project 1980 Austin Princess

[jonathan_dyane]

The welding wire hasn't gone rusty has it?

[Bobthebeard]

The welding wire hasn't gone rusty has it?

Welding up MIG wire before you use it...... Annoying!

[jonathan_dyane]

Also make sure it is actually a 0.6 nozzle (it will be written on it if you unscrew it). Using a larger nozzle causes all manner of issues...

[vulgalour]

I will check.  The wire is brand new with no sign of corrosion, the tip less so.  I haven't checked what size it is so I'll do that tomorrow.  I should really have gone back to basics and set the welder up from scratch rather than trusting all is well, but the first time I ever used it (on the Princess, no less) it was perfectly fine and as far as I know nothing has been changed on it since then.

[Sigmund Fraud]

I see your welder has a spot weld function... I presume this is off when you're trying to seam weld ?

[mat_the_cat]

Are you working in an outbuilding with a less than ideal power supply? I had similar problems before I ran a mains cable to the workshop, and connecting several extension leads together was causing a bit of voltage drop I reckon. So as the arc would start, the motor speed would drop and the arc would stop, and so on...

[vulgalour]

SF:  well spotted (hah, pun), that may be the issue.  I hadn't really noticed any difference with the spot weld thing but amazingly I don't think I tried turning it off completely.

 

mat:  I'm in a lovely restoration garage... bliss... but I am running off an extension as the lead on the welder isn't quite long enough to reach a socket.  I wonder if this may be partly to blame.  What you explained is pretty similar to what's happening, I get the initial arc, the first tiny bit of weld is fine and then it's off-on-off-on and I'm back to square one.  If I stop for a couple of seconds it'll weld okay and then repeat, but it ends up being impossible to get a routine going.

[Anglevan]

best thing to do before you touch the welder near your car is get some super clean metal (you don't need 2 lots) just a sheet similar to what you are using and practice on that first.

If the wire is burning back to the nozzle - then either you're too close when welding / too high a setting or you don't have the wire speed fast enough.

Practice with just letting the wire feed through the nozzle without touching the steel - is it nice and smooth ? you might need to have the nozzle nice and straight from the welder (any coiling of the feeder will cause a jam  and be notchy)

Providing you've checked that the wire is not rusty / drum spins nice and free / wire feeds out spot on with no juddering then practice on the steel.

Try and get a nice slug with good penetration, when you've tried with one piece of steel try with 2 together. When you've got the gist of it and only when you have the gist of it try on the car but make sure your earth wire is spot on and has a very good clamp onto clean steel.

You are going to need to reweld that patch I'm afraid as it has zero penetration.

The welder should be fine, I have a Clark that I've had since 1988 and it's still going strong - very very simple design and not a lot to go wrong.

 

Oh by the way - that nozzle shield is shagged and either need to give it a good clean or get a new one..

 

good luck by the way - glad to see some work being done on the ol' bus..

[vulgalour]

Superb advice, Anglevan, and confirms what I was worried about.  You can't actually pull the patch off - I did try - so there must be some penetration, but it's not very good, I'd be happier cutting it off and starting again.

 

The wire feed is I think the biggest cause of the problem.  With the feed line straight or coiled the wire does the same thing.  I can get it to feed for about 3" and then it just stops.  It's not coiling up in the case of the welder, the tension on the wire seems to make no difference to this and as soon as I try and weld car or scrap I just get this on-off thing going on. There's no judder, it just stops feeding unless you trim the wire back to the nozzle and try again after which sometimes it feeds straight away and sometimes it takes a few seconds without touching any settings.

 

Regardless of my distance from the work or the power setting, as soon as the arc is made the wire is gone back to the nozzle and I have to start again.  It's almost like the welder doesn't want to feed the wire when the arc is made.  It is very frustrating.

 

It is a brilliant welder, or it was when I first used it, and it laid down some lovely bits of melted metal.  Now it just seems unwilling to help me.

