I've been driving my Subaru conversion car around for around a month now, but one thing that absolutely must be done soon is to get my engine mount plates welded to the longitudinals. I'd like to get this done within the next week as the Riverside autocross is next weekend and I'd love to participate.

The job is pretty small, but its a little tricky. The plate that the engine bar mounts to is 1/4 inch thick and the longitudinal is at best half of that (double-ply in that area). As well, there is a gap between the flat plate and the slightly bend of the longitudinal. So I want someone who's really pretty decent at welding to do this.

Any reccomendations on shops in the LA area, particularly any that might be open evenings, etc.?

-Tony

Joe George should be able to help you out Tony...
He will come to your house, bot sure if he can do it right away, but the price is right and good quality. Sorry I don't have his number here, but I know Double "A"- Ron (Mr. Cox) has it..

That would be cool!! One problem I have is that I don't have 220V and the 110V that I do have is so bad that it can't even sustain my compressor. So I wonder if he brings his own power...


-Tony

what kind of aluminum did you use there on the mount? i know that would be a tricky one to weld aluminum and steel.

There is no aluminum in the plates that are to be welded. The engine bar istelf is steel too, but has some pressed-in aluminum blocks at the top to keep the tubing from collapsing. I don't think there will be any issue with that though as its not part of the weld job.

-Tony

I also had trouble with my 110v sustaining the compressor- couldn't even start. So I wired a female plug directly onto the breaker panel. Hot went to the 15amp breakers 'breaked' side, nuetral to the neutral bus bar, and ground to, well ground (conduit). Now it works like a charm (and supposably the motor may pull like 25amps on start up- but it works on my 15amp 5 footer circuit!). And I didn't have access to a power panel cutoff either before I did it- (just be vawry vawry careful and don't touch live side of breaker!!!!! shut breaker off and wire to disconnected 'breaked' side only!!!! Use $12 inductive voltage tester- looks like a red pen- to 'see' and verify that the power is exactly where you think it is and that it is not flowing where you think it is not).

EDITED notes; The $12 inductive voltage tester is like a magic wand. Inductive because it doesn't have to touch anything. It 'sees' voltage through insulation by detecting the electromagnetic pulses of A/C. Use it to check every single wire and see were the current is. Never touch or work on anything that is live. Also- I had to shut off ALL the breakers on my panel inorder to cut off any current flowing back onto the neutral bus bar before I could touch anything. It's not very nuetral if there is current there! If you can pull the general cutoff to the whole panel- ofcourse do that- but my neighbors wouldn't like me then (check again with your tester!). I just didn't go near the hot side of the breaker, broke every circuit after the breakers via tripping all breakers, verified no current present anywhere I needed to work, and wired my pig tails for a plug/shorty extension chord into the whole shabang.

I also killed my kitchen circuit by doing my MIG welding from it. Worked long enough to get the job done- now I just have to fix the kitchen to eat again.

Basically- you're aiming for one thing- to use the shortest distance of wire possible to get the power to your compressor and welder. The longer it is, the more resistance you get (same as wire gauge). Garbage disposals circuits may work ok as well since they are often a dedicated circuit back to the breaker. There's nothing wrong with your 110v coming in from the street. What's wrong is that you probably live in an old building with thin guage (higher resistance) wire running all over the place for long streches.

Disclaimer- if you don't feel like you know what your doing with 110v- DON'T DO IT. There's no 'let's try this wire- I got a 50/50 chance' allowed. And always always verify and reverify that a ciruit is not live with the magic wand- even immediately before you intend to touch it, even though you already checked, check again.

Thanks for the tips. The real problem is that I live in an apartment and I definitely don't want to mess around with the crummy 50 year old wiring in this place. I'm not even sure where the breakers are !

I went by a local welding shop today and it looks like Monday or Tuesday I'll be taking the car over at lunch time and getting the welding done. I've used this guy before to do the engine support bar and radiator frame, but he has a sign saying he won't weld under cars. So I asked today if he'll weld "above" cars and he didn't seem to have a problem with it.


-Tony

All the better if you can take it to a shop. I'm doing all my work in the yard. To move the car I would have to hire a bunch of grunts, a flatbed, and somebody to do my work for me. But I'd really like to spend my money on... shiny chrome bumpers!

Tony, I think Mig is a fine choice for that job, and it could be done with a 110 unit turned all the way up. It would be better to bevel the edges of your plate (to thin out the edge) though. Mig is a lot faster and easier compared to Tig when welding in odd positions on different thickness materials and will cause less distortion as well. The big concern with Mig is protecting the surroundings from sparks.