Best Practices for Engman Kit Install, How to install without chassis warpage... Options

[ConeDodger]

I just picked up my car from McMark's shop today. Original Customs for the uninformed. I had him install the Engman Kit I got in the last group buy. I had heard the stories of door gaps shrinking and things not lining up and that is why I gave this job to Mark. My car is a 70K mile preservation and I am only the second owner. The door gaps were perfect going in and perfect coming out.

Nice work Mark! If you are thinking of doing this, I highly recommend Mark and if you are too far away, definitely ask how he did this. His method worked without any body warping...

Thanks! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[charliew]

You guys give lots of good info. I appreciate your input. If a person wanted to really know for his own education, he could use a temperature gun and shoot the weld and the area that is around it after both the mig and tig process. The fact that a tig weld will be so much smaller means that the heat is not in that spot as long as you might think. Remember the material is not very thick. Actually you could weld the edge of the hole to the long without any filler but it will not leave a completely filled in hole like you can get from the mig. I really don't know how much the long is heated either way but I will find out. The tig is much more awkard as I need to be a lot closer to the work than with mig and the mig is a lot more forgiving of contamination. I am pretty sure I would burn less paint off with the tig just from my experience on welding sheetmetal butted panels. The fact that I can start the tig with a higher amp then feather it back helps lower the heat a lot. Also though I only use .023 wire on my mig so it isn't as hot as .030 or .035. You can see both sides of most panels and get a good idea of how far the heat traveled. If the surfaces are not exactly flush the mig will fill that easily where the tig at that point will need filler rod and that would require stopping and starting which would extend the heat time if you wanted to keep going. I'm not sure as I haven't tried to weld the kit yet but I will try to use clamps to hold the stiffeners in place instead of screws. If I can't there is nothing wrong with welding the screw holes up when doing that hole. I know I will not be stitch welding the kit although if a edge is high I will tap it down and tack it with a weld about .750 inch long. It will get epoxy primered and seam sealed afterward. I will probably try to put a wax in the long when I'm through with all the welding on the long. One thing I do like about tig is there is so much less grinding because you only add filler when it is needed where thats the contact for the mig and also the wire shoots through the molten puddle and usually makes a blob on the back side. It's hard for me to not put too much metal down on sheetmetal with a wire feed. I do think the tig is three times slower than a mig if I'm adding filler but that doesn't mean I am holding the same heat on that spot as the mig for three times longer.