[Anglevan]

sounds like it needs a new liner - is the wire 100% free from corrosion? the only other thing is to check the tension on the rollers (and that they are in line) On my Clark you have to spin the roller round if using .8 or .6 so again somat else to check but does sound like the liners goosed. They are not a dear item and easy to fit so maybe somat to look at.. good luck

[mat_the_cat]

mat:  I'm in a lovely restoration garage... bliss... but I am running off an extension as the lead on the welder isn't quite long enough to reach a socket.

 

Doubt it is the issue if it's just one lead, but worth having a practice close to the socket to rule it out. I wonder if a coiled extension lead (if it is?) could build up significant inductance and cause voltage drop that way...?

[catsinthewelder]

I used to have an issue with the wire feed on my Clarke 100 that distorted the wire when the wire stopped and the rollers spun on it. So I would drag the wire out of the torch with pliers and it would jam up two metres later as the flattened bit reached the torch, this would then flatten another bit etc until you pulled two metres of wire out and lobbed it away. It would then be fine for a bit until something else went wrong.

 

Don't give up Angyl, you'll get there in the end.

[mouseflakes]

I think it will be one, some or all of the above. Power looks low perhaps? Check tip and wire size are the same (if the tip is too large would that explain the stop/start behaviour if the wire sporadically looses contact with the tip?). Rusty wire. Wrong size 'groove' in the feed wheel. And - check that spot timer doesn't have an effect?

[Angrydicky]

What thickness of steel are you using? I like to use 1.2mm, then crank up the welder to pretty much max power, about half wire speed on the SIP. I weld in bursts of maybe 1/2" to 1" to keep down heat buildup and stop it blowing through.

 

Looking at the weld I agree with the others, it looks like the power is too low.

[vulgalour]

Had to walk away from this job today and clear my head a bit, but I have made some progress.  I'm going back to the unit in a minute to have another go.

 

I went back to basics and checked the welder, correcting four problem areas:

New shroud fitted

New tip fitted

Straightened the wire feed by undoing the feed from the welder and letting it untwist properly.  This actually helped MASSIVELY and with a small tweak of the tension it now feeds as though it would happily unwind the entire drum without stopping if I wanted it to.

Consulting the instructions for optimum power/feed settings.  More of both so the low power suggestion is supported.

 

Now I can get a weld, but it's not consistently good.  I feel like I've forgotten how to weld, in all honesty, and there have been many head distractions so I've been struggling to focus on what I'm doing.  I also think I'm trying to weld too much like stick which is compounding the inconsistency of my welding.

 

Occasionally I'm getting it blowing through, I'm on .8 wire and it's standard bodywork thickness metal, I have no idea what thickness that actually is but I'm guessing something like 1.2mm?  It's not written on anything at any rate.  I had considered dropping to .6 but I've got to unwind all the corroded wire from the .6mm drum before I can do that and I don't know if I cba.

 

I'll get some pictures up later, it's still pretty shameful stuff, but I need to figure out just why this isn't working.  In the past, I've never had to set the welder up I've just been given the gun and the metal and told to get cracking and I've never had a problem as a result.

[Station]

There's nothing worse than horrible wire feed on a mig welder, or when it gets caught and crushed before the plastic tube, or when the spindle unravels. I find keeping the hose straight when doing this helps.

[Skizzer]

It does sound like you're getting there bit by bit.  You're probably right to go off and do something else for a while - I always find this helps to manage my head.

[alf892]

Get a good earth clamp??...........or use mole grips to 'help' the existing one.

[jonathan_dyane]

It is easier with 0.6 wire when you're welding thin steel.

[Timewaster]

No help I know, but this reminds me of my last attempt at welding an old mini that was shit at the time but probably worth a bloody fortune now.

 

Day 1. Not too bad. Got a few mot patches done.

 

Day 2. Pigeon shit and splatter everywhere. Couldn't weld a thing. Crappy patches you could pull off with your bare hands. Frustrated. Swearing.

Couldn't work it out.

