I'm addressing rust issues and came upon an problem that I'm unsure about.
The top surface of the longtudinal, under the (removed) battery tray, had a lot of surface rust but is solid.
After light sanding and wire brushing I treated the surface with SEM Rust-seal (39308). This is a rust "converter" that turns the rust into a permanent black coating. The product works great and as advertised, however I think it leads to the problem I'm having.
I want to weld an additional coverplate over this area and fabricated one using 18 gauge plate steel and drilled 1/4" holes in it for welding. A light coat of 3M weld-through was sprayed on both the long and metal plate.
When I try to mig weld up the holes, attaching the plate to the long, I get a great looking weld that doesn't attach to the metal of the "long" at all!!!
I even tried scratching off any form of paint (in the holes) with a dental pick.
So, two things come to mind.
It may be that the SEM is preventing the weld.
It could also be that 1/4" holes are too small.
Most of the SEM coating can be removed with Aircraft paint stripper (dang, what a messy job)
Wes Vann