OK, well I had to have a thread title. I am calling it that because it will restore structural integrity to the car and I want to be able to say that the rust has been correctly repaired if I eventually sell the car, unlike the lack of integrity of the person who hid the rust to sell it.

Pictures below

The floor is a little shiny because there is still some mineral spirits on it from trying to get the tar off.

The open areas that you are seeing are after I wire brushed with knotted wire wheels on a grinder, then a carbide burr on a die grinder. While I will take some more off, what you see is getting close to good weldable metal.

First the longs:

The driver’s side is the worst. The bottom edges inside and out were full of holes, or very thin, so I cut the outside of the driver’s all the way off—except I haven’t got to the front under the door pillar yet.

I have cut out about 30 percent of the passenger’s side. The middle section is solid but I will replace it anyway. I started getting a little scared to take more out until I brace up the body.

The floor pan:

There are lots of sloppy welded patches and holes around the seams. The rear passenger’s and rear drivers quarters of the floor pan have been replaced with some plain steel—blue for some reason. The PO welded a solid bar on each side to mount the seat hinges. Sloppy, unground welds abound. There are some rust-through spots at the front of the pan that will need patching, but overall the pan in front of the cross member is solid.

Some patches in the lower firewall are solid.

Measuring diagonally, window frame to targa bar and straight back window frame to targa bar it is off no more than 1/8 inch. This changes depending upon doors open or closed or movement of the jack stands. The door gaps were never problems—maybe the driver’s side was a little wide. So it seems the car is pretty within spec and adjustable doorframe bars should be able to pull—or push—things to be good

Here is where I need advice. This is my plan, please give feedback:

1) Pull Wiring harness, speedometer cable and gas lines out of the center tunnel (What else is in there?) pull gas tank.


2) Pull doors and build adjustable bars to align doorframes

3) Continue to grind back to clean metal in the inside of the longs. Sandblast, then create internal angled patch pieces to repair the inner longitudinals from 18ga cold rolled. I am using michelko’s example see:
http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?s=&...st&p=219748

4) Cut off the majority of the inner rockers (The upper half or three quarters of the longs are very solid) and replace with inner rockers from Restoration Design.

5) Coat interiors of longs with Ospho then Eastwood frame coating

6) Patch any inner long parts to the area aft of the Restoration Design patch with 18ga cold rolled steel.

7) Install Brad Mayuer reinforcement kit over the longs

8) Cut rear floor quarters and cross member out

9) Weld in new rear floor panel and cross member, grinding out old welds and creating flanges from18ga where necessary—in the spots where there is no flange left in spots along the firewall and inner long

10) Remove and rebuild pedal cluster and create patches for small rust spots in the front of the footwells.

11) Sandblast interior and prime and paint.

12) Cut holes for front sway bar, sand blast and prime and paint bottom of gas tank area.

13) Install gas tank, new stainless gas lines and reinstall wiring harness.

Please give any feedback regarding my plan
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More Picts

You'll have some welding to do, but Restoration Design has all the panels you need to cut out and replace the rusted sections. When done, you'll have a great, solid car with no surprises.

Be sure to document what you've de and be sure to properly support the door gaps while welding on the longs. Plenty threads by folks that didn't do that and ended up with doors that wouldn't close.

Enjoy your project in good health!

Adding to George's suggestion.

Do you have door braces installed ?

I see the jack stands and square tubing under the floor pan. What about way out on each end ?

Haven't made the braces yet. I discovered this all just a few days ago and the metal supply place hasn't been open. I should be able to pick up the stock tomorrow.

I currently have jack stands under the front of the torsion bars and the rear suspension tubes.
I had them under the rear donut thingies, but I was cutting so much metal away there I got nervous
I also felt like a little too much weight was hanging off the back and this way the bars—one I make and install them—will have less stress on them.
There are other bars supporting the middle for safety and to help keep things straight.

-Andrew

What do you guys think about welding a place under the dash for the bottom of the door brace? This way I can leave the doors on to keep an eye on the gaps. I can grind it off after the longs are done.

(See pict)

-AndrewClick to view attachment

At this point you have so little structural integrity from the longs its not a bad idea to be able to check the gaps as you go along so you can adjust the body as necessary.

