Spy shots from inside Area51Werks. Lots of cutting, hammering, fabrication and welding were rumored to have taken place today.

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Rick

I need to drive up and see you shop sometime

you do nice work



Will

Come on up! But I warn you, I may put you to work.

Too many projects not enough time.

Master craftsmanship.

Looks familiar

Scotty, we live in a parallel universe I just wish sometimes it was my full time gig again.

Beats the hell out of spending your sunday afternoon balancing a payment spread sheet and looking through a $ 100,000.00 worth of invoices from a contractor.

Sweet!


But I really want to see this one.

I did that 230 a few years ago and it was frightening. Another one of the " cover up " scenarios. The guy bought the car in 73 IIRC and never new it had been bondoed over underneath. He literally turned white when he came by and realized what his wife had been driving in for 25+ years. Rust hjoles big enough I could put my hand inside, that had been taped, wiped and undercoated

More welding photos from last weekend

Couple more

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Scary!

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So I have this 29 Ford Rat Rod body in my storage garage. It was a coupe but the roof went missing many years ago. My oldest son Aric took an interest in it so I started scrounging for parts. I came across a 348 engine a friend had rebuilt but never used. He told me I could have it if I can an picked it up. Well it was laying out back of his garage wrapped in plastic. It's almost junk. I pulled it apart and the internals are ok. the heads will need to completely gone through.

Then I discovered this...

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So Aric and I tag teamed it. I pulled out the buzz box and some nickel welding rod. Aric heated the block with the rose bud torch head and kept it hot while I arc welded the crack. We had the head bolted on tight and worked the crack slow. After welding you will have some pin holes. The sand cast block has lots of impurity's. I took the cutting head, (couldn't find my #2 tip) and melted the nickel rod around the pin holes and peened them closed.

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And here it is. We filled the block with coal slag to help the block cool slow and covered it with blankets.

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BTW: This is a common problem on these early blocks. The water jacket at the top of the block is very thin. Many of these blocks get tossed but with a little patience they can be welded.

Wow, that seems really old school! And very cool!

Good luck with that truck engine. Tons of torque but it doesn't like high rev's. IIRC the first yr 348 (1958) was the fast one and did not have the water jackets that yours has. Didn't that engine have a peaked surface where the heads mate. I can't remember. We used to drop those in 55-56 chevys. Had to cut out some firewall, reverse the rear motor mounts and fab some L brackets for the front mounts. You took me back a few years with those pic's, Rick.

Well, We had a small set back. I ran low on Acetylene about 2/3 of the way through the welding so we cut the heat off kind of early. I thought I was ok but as with any cast iron you never really know until you check on things the next day. So, off to the welding supply store and back at the welding. More later.

This is all for the look. We just want it to drive. Old school build, 3X2 carbs, truck 4 sp and maybe a 6 or 8 lug rear axle. Were thinking 7 or 8" dirt track slash cut tread tires on the rear. Steel wheels.

http://www.muggyweld.com/castiron.html

I have heard good things about using these folk's rods for cast iron weld repair. never done it myself, so I can't say for sure. But from what I have been told, it eliminated the need to pre and post heating somehow.

Some of the guys on the military truck boards are a fan, and have used it on blocks and manifolds. Was going to try it, as I had a cracked manifold, but then decided to just swap engine instead.

Zach

I will be using this to repair the castings in my good old table saw castings that have developed cracks after 40 years of contractor use.
Cast iron welding rods

My 63 ohc 258 jeep six developed a exhaust manifold crack, thats when the 355 sbc went in it.

That low rpm 348 would really like a passenger car 4 or 5 spd. Even a saginaw 4 spd out of one of the small v8 camaros in that light car would work. If you could find one they can't be too expensive. I used one in my jeep truck behind a 355 sbc with the jeep transfer case adapted for a few years.

For me a 312 ford would be neat.

Did some fabrication today. This is a part that is not available so I had to make one. You think our 914 rust...

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Here's a tip for you all. I go to the local small town print shop and buy this card board. It's the backing for desk top calendars. It's the perfect pattern board and it's cheap.

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Part of this repair involves repairing a speaker hole someone hacked into the door post. It isn't bad enough that the car was rusted nearly half way up the sides this hole kills the strength of the post big time.

Adding a factory hole from the pattern. Notice the hand hammered flange around the opening.

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Fitting the new panel. It lines up nice. Notice the square cut out on the post. I cleaned up the jagged edges but I still need to patch that. That is from a hole saw from the speaker hack job.