 

Then I noticed what was wrong.

 

Turn. The. Gas. On. Stupid.

 

D'OH

[HillmanImp]

I would say just make sure the metal you are welding is clean and make sure the gas has a good flow. If you are welding outside it can't be windy.

 

If the weld is blowing every now and then, it could well be the metal that is varying in thickness. When reparing rather than restoring old cars you need to work out how much you can cut out and try to weld without cutting away all of the car to get the perfect metal to weld to. In some places the metal can be a bit thinner and blow slightly. As long as its not too much and you can catch the blow, who cares?

 

And to reitterate, make sure the metal you are welding is clean.

[fordperv]

on my clarke welder i found the standard earth clamp to be shit so even though the metal was clean it just wasnt getting a decent earth, i use 0.8 wire on car standard steel but i reckon 0.6 would be better but i want to use my big reel of wire up first before trying

[vulgalour]

Before I left the unit I did get the welder to actually weld.  I did a few practice runs on some scrap and was getting some tolerable, if not pretty, bits of weld.  I'm going to practice more on some more scrap before I tackle anything on the car but I'm feeling a bit more confident.

 

The new tip, straightening the wire feed, a new shroud and setting the welder to 'factory' settings helped immensely with the quality of the weld it now gives me and the wire not stop-starting does make things a lot easier.  I do think I'm moving too fast with the torch, a habit from stick welding thin stuff I think, so I've got to get the feel for it again.  I feel very out of practice, which probably isn't much of a surprise as it's got to be about two years since I last used a MIG properly, but it'll come back to me.

 

 

 

 

On the reverse, it looks a lot more like there's some penetration happening now.

 

 

After clearing my head by getting away from the unit for an hour I headed back and was greeted with an Alfa I could get excited about, the pearlescent purple on this 2000 GTV made me rethink the purple I wanted on the Princess all over again, combining it with that biscuit-and-brown cloth and vinyl interior was just perfect. Not one of JMP's Alfas this time around, but the chap that brought it over does mainly fibreglass work for us.  This one was all steel though, and looked superb.

 

 

 

 

This next picture is slightly more upsetting viewing.  I didn't want to get on with welding anything on the car until I knew I could lay a reliably okay weld, that requires me to have a clearer head and the ability to be a bit more patient with myself.  Instead I had a bit of a think and decided to cut off the bad bit of outer arch and the back end of the outer sill to see a bit better what I was dealing with.

 

That's also when I found out that this is a replacement sill.  The top edge has a spot of weld once every 3" or so and then a skim of very hard filler, I'm pretty sure that's wrong and it should be a seam weld along the top edge.  Other than that, the fitting of it is pretty good, but with no rust treatment applied behind and a surprisingly large amount of crud in the trailing edge I begin to understand much better why this has rotted out like it has.

 

 

It's more solid than I expected inside.  Much of the metal has surface corrosion but it's only the very lower edge that's gone thin and frilly... apart from the closing panel which is made up of two layers of badly fitting metal that didn't seem to be welded in, just fibreglassed in place.

 

I removed the floor patch earlier today and I might do the inner sill ahead of the floor this time around.

 

At this point I got very scared.  I knew it would be a big job but all at once this felt complicated and confusing and scary.  I sat and looked at it and poked it and worried for a good half hour before I gave myself a metaphorical slap and did the only sensible thing I could think of and covered the whole lot in weld through primer so I could properly see beyond the surface rust, the rot and the missing metal.  I don't know how sensible an idea this was in all honesty, but it did help me figure out what to do next.

 

Out with the gaffer tape, I 'rebuilt' the missing bits to approximately where they needed to be so I could figure out how scary a job it really was.  By breaking it down into smaller chunks the whole thing became less scary.  Pulling on some tailoring experience I reminded myself that this was nothing compared to a lapelled double-breasted waistcoat with four pockets and I've managed to make those before.

