Gertie the 72 crossdresser. Full resto....and it needs it!

Been up the garage for 8 hours today but it doesn't look like 8 hours worth of work. lol
The welder has had a mind of it's own today and I've spent loads of time messing around, it keeps burning back into the tip, no matter what setting or what I did with it. I ended up using 0.8mm tips with 0.6 wire and it seems to have settled down a little.

First I cut out the bellypan and tidied up the chassis where it was fitted then I went over old ground and re-did a few patches now that I have plenty of juice after redoing my electricity supply in the garage.



I decided to fit the rear jacking point and rear most sill / chassis strengthener so thought I'd sleeve in the cable slot which lives under the jacking point, so I cut a piece of 20mm steel conduit across at an angle then welded it to the chassis.





I then turned my attention to the jacking points.









Gearbox out tomorrow or Tuesday I think then the crossmembers as they've rotted out.

 

Managed to get 6 hours in today. Started removing the gearbox but found 3 bolts in the CV joints that seemed to be made of cheese! :laugh2:
I got them out with a mini stillsons. Took about 20 mins longer than it should have really to get the box out.

Looking a bit emptier.



Cleaned some of the rusty metal back with a wire cup and put some zinc rich paint on it.







Got a little more welding done, plating some thin, holed metal.

 

I did exactly the same derusting under the tank at the weekend, a dirty horrible, but necessary job :-[

 

Plenty of welding to do to that one dude

quick question... are you using pub gas/co2 as you weld shield?

 

No, 5% argoshield. Why do you ask?

I've been having welder problems and haven't been able to get runs without burning back into the tip, also looking at the new welder I seem to be getting a little better penetration as opposed to the 120 clarke I was using so have just swapped over to my 150 Sip migmate and it seems to be welding ok now. The only thing is when welding good quality plate (2mm) to the old rusted delaminated old chassis sections it don't half blow holes. I seem to be turning down the setting all the time to fill holes. :laugh2:

I have to get into the habit of turning down my wire speed to get more penetration and stop putting too much metal on top of the work piece.

 

Spent about 4 hours up there today. Got a few holes repaired in the chassis section behind the front wheel just aft of the beam. Then removed the handbrake lines from inside the bowden tubes and the clutch cable from out of it's tube, then chopped them out. Also made inroads to getting the rotten cross members off.





Still need to make a small repair to the front of the chassis section behind the beam (and under this section I have just patched but it can wait until the beam is off.

 

hello nice resto thread... ;D

to get the spring plate off I think you are going to have to take the four bolts that attach it to the hub ,then just pull it off...

bon courage...

 

The problem you're having with the chassis is they rust from the inside. You're blowing holes because it's thin. Next time you cut a chunk out that looks bad on the outside, stick your funger in and have a feel about. Find a good bit and bang it with a hammer, then repeat around where you're fixing to hear the difference.

This will sound negative, but from the pictures it does look very rusty. I wonder if you might be replacing too little chassis and storing up problems for a few years time...

 

That's really good advise zed.wen I cut sections of of my chassis I was scared how thin they had got!

 

Paul, cheers for the help. Although I will say that until last time I was home I was running the welder in the garage which itself was powered by a jo jo extension reel, lol, and then this week I have been having issues with my Clarke welder. If you look at the base of the jacking point here, when I have been getting a reasonable setup, the weld looks fine. Check out the seam where the JP joins the main chassis rail, obviously the jacking point and the section of chassis it was being welded to were both fresh metal and not rusty crap. lol. I think the rest of the welding on the jacking point looks poo is that I ws welding along the edge after plug welding just inboard of the edge.

Not being picky and I do appreciate the advice from you all.

cheers again.
Lyn

 

The weld on the outrigger to chassis rail looks pretty much spot on!!

Something else you need to do is clean the area that you're going to be welding... no paint other than weld thru That black transit paint can be a right pain when it comes to welding!!

Also, with long lengths of weld (like on the JP to top hat) don't try and do it in a one-er, do it 10 to 25mm at a time... will stop heat build up and weld pool dripping

And lastly, what length of extension lead are you using?? if it's more than a 10m lead, you might want to upgrade it to a custom made one with some heavy duty cable, and plug it in to the electric cooker point, if it has a 13amp socket on it

 

I find when I'm welding I get a better eel with short sharp spots overlapping each other rather then runnin the weld.higher temp helps if penetrate better and looks neater most the time. I used to run my old welder off 13a socket but my new one runs of 16a blue plug as its welds soo much nice. next up to try is co2/argon mix. Keep it up though as your cracking on well with this!

 

This is plenty of heat with spot welds of maybe 2 seconds each slightly overlapping

 

Cheers Paul and Jimmy, another thing I had forgotten about is since swapping back to the SIP, I only had 0.8mm wire left which may be another reason for the heavy welds on top of the parent metal (I have since bought 0.6).
Even though I have now fitted a 4mm armoured feed from a 30A supply in the house (I am a sparkie), I am still using an extension lead in the garage from the nearest socket, BUT I have just taken delivery of a 16A switched outlet for the plasma cutter I have purchased. I will be wiring that tomorrow or Saturday so the electricity supply will be 100% then.

Right then, todays work.

Only managed to get in 1.5 hours before her indoors was hollering that food was ready lol so I left it at that. I Cleaned away some more of the front crossmember and cut some of the grot out behind it (the fillet piece) and prepared the new piece to fit tomorrow or Saturday. I also cut a piece of the chassis side rail which I will redo when the fillet is fitted.

 

Yeah, I normally only use 0.8mm when I'm welding over 3mm thick steel

 

I use 0.8 all the time in my current welder.0.6 might be better for the thinner parts but I can never be bothered to change the real over

 

Serious work going on there! You don't do things by halves! Nice work.