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Here's how rusted this car was. This is the lower cowl panel.

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New lower cowl section.

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Speaker hole mostly repaired.

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One more. Repair panel welded and ground.

You got skills Rick!

I didn't know where to put this post. I guess it's kind of a welding post. Last year when I installed my axles I guess I broke a triple square off in one of the bolts. It was on the outboard side of course. I already had my engine out and couldn't find my big socket to remove the axle nut. I don't remember breaking it but there it was.
I could wiggle the little sucker but couldn't get it out. Tried a dental pick...nope. Tried a magnet..Nope.
Ok, last ditch effort. I drug out the old buzz box, removed the flux off of the end of a welding rod to insure it would stick and not actually weld, turned the machine way down, took aim, and..... GOTCHA!

When are you moving out here? We need to combine forces! B)

Area51Werks took a field trip today. This is my brother inlaws 59 Square Bird. The car is from Montana. There is very little rust.
Now my Brother inlaw Dave and I had a basic clash of the titans brawl the first time we met. (34 yrs ago) Hey I was dating his little sister and he wasn't going to let anything bad happen to her. Besides we were : The next day we became fast friends and have worked together in my bodyshop on and off for many years.

Dave is more than capable when it comes to doing this work but I just like to weld so he let me do the metal work today.

There was dirt trapped between the panels.

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Wow Rick!
You get all the fun!

I'm thinking of lowerin' Kar B Q

I haven't bumped this for awhile. I been doing some stuff I thought I would post here. Maybe someone will get some inspiration for this. Maybe not..

Tig welded this fender section.

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This is my friend Pat's Mercedes. This is the final repair to the rear section of the car. The P.O. did a resto likely in the 80's. everything was brazed together and warped beyond repair. I ended up cutting off the brass and the warped sections of this filler panel and replacing it. All the factory seams on the car are butt welded and metal finished. That how my friend want it when he gets it back.

The first photo shows the extensive damage caused by the P.O. and his grinder. These marks were so deep and the panel was so warped I almost cut this back 8" and almost replace the whole section.

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Here's after I fit, welded and finish trimmed the patch work.
Here's after I metal finished the warped and ground area.

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Then onto the Spot welding. I have a couple spot welders. This car needs to have the correct welding methods used. Inside the trunk at the base of the tail light panel there were a couple globby welds. I added them back in.

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I finished spotting the tail light panel together.

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I purchased a set of manifolds for an ITB project. One of the ears was broken off. I spent a few minutes and made a repair. Fun with tig welding.

True craftsmanship.

Crazy mad man skillz. I need to convince you to work on my 914. Its value would go up just by the masters touch.

This Mercedes is even challenging my skill set. The factory used to sell the front shroud as a complete unit. It is not available that way anymore so I need to assemble all the pieces and metal finish all the seams before sliding the shroud over the inner structure.



Now in case you don't know the lids and doors are aluminum. The sheet metal is assembled, then the doors and lids are filed to fit the openings. The gaps are perfect and set to 5mm from what I'm told.

So as I assemble the car I have to fit sheet metal parts that is normally welded "close" and fit by hand to the doors and lids that are filed to fit the sheet metal. Not easy.

Here's the shroud As I build it. I hope it fits....

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Here's the first metal finished seam from the cowl to the fender.

Part of the process when metal finishing is to Anneal the area you want to work. Here is a photo of the process. First you blow acetylene soot on the area you want to anneal. Then using a torch you work the area burning off the soot. Just enough to dissolve the soot and not over heat the metal. You want to relax the molecules not distort the panel.



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Here is the second seam after metal finishing.


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A couple more things you may find interesting. I used a copper strip as a back up. Notice I used my bead roller and rolled a bead groove down the middle. This allows the weld metal to protrude giving a good strong weld.

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This is the under side of the fender to cowl seam with the back up strip in place.

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Here are the two parts cleco'd together. This gives a nice tight fit to tig weld.

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Here is the back side of the weld. Notice the pick marks on the back side from bumping the panels flush. The protruding weld and pick marks are exactly like the factory front end I took off this car.

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That is crazy mad skillz as usual Rick... I have got to learn me to tig weld

Spot welding and more spot welding. After several fittings I'm welding the front shroud to the inner panels on this 280 SL. Great hobby.

Drug out all the welders for this one.

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The cowl top panel has a flange that is hammered over like a door skin then spot welded.

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Then lots of spot welds all around the shroud.

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