick metal into the thin metal
 
Thankfully it stopped raining today around noon, so I was able to get back to work on the car.

I decided to redo the outboard section of the toe board patch since the welds between it and the inner torque box didn't take for the same reason the frame rail ones didn't yesterday.
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I also decided to cut out a small piece to bridge the gap where I cut too much of the original toe board out.
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I am getting a feel for how the welder works. I figured out that one of the things that was hampering my welds before was how I was holding the gun at too much of an angle in an effort to better see what I was doing. Keeping the gun more or less perpendicular resulted in much better welds. I still had some hiccups, but it turned out alright.
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I also got the outer torque box fitted to the car. I ended up sticking it in the vise and making the upper bend a little sharper to take up the gap. I then hammered the top lip to get it flush to the inner torque box. I ended up removing the parking brake pass through since it was getting in the way and I won't need it on this car anyway. It was getting dark, so I decided to call it a night and weld it in tomorrow rather than run the risk of screwing up welds, getting frustrated, and then going to bed angry. I also took your advice and took it down to bare metal where I'll be welding.
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There are some dents in the forward portion of the floor support and frame rail that are preventing the outer torque box from sitting flush against it completely. I'll see if I can address that tomorrow.
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I was also having an issue with a gap between the torque box and the outboard side of the frame rail. I'm hoping the c-clamp I'm using does the trick.
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I think it was a good day. Let me know what y'all think and if you have any more welding pointers.
 
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Use large self drilling screws to pull panels tight together like on the bottom of the torque box ,remove the screws after welding and fill in the holes .you can put the screws right through a couple of your plug weld holes and they will fill in when you weld
 
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