BTW, forgot to mention - you can pretty readily bend 16 ga sheet if you have a good heavy vise and a couple pieces of angle or thick flat bar for backing. Clamp everything up and bang it over with a hammer.
BTW, forgot to mention - you can pretty readily bend 16 ga sheet if you have a good heavy vise and a couple pieces of angle or thick flat bar for backing. Clamp everything up and bang it over with a hammer.
In reply to TVR Scott (Forum Supporter) :
That's exactly how I've been bending 16ga, there's a pile of stuff on the floor behind the workbench to prove it!
Update Sunday 4/26:
Slept in a bit this AM, then made a quick trip to The Future Hammer Store for cutoff discs. Decided to revise the top piece on RH inner to avoid making the long diagonal bend:
now that the upper and lower pieces are parallel, I just need a flat piece to tie them together and bridge the inboard side of that giant shear plane I created when I plated over the open ends of the C5 frame. That's been bugging me, so I'm glad to have figured it out:
I was so happy with the result that I took a break and knocked out my honey-do list for the day:
Then I started making similar pieces for LH. Built this side a little different, made the bottom and side one continuous piece. Welds are not as nice on this side. Didn't have as comfy a working position:
hooray for asymmetry. I think once there's an LT1 in this space, nobody's gonna notice the scabby frame. Except this guy:
By this time it was dark out, so I didn't make my target of putting the rear suspension together and rolling her outside. I did bolt the subframe in and it still lined up at all four bolts, so I'm taking that as a good sign:
Tomorrow I'll make the last couple frame bits and get them burned in, then I'll move on to suspension reassembly. That will make me happy.
In reply to AngryCorvair :
That last pic of the C5 subframe mounted in place is haaawt!
Looking good!
I should have stopped by and shouted at you from the street yesterday Patrick. I was out in South Lyon picking up some Cougar bits late afternoon.
RacetruckRon said:In reply to AngryCorvair :
That last pic of the C5 subframe mounted in place is haaawt!
Thanks man! Not gonna lie, it felt good to bolt it in. It's been a long road.
Subframe in makes me happy, even with the disturbed feeling I get that there are no devil horns in the pic...
Keep up the great work!
AngryCorvair said:RacetruckRon said:In reply to AngryCorvair :
That last pic of the C5 subframe mounted in place is haaawt!
Thanks man! Not gonna lie, it felt good to bolt it in. It's been a long road.
Long road maybe,cause you be driving and paying the tolls.... but an enjoyable ride for those of us who get to ride along and enjoy the scenery.
Pete
Closed out the drivers side yesterday:
had a few blow-through spots on that diagonal butt weld, nothing too bad, will put a small fish plate across it. But damn! The outside corner seam along the top friggin' killed me. Burned through on half of the tacks, bubbles up the centers, just a terrible result. I had the heat on 3/4 and wire speed at 25/100, same as previous welds. Everything was clean(ish) and fit well. So I shut the machine off and said Hmmm, look at that, heat is on 4/4. I remember turning it up because I was gonna do a comparison, and I definitely said to myself, "remember to turn that back down before doing those butt welds."
You can grind it back down a little and fill it with the MIG. Looks great to see the almost finished frame tie ins and the subframe test mounted for fit. Progress!
I was going to mention you probably want to bump up your wire speed a little. A little more material will cut down on the cratering.
Is this a 140 amp machine?
In reply to Crackers :
125A
Mid-day beer drinking sketch for Angry -
That’s AWESOME!
OjaiM5 said:Mid-day beer drinking sketch for Angry -
Dude! That is beyond awesome! I am honored. And of course I immediately ran out to the garage with my work phone because yo dawg, we heard you like MonZora...
Progress makes me want more progress. So tonight I knocked out a few things. Started with opening on RH:
got my CAD going:
scavenged the final piece of C5 crash beam large enough to make the patch:
tacked it all around:
per Crackers' recommendation, I set the wire speed at 40/100 and the results were pretty favorable.
then I made a filler piece for the top of the RH:
CAD included a bend so it would tie into the shear plate to add strength to that joint. instead of trying to fold it with the bench vise and hammer (crash beam is hard to deform!), I cut a piece with the factory-formed bend and trimmed it to fit nice. All tacked in:
then I went back to the LH, and ground the outside edge that I made such a mess of last night and, with the amperage on 3/4 and wire speed at 40/100, was able to fill the burn-throughs no problem:
I'm happy with tonight's results.
That does look better. I'd go just a touch or two more feed and a fraction of a second more burn time. You really need to feed the puddle and give it time to wet out into the parent material. If you're not feeding it enough the middle of the puddle is all flux and the filler metal pulls away towards the parent material leaving the crater.
I've been welding much more than usual over the last year especially the last few months as I'm finishing a bunch of projects. (Several of which are aimed specifically at upping my sheet metal fabrication game.) I'm kinda hyperfocused on it right now, to where the last few days I've got my muscle memory so dialed I keep releasing the trigger subconsciously and tricking myself into thinking the machine is cutting out. LOL
In reply to Crackers :
Thanks for the explanation, I'm still very low on the learning curve and haven't done much practice / experimentation with wire speed.
OjaiM5 said:Mid-day beer drinking sketch for Angry -
YES!
AngryCorvair said:In reply to Crackers :
Thanks for the explanation, I'm still very low on the learning curve and haven't done much practice / experimentation with wire speed.
Looks like you may be trying to weld in a series of little tacks.
If that's the case, try holding the trigger down. Then walk a series of arcs across the two parts, moving the puddle from one side to the other.
In reply to TVR Scott (Forum Supporter) :
Was kinda thinking the same thing since 16 gauge is getting away from "sheet metal" and more into "structural steel".
That said, you are doing flux core and I ain't been there. Crakers is our resident guru on that subject.
I am assuming you are tacking everything now to hold it all in place and then will seam weld it all once you know it all works and is in reasonable alignment? that being the case, you should be able to practice seam welding moving the arc from piece to piece so the puddle bridges the two pieces. You can do this in short segments say an inch or two then stop and inspect. Your welder probably has a short duty cycle and this will cut down on warpage.
dherr (Forum Supporter) said:I am assuming you are tacking everything now to hold it all in place and then will seam weld it all once you know it all works and is in reasonable alignment? that being the case, you should be able to practice seam welding moving the arc from piece to piece so the puddle bridges the two pieces. You can do this in short segments say an inch or two then stop and inspect. Your welder probably has a short duty cycle and this will cut down on warpage.
yes, it will all be fully welded when i get powertrain mounts roughed in.
Today's goals were pretty simple:
tack in the final frame patch:
assemble rear suspension:
set car down on its tires:
take a bunch of pix:
be happy as berkeley:
[image not found]
general comments:
Yesssss!
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