 

 

I cut some more metal out of the floor, in one area I'd been a little too cautious with removing material and it was thin on closer inspection.  The only bit I'm not sure of is that strengthening beam thing, I'm thinking it's more sensible to drill out the spot welds and remove it complete so I can remove the holed floor underneath it, but is the norm just to cut through it and reweld afterwards?  Your advice welcome here.

 

I felt more comfortable and got the angle grinder out, remembering to pay attention to how easily the cutting disc went through the metal.  If it was too easy I'd cut more until there was a good amount of resistance and that took me back to full thickness metal.  Surprisingly little needed to come off.

 

 

 

 

 

The last job I did was to make two cardboard templates for the floor and inner sill and bring the spare bonnet in which has knackered hinge points.  The bonnet really isn't worth repairing but it is an invaluable source of metal of comparable thickness to what the car is made of.

 

Tomorrow I'm not sure what I'm doing, I may have a crack at the welding after a bit of practice off the car, and I may just make more panels and cut more rot out.  This is probably the first time in a while that my confidence is a little shaky about DIYing a job, but I am a jack of all trades so it's likely I can get this done to a decent standard before too much longer.

[HillmanImp]

 

I am sure you are getting penetration here. What sort of mask are you using? I like to be able to see where the last weld was and pretty much try to place the new weld on top of the last one, holding it until I get the 'sizzling bacon' sound.  

 

[vulgalour]

I have a choice of two masks, one's an old fashioned flip visor and the other is an auto-dim.  The flip visor is better for protecting my eyes but the auto-dim allows me to get the weld where I want it better.  I was switching between the two on the sample scrap, I was using the flip visor when I burned that great big hole.

 

Shakey hands and poor mental focus were not my friend today, maybe tomorrow will be better?

[HillmanImp]

I have a choice of two masks, one's an old fashioned flip visor and the other is an auto-dim.  The flip visor is better for protecting my eyes but the auto-dim allows me to get the weld where I want it better.  I was switching between the two on the sample scrap, I was using the flip visor when I burned that great big hole.

 

Shakey hands and poor mental focus were not my friend today, maybe tomorrow will be better?

 

Hey, its practice makes perfect. I would not be able to do anything like the neat welding above at the mo as I am well out of practice.

 

I can't speak for others, I was just saying what I do as I pretty much made it up as I went along. I just aim to hit the side of the weld I just did. Even with a non reactive visor the heat of the weld can still show through so I aim for that. You just need to watch for the metal buckling on loads of successive welds but if you have a few spot welds holding it in place every couple of inches, its not much to worry about. Just keep hammering the metal close together every now and then if it moves apart. 

 

Sorry if I am teaching you to suck eggs here, just trying to help as I do often do welding to old shizzle and know the frustration.

 

Like I said above its the sizzling bacon sound you want. No matter what you can see, its what you hear that lets you know you have a good weld. 

[vulgalour]

I don't mind any wisdom on this topic being shared.  The fact I didn't think to go back to basics and set up the welder properly just shows that even the most basic advice is of use.  I reckon practice and a clear head will do more wonders than anything as the welder is, if anything, welding even better than the first time I used it.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I could not agree more about the old sizzling bacon sound. The mask allows you to be sure you're welding in the right place, but its the sound that tells you about the quality of the weld. It should almost be a hiss rather than a crackle. Obviously cleanliness if the metal is mega critical as well. When you're practising, turn the wire speed down and slowly increase it to suit, rather than the other way round. Plus I'm sure the welder will need to be at its lowest or possibly second lowest setting.

[vulgalour]

Now I want bacon but the shops are shut.

[Geep]

Vulg, have a look at the second video down on this link. It cover wire speed and shows/sounds what too low and too high is like.

 

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/wire-speed.htm

 

It's a bit cack handed to do, but try altering the wire speed with one hand whilst welding on some scrap. Wire speed is often the most overlooked, untweaked area but can yield tremendous results when you get it right. Bigger industrial welders are more forgiving of wire speed than smaller welders. Give it a try and see what difference there is maintaining the same power settings.