Taking Condensing Unit out of Front Trunk, fill hole with sheet metal or??? Options

[Bruce Allert]

It'd be easy to just put a flat piece of metal over the hole, use some sealer & screw it together. Or, weld it in... OR... scavenge the appropriate sized piece from the junk yard and weld it in.

I know, the purist would do the latter but how important is this? I guess if it meant getting more outta the car for sales purposes I'd do the weld thing. I dunno..... (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/confused24.gif)

what would you do?

........b

[John2kx]

QUOTE (Bruce Allert @ Mar 7 2005, 03:45 PM)

Hey, nice job John. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/beer.gif) BTW, what's a BUTT weld? (that could lead into a totally different discussion here) (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/laugh.gif) Do you leave the donor piece oversized and weld from the top or bottom? Top would be too easy, huh? (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/dry.gif) ...b

Bruce,

A "butt" weld is where you have two pieces of metal cut to meet in the same plane, ie no overlap. The overlap is a trap for water to collect.

You'll want the the donor piece cut about 1/2" overside initially, place into position and scribe from underside to create mark in which to cut to. What you want is about 1/16th of a inch or so to leave some room for movement. Start in each corner and just tack. (you'll need some help here to get started as the piece will fall through current opening). Tack about every 2 inches or so and then fill in between all the gaps. Mine was tacked on the top side and then filled top and bottom. Maybe a bit overkill but I was supporting a forward mounted battery and radiator for v8 conversion with thoughts of mounting a mini spare as well.

John