This is prior to welding. It took several vises and clamps at various places and often repositioning to get this in right. In fact, I had to trim off about 1/8" from the lower most bottom piece that buts to the longitudinal seem or else it would have never fit right. It took a bit of hammering too.

After doing a couple of crappy welds, I remembered some 914club members saying how much an auto-darkening helmet helped them. I decided to go out and find one. I finally found a Lincoln for $127 at Lowes, that was the cheapest I could find one for. I cannot overstate how much it helped. My hand is not as steady, and I need both hands to keep the gun to start where I want it. With the auto-dark helmet, I could weld exactly where I wanted to. The weld shown at the top is without the auto-dark helmet, and the one below is with it.

After feeling pretty good about some of the welds I was making, I decided to recreate some of the spotwelds that were originally there. Here I used my spotweld cutter to make a nice 3/8" hole...

Then, I took a screwdriver and hammered around the hole to make sure the metal was flush to the longitudinal at the hole. Next I filled the hole.

I am still welding the bottom of the console. Welding upside down is terribly difficult. Gravity works against you. If anyone has any tips on that, please post.

Man that's looking good. It feels really good to get this stuff done. Keep up the good work

Dave

Turn the heat up alittle so you get more penetration on the welds. Use a smaller bit if you are going to do spot weld lookalikes, the holes can be 1/4" and then fill em up witha good weld.

Upside down, hmmm, wear good thick clothes and gloves as the hot slag burns pretty good when it runs down your sleaves.

Geoff

When welding upside down, reversing the polarity can help, you still will take a shower of sparks though. Most lower priced MIG units dont allow reversing the polarity though.

Another trick I use to draw repair pieces together is to use sheet metal screws to pull the parts tight. After the initial welds are made, I remove the screws, and complete the welding.