Also, Check out this thread. Adjustability in your braces now will come in handy later.

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?sho...62220&st=60

Thanks for the link Andrew there is some very relevant stuff for me on there.

I leveled the car and made the braces today. After wrenching it so the driver’s side pushes out a little and the passenger’s pulls a little. I ended up with good measurements and the door gaps in the pictures.

The windshield to targa bar measurement is dead on both sides.
The cross measurement from targa bar to opposite windshield frame differs by a little under 1/8 inch. Does this seem reasonable?

The door gaps seem pretty good, but the doors don’t seem to sit in the jambs that straight. Fro example the passenger's door is about 1mm too low in the rear. I think I can fix these later. Is shimming the hinges something that is done?

I just want to make sure the car is straight before I start rebuilding the longs.

I will try Matthew’s idea with the string line tomorrow. Unfortunately, there is some Bondo in the bottom of some of the panels, so I do not know how accurate it will be.

-Andrew
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I wanted to do braces that would allow putting the doors on, but I'm replacing the entire long and didn't think it would be practical. Now that I'm close to welding that long in, I would really like to be able to place the door in its spot!

Mr Foley at Tangerine Racing makes a door brace kit that allows for the doors to be on the car. I jury rigged up my own before they were available.
WAAAAY worth if for the ability to check door gap as you go.

If you are interested in the opinion of someone that has BTDT (you already got a few), I would suggest that door braces alone are not enough. I would build some sort of jig (if I had it to do over) that attaches to the suspension points. Before starting any cutting or welding. Then strip and blast the entire car. That will let you really see where the problems are (and not just the obvious ones). This will give you the option of making it a parts car before you spend more money. All you will have really lost is labor and the cost of blasting. In my opinion that is better. Just an opinion.

I agree it is better to build a jig and do a full restoration but I do not have the time to do it all at once. The car is not perfect, but the trunks are good and solid and the body is decent. So it is Longs, then floor pan, then the car goes back together to drive. Current plan: Driver's long is disassembled and Osphoed (I believe that is a verb, at least around here).
Now I am going to use michelko’s strategy:
http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?s=&...st&p=217612
and fab new pieces for the rear of the longs and double it up as the factory and michelko did. Then I will run a layer of “L” shaped 18 ga all the way forward to cover rust abscesses and stiffen the inner long. Then comes the inner rocker from RD.
The Brad Mayeur kit will go over it.

The car is now supported at the front of the torsion bar tubes, the tubes coming off the rear suspension and with a bar going across the bottom of the pan on two jack stands. In addition, I have one adjustable stand under the transmission taking a little stress off the back.
The bar is level; the tops of the longs inside the car are level to less than .8mm.
I have measured these dimensions:
-Between roll bar and windshield flange
-Between hinge and door lock pillars
-Diagonal distance across roof opening
-Diagonal distance across passenger compartment
These are all really close to factory specs, by close I mean, all within a less than 1mm.
The passenger’s door lines up well. All gaps are pretty even and about 3.5–4.5mm.
The driver’s side however has bigger gaps, 3.5 to over 5.6mm in one spot up near the cowl.
With all the measurements lining up, I could not figure out the 5.6mm issue. After screwing with the door and confirming measurements and level several times, I made a paper template of the back of the front fender up by the cowl. The paper covered the fender from the welting at the hood gap to the welting at the doorjamb down about 8 inches of the upper front door gap where the large gap is. I then flipped the paper and placed it over the passenger’s side.
It showed 1mm to 1.5mm of fender at the exact spot the driver’s side has too large a gap. It appears that the last paint job may have had someone get a little too aggressive with a sander or grinder and took a little too much off. I decided to keep the car straight and live with the annoying extra 1.5mm gap (see picture). Ill fix it down the road as I get into learning to paint.
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Is that hydraulic bearing weight? I've found that they will relax over time and if you are taking measurements, some of them may change as the weight shifts. I was always impressed that Michelko was able to get a straight frame using jack stands and especially with moving it around during the process. He must have had a tape measure in his hand constantly.

