FYI: Some welding tips Car related, Feel free to add yours Options

[rick 918-S]

Lots of you guys will know this stuff but some may find it helpful. Here are a couple of photos of a Mercedes I'm working on for a friend. This car was butched back in the 70's. I'm trying to put it back together. All the spot weld flanges are damaged with brazing. The brass needs to be removed and replaced with steel so I can spot weld the car back together.

Some of the flanges are good for the most part, So I'm not cutting them off completely and making new ones. Were I can, I use a piece of copper and simply run a couple beads of weld across the copper and then grind/file the weld back to the thickness of the metal.

Your wire feed will actually arc on the copper. So you can even start your arc just off the edge of the metal your repairing and then move into the damaged edge.

This also works good for a backer on small holes. The copper will pull some of the heat out of the weld causing a rapid cooling effect.

A simple source for copper flatbar is soft copper tubing. If you've done any home plumbing repair you probably have a piece of copper tubing under the work bench. Just hammer it flat and your in business.

[914Subaru]

Any recommendations on how to weld the roof I am working on. I used a rear trunk lid (backwards) as it has a nice curve to it but I didn't have anyway to form the ends as one piece so I made them separate. Now I fear what is going to happen once I start welding (I will remove the paint first). I can tig or mig but was wondering if I should get a spot welder for along the door sills and across the back and tig weld across the front?

[rick 918-S]

Any recommendations on how to weld the roof I am working on. I used a rear trunk lid (backwards) as it has a nice curve to it but I didn't have anyway to form the ends as one piece so I made them separate. Now I fear what is going to happen once I start welding (I will remove the paint first). I can tig or mig but was wondering if I should get a spot welder for along the door sills and across the back and tig weld across the front?

Flange the roof skin, overlap the side peices. Weld slow with lots of clamps. Weld, tap, tap, tap, to relieve stress. The flange will help to stiffen the panel and reduce any possible warpage.

Put a 90 deg flange pointing down on the front edge of the new top panel and seam weld the roof panel to the windsheild frame. Same thing,weld,tap,tap,tap to revieve stress and put the metal where it belongs.