The hydraulic is a backup. It is holding up a 2x2x4ft steel tube snugged up against the bottom as a safety measure, and in case I have to lean or put any pressure on the car, like when I am taking doors on or off—which I have done four times already to check gaps.

I have already taken the measurements several times without the extra support and they are staying stable as I have removed metal, but i will continue as I work. I have some wooden dowels cut to a few of the measurements so I can quickly check. I am down to pretty much everything I will remove from this side now, aside from some edge cleanup here and there. I will be checking again and will probably even put the door back on right before the first weld though.

I just got notice that $647 dollars of Restoration-Design parts just shipped this morning

OK making patches. Can you guys le me know if this looks like a decent plan?
I haven't welded anything in yet. I have created this piece that replaces the bottom rear of the drivers long. I will put a second layer over this that extends over the butt weld ar the rear. Maybe another 3 inches.

About halfway toward the front, the bottom of the long is OK. It just has holes along the bottom inner edge. So I am planning not to remove the bottom of the long—I will just double up on the existing. I will bend it and let it go up pretty high—I haven't determined how high yet—to reinforce the E-Brake area.
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You're planning a reinforcement kit on the outside too, right? Looks like a good start.

Yes, the Brad Mayeur kit. I am also thinking of doing a 16 gauge piece inside across the bottom of the firewall, and inside the e-brake well.

Looks good. If your doing it on the inside then maybe consider adding a couple of bends to create a hump going the length of the long. Thats what creates strength, not just layers.

OK, so based on Andyrew's comments I went out and bought a bead roller...
Its a cheap HF thing that required me half the day to reinforce, but it seems to work well now. It just requires a lot of thinking ahead.

So here is where I am now. Progress is very slow because i only have about 16 hours on a weekend to work.

I had to do some welding to make the inner-long e-brake recess reinforcement section.

Im gonna work on a layer with the factory style indentations to lay over the back part of the long now. It will go up into the long a little further to overlap.

See the graphic of what I am trying to do and the photo for how it is actually coming out. The latest patch that goes of over the e-brake will be perforated for rosettes. Any advice on spacing and size?

More feedback is always welcome

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To give you an idea, the holes for the plug welds on the inner reinforcement kit from maddog are 3" apart length wise and 1 1/2" height wise.
I think they are 5/16" diameter (or 3/8").
Keep up the good work

Thanks Eric, obviously this has turned into a much bigger project since we spoke.

Last night as I am grinding the last of the rusted area away at the back of the long, I made a hole big enough to shine a light into the space behind the firewall. There is a bunch of sand in there from sandblasting, so I blow it out.

Once cleaned out, I can see into the back, behind the passenger compartment firewall—behind the patches the PO made. It appears that he didn't even bother to cleanup the rusted area at the bottom of the firewall, he just lap-welded a patch over it.

You can't see it from the passenger's compartment, but i just can't leave it. Since there are a couple other small places I was going to patch in the firewall, I just said "screw it" and ordered a replacement lower half of the firewall.

I figure a fresh firewall bottom will make it easier to attach the floor pan as well.

I just really, really need these discoveries to end. They are so demoralizing

-Andrew

I can't tell by your description - are you doing the inner or outer firewall? Getting the outer firewall fitted and on is particularly tricky with all the tubes you have to route. That's a whole 'nother can o' worms.


I know the feeling, but you seem to be making rapid progress. It'll feel good when all is said and done.

Its the bottom of the inner firewall. There was rust and the PO patched it at the bottom. It is strong, but once i got a look behind it, I saw that they just welded over the rusted edge. I could just leave it, but I think I should just replace the lower firewall. That way I can get rid of the crud in the space and make certain there are not any holes or metal that needs treatment in that space. I can brush and treat any rust i find, prime it, and then feel good about sealing it back up. It will also give me a fresh tab to attach the floor pan—rather than reattaching that hack-ey patch to the fresh floor pan.

Thanks for the encouragement, laying on the cold garage floor after working on it all weekend and discovering this was no fun.

-AndrewClick to view attachment

You guys intimidate me. I am ok with a TIG, but I get sloppy with a MIG when Im not sitting at a table working on clean metal. I can not seem to get it dialed in.
Its like I get it dialed in then something changes. It does well for a while, then I have issues, then its back to good. Seems like a wire feed issue. I cleaned my wire drive wheel. It seemed to help.

Do you guys run .030 or .025?
Im using .030 with some standard Lincoln brand mild wire with 75% CO2-24% Argon.
My welds should be better.
Probably just me, I have been out of practice

Anyway, I remade some patch parts because I chaged my mind how I was approaching this.

I patched the damaged areas on the inside long. I butt-welded them in. They came out pretty good, but I want to make certain there is enough strength, so I am making an 18 gauge layer that will cover the inner long about 3/4 of the way up, from door post to engine mount.

Below is the long before, repaired, and the last one is the shell I am building to reinforce it all. They are not as wavy in reality, The panoramic mode does that
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I'm hardly the authority on this, but I use .030 for structural repairs (like you're doing now) and .025 for body/cosmetic stuff. Yes, that's the gas mixture I use as well.

Really good welding has a lot of dependencies: clean metal, proper power/wire feed/gas settings, good technique (requiring lots of practice), good lighting, properly fitted patches, etc, etc. Most of the time I'm missing one or more of these elements, and my results, while functional, won't win any beauty contests.

You're moving right along. I'm jealous...I need a heated garage with better light. My projects slow to a crawl in the winter...

When was the last time you changed your MIG machine's hose liner? The liner is a wear/maintenance item, and needs to be replaced after a while, usually when the wire feed starts becoming uneven or sticky. It takes quite a while for a liner to wear, so it's one of those things that creeps up on you until all of a sudden you start wondering what happened to your welding.

Liners are pretty cheap, the replacement I installed last fall was less than $20 from Amazon. Took about 15 minutes to change, didn't even have to remove the hose from the machine.

One issue I have encountered while welding with the 2lb spools is that once you get about two 3rds or so into a spool the wire does not cleanly exit the spool anymore. It's like the wire in the middle of the spool is wound into a smaller diameter and has taken on a bend and can't be easily straightened out and gets hung up in the whip. Last time it happened to me I thought for sure that the liner was worn out or something because the welding was all over the place, huge variances in wire speed. As soon I put a new spool on it was like a brand new welder and every weld was smooth and consistent. From now on I only use the larger spools.

You guys have me thinking about a few things.

I have an 8 or 10 lb. spool on the welder, so it’s not exactly the 2lb spool problem, but I was wondering about the wire sticking as it unspools. I noticed that the reel is a little loose on the spindle adaptor—it can slop side to side on the adaptor a little. There is a tab to the side of the adaptor that fits into the hole on the reel (see picture). Because it is loose, it seems that the tab could pop out. I do not know if the spindle is driven with the motor, but maybe this has something to do with it. This is odd because its a Lincoln welder with a Lincoln adaptor and Lincoln spool on it.

Also, the welder was sitting in my garage for 10 years with this spool on it. Some of the wire on the outside layers was corroded, so I spooled off about 5 lbs. to get to really clean wire. What is the shelf life of this stuff? I do not see any corrosion on the wire.

The welder did not have that much time on it before I stopped using it—the stuff I have been doing over the last decade was all TIG. The MIG was not used enough to wear the liner, but can the liners get corroded?

Maybe I’ll just buy a liner, a fresh roll of .030 and a roll of .025 just to elminate everything. Any wire brand recommendations?

-Andrew

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Larger hole make the welds easier. 3/8 minimum.

OK, here I am about a year later, the project being on hold for a while I have been doing some work the last few months but not updated the thread. I kept discovering the rust one thing at a time and eventually I just gave up and decided to build a six and restore the chassis.
So I stripped the car of all the parts and here are the problem areas I discovered, one thing at a time. I have had a couple people say I should have just tossed the chassis and found one in better shape—and I think they may have been right at some points, but then I was so far into it I figured I would keep going and save one more. Whether it was the right or wrong decision doesn't mater now as I have made it and am moving forward. So here are the problem areas I have addressed or am addressing
The inner longs:
The prior photos have shown what I have done to those to repair and strengthen. Here is a photo of the patch on the passenger's side showing the inner long.

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Here is the patch from the inside of the passenger's compartment

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After the patching was complete on both sides, I laid another inner reinforcement piece on the bottom and inner side long—on the inside—and coated in Eastwood internal frame coating.

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The floor pans and outer longs will be replaced by Restoration Design pieces
shown below:




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The upper firewall had some sloppy patches, so I got a hunk of firewall from another member and have repaired a couple of small holes and then added the new section into what I cut out.

Photos of the P.O. Patches:


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Other Side:

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Then I braced and the chassis and cut out a hunk of upper firewall:

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Then I made some minor patches on the "new"hunk of firewall:

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Excuse the sloppy welds:

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Ground:

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My welding has improved a lot since then, I was using my old Lincoln. I bought a Hobart Handler MVP and it has made quite a difference for me.

As you can see from the above patch photos the lower inner and outer firewall were trashed so I cut them out and have new RD pieces going in.

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The hellhole and area around it had been repaired badly by a P.O.
Lap welds all around. I cut it all out and replaced with part of an inner wheelhouse from AA (RD was out of stock on the part) and a patch piece I made.
The color is from the Upol copper weld-through primer

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I will have to find a picture of the area with the repairs done

I was delayed for a few months because of work and because my other two cars were hit within a couple of months of each other. It is very frustrating to have 3 cars and have to rent.

First some guy drove right into the back of my 993

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Then someone in a Mercedes decided to make a left turn into my International

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Sorry about the other cars getting nailed, that sux. I hope insurance helps you out with those. As for the 914... nice work. Glad to see your progress as I’m in a similar boat with regards to the longitudinal. Keep at it! I’m afraid I can’t shed any light on mig welding as I’m still learning myself.
Practice makes perfect... you already have tig skills, that’s great.
Good luck on the other vehicles.
Cheers, Dion

Thanks Dion,
I ended up having the 993 repainted. The international is in the shop still.

I decided that the easiest way to work on the car was going to be on a dolly—to keep it rigid, or a rotisserie to allow easy access.

I emailed back and forth with Jeff Hail a bit who was a great help—Thanks Jeff!

I couldn't decide which to do so I did both. I came up with an idea to build a dolly frame for the car out of pallet rack shelving and make it so I could mount the dolly/car on the Rotisserie.

Here is the idea I came up with:

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Basically, build a dolly and weld trailer hitch tubes on each corner to receive the arms of the rotisserie.

I bought some Used Interlake pallet rack shelf support beams—they are 15 gauge and 4.5 x about 2.5 with an extra bend in them so they are really rigid. Buying them used is way cheaper than buying new steel like 2x4 16ga, or 11 ga.

I built a rectangular box out of them that fit under the car and spent a lot of time getting it level and square.

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Then I welded trailer hitch tubing on each corner to mount on the rotisserie

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I took a bunch of adjustable jack stands and got the car really level using a laser, then raised the rectangular dolly frame to within a few inches of the bottom of the car making sure it was level with the laser. This took a bunch of adjustable jack stands:

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I measured and remeasured and I found the dimensions of the car were surprisingly good. Nothing was much more than 1 mm off.

At this point I felt confident enough to cut and weld in the connecting pieces between the Rectangular dolly base and the suspension mounting points. Here are the rear suspension console pieces tacked in. This is when I gave up on my Lincoln 125v and ordered a Hobart 220v welder.

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I made connections at the front of the A-Arms (see above), and also the front suspension cross member. I actually welded the dolly frame to the old suspension crossmember as I am going to use an aluminum one when I put the car back together. I made connections at the rear suspension console and the transmission mounts.

It took me a few days to do this as I went slowly measuring every time I did any welding.

Once on the rotisserie the dolly frame really keeps the chassis rigid. I took the door braces out to test it and there was no change in the door gaps, even when rotating.
I put the door braces back in anyway to help when I get to welding in the firewall etc.

Here is a picture of it when I pulled it out o the garage to do some spot sandblasting.

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Another:

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I don't know why the P.O. did this. He probably did it when mounting a fuel pump up front. It really defines the term "Hack Job"

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Here is the patch underway:

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Fantastic work. I absolutely LOVE that dolly-rotisserie hybrid!!!

You asked if restoring this tub was the right or wrong thing? I'm 110% certain it was the RIGHT thing.

Like that fixture. Did the Merc survive it's intro to that IH? Those old IH'S were built like a Bomb Shelter!

This one comes not from the P.O.—just from rust. The 2 lines from the charcoal canister and antenna cable hole.
Rust:

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I sectioned this in from some sheetmetal I cut from part of a front clip from a 1974 that Oscar Vellios gave me.
It didn't have the gas line holes, but it had the dimples to drill them.
Did they not put those gas lines on all models in 1974?
My Car is a 1974 and had the three holes. The one from Oscar only had the one hole and two dimples.

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Inside the wheel well:

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I was going about 15 mph and and a brand new—no tags yet—2018 GLE suv pulled out from parking on the side of the street right into me, I tried to swerve but the the IH doesn't do "swerve" very well—even as he hit me the IH didn't move much. The impact trashed the front of his car. Both wheels were pointed toward the center of the car and it was un-drivable. I got insurance info and chugged away.

Unfortunately, the Restoration design floor pan ends a little shy of an area that I think is rather rust prone—the recess right under the pedals. I had to get a piece to fit that as the rest of the pan where it starts to curve up towards the steering rack was ok. Fortunately the part from Oscar's partial clip fit.
I am patching back to where the new RD pan will start.

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My thought right now is to keep the old rusty floor pan on the car and have the chassis professionally blasted, then replace the floor pan afterwards. This will help to keep the chassis straight while it is being transported to the blast/prime shop. Then when it comes back I can pull the old pan and weld in the new. I can spot sandblast and spot prime whatever rust gets exposed. This would include doing the inside of the center tunnel. Please give me any thoughts you guys have on the order?

I have a decent sandblaster, but its not powerful enough to do the whole car.
I want something to get ALL the seam sealer off so I can see any rot underneath.

congrats on saving the car, we just did one that was very similar but the floor pans were good. Thankfully we had made all of the rust repair panels years ago so were able to save many many 914s

wow, when you repost the first page and I look at it, everything seems so simple...

Thanks Brent. Your project is an inspiration to me—helps me keep moving forward no matter how slowly

Great thread-I’m late to the party but thank you for documenting everything.

Can I ask what voltage and wire speed you’re using? No it will vary by welder etc., but I’m about to dive in and do some similar things and was hoping to get some experience on settings.

Thanks!

I was using a Lincoln 125Plus—it is a 110V MIG welder. I tried .024 wire and .030. and started with the welder's recommended setting for 18 ga then tweaked from there. I found the spool mechanism that the Lincoln used would not give a steady wire speed sometimes due to spool weight and/or the rotation of the mechanism binding up the spool. I found the little 2lb spools were the worst, but the 10lb spools would also be problematic when they got down toward the end. I replaced the liner and lubed the wire and it would do well for a bit, then give inconsistent feed. It was very frustrating.

In some instances the .024 wire had a little less burn through, but If you get the .030 dialed in it seems to work as well or sometimes even better.

When I got to making the dolly and was welding on the heavy gauge tubing it was a bit under powered so I went and bought the Hobart MVP. I liked the option for 110v or 220v. I run it in the garage on 220v, but I wanted the portability of 110V.

It does not have a continuously variable voltage—it is stepped. I was a little concerned about this when buying, but I find that changing the wire speed slightly gives me all the fine tuning I need.

It is solidly consistent. I think that the drive wheels are designed to grip the wire well and help to isolate spool issues. I am really impressed with the welder, it may not be a high-end MIG, but for the money (under $800) I love it.

Normally what I do is look at the chart inside the door of the welder at the recommended voltage/wire speed for 18 ga and 20 ga and play around between there until its woking well. Sometimes I will set it to 22 ga if Im getting burn through in odd instances and play with the wire speed a little.

-Andrew

Picts of the two welders.

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Very helpful, thank you.

I have the same (or near identical Hobart). Good machine.

Fortunately I will be doing localized floor patching etc which makes it a bit easier but still want to make sure it is tidy.