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

Cheers DA! 8) Nice to hear. O0

2 Hours this evening, dressing up the fillet and clamping it in place. Not happy welding overhand (upside down) tho. Had to mess around with the settings before it was happy getting anything like a weld. Cleaned up ok and even with only one side welded, it won't go anywhere even with a hammer so it's all good.

Also filled the hole in the side rail and made a filler piece to finish off this section (although that piece needs welding all round but it's fixed for now), I'm gonna finish the garage supply and fit the 16A socket and armoured cable feed before carrying on.

 

I find increasing the wire speed a bit help when welding upside down. And have a gap roughly the same as the material thickness. Looking good.

 

Yes, you have to stop before that happens.

 

Finally got my cheap plasma cutter collected from Wrexham after winning it on ebay for £92. Result. Not a mark on it, looked new and unused. Can't wait for a little better weather so I have less water swilling around my garage now. lol.
Ignore the slag on the top face, this was caused by my ineptitude in not starting my compressor which then blocked up the tips. :-[ The slag was caused by me re-using cleaned up tips as I am awaiting mew tips arriving. The first cut to the side was a clean one. all in all, not bad for £92.





Ended up using my small nailing compressor which kept up admirably.

 

same plasma as what i bought!! good little unit is it!! 8)

 

Got all my tips for the plasma from Shopriver seller on ebay, 50 pieces for £23 inc delivery from China, delivered in 9 days!!!

I have also sold my Clarke 120 and second spares unit and picked up another welder. This time an old school West German made Elektra Beckum (rebadged) Taskmaster 160/30TS. I got it because the duty cycle means even at 100% this thing will still deliver 90amps!!! Also it was cheapish as it wasn't working.
I found the euro torch feed wire pulled out from the crimp on the transformer. That fixed, I also found it wasn't delivering gas to the torch which turned out to be a blocked torch line from the euro connector to the torch head. So I have purchased another euro torch and quality earth clamp from fleebay. No worries regarding the quality of weld for when I do the chassis section change out at the rear.

The final pic is a run on a piece of 6mm thick angle. This was with a partially blocked gas line.

 

I've decided my new favourite tool is the Plasma cutter. O0 Man what a bit of kit. Totally controllable , virtually no heat distortion on bodywork thickness metal and the ability to cut a piece of 10mm bar which was effortless.

I bit the bullet today and started trimming up the chassis section to replace the rear piece from torsion tube to the rear corner which has rotted away and has no bottom left on it!

On my salvage part I decided to cut away the 2 main brackets either side behind the wheel and leave the bump stop housing to attach the trailing arm from the torsion tube and also leave the tie bars back to the torsion tube and body mount which bolts on. It was a fair bit of work to hack away the tube, which should allow me to just slot in the new section against the tube, bolt it to the body mount then seam around the torsion tube and plug weld the hangers. (Sounds easy don't it!!!) I Still have to brace the torsion tube back to the body to stop it moving when I cut out the old chassis section and I also have a few spot welds to remove on my salvage part to remove the remains of the bodywork on the rear corner.

(Ignore the fact the pic is on it's side, it's easier to make out what I started with.)



....and this is what I have left to work with.

 

comming alone nice mate,

love that plasma cutter too,

 

great work there buddy, isn't it odd how only one side is bad, mines the same! not quite as bad as yours, but i've had to replace a lot of the chassis too
keep it up

 

Can't sort out my chassis yet until I get a new reg for my plasma so decided to do what I could progress. Cleaned up and gave a quick lick of etch to my last repair.



Then started dressing back the rot on the chassis opposite. Cut out the repair section to replace in the morning. Thats it, just an hour or 2 this evening.

 

6 hours today.
Cut a filler for the hole I cut yesterday.



Welded



Dressed back



Quick coat of etch. Still need to peel off a layer of metal from where the body pans were.

 

4 hours today.
Was looking at the third jacking point box section and how rotten it was and the back of the chassis section was so cut it all back to good metal (well as good as I could find). I've pretty much run out of box section chassis repair sections and 2mm steel so I have to use what I can find.
Took what I had and bent a return lip on it and put what I had in the hole but will have to cut back the lip and put a little more into the lip on the RH side.





Cut off the lip and welded it back on the other side.



Could only find some 1mm self panels so used it to make the box section closer for the jacking point part of the chassis. Fabricated what was required then welded in place.



One lick of paint later.

 

You need to get more 2mm. 1mm is not adequate for chassis repairs. I think you know that.

 

Sorry, re-reading the passage, I should have made it clear the main piece which went onto the chassis WAS 2mm, the 1mm was just for the box section closing piece. Cheers anyway Zed. The closing piece I put in is still substantially better than what was removed. :laugh2:

I have 2mm coming either tomorrow or Saturday.

 

Keep at it dude your progressing at a good rate

 

Cheers dude. 8)

I have been unable to cut out the main chassis section I want to replace with the chassis cut as I killed my little nailing compressor, so for the last 2 days I have been sorting out my kit.
I have put my big 3HP compressor on a separate 16amp feed and removed my regulator and gauge from my little compressor so I can start using my plasma again. Also been fitting some new lighting to my workshop, so all set now.

Can't wit to hit that chassis now, unfortunately I'm back offshore on Monday so may have to wait 2 weeks. I'll see what time I have tomorrow as it's my last day off work.

 

Spent about 7 hours today, prepping the chassis to accept the cut. Used about 15 tips on the plasma but would never have got it done without it.



Didn't know how to proceed with the torsion/bump stop hanger so in the end I chopped it off the cut and dressed back the original, just need to drill it for plug welding now.



Also stripped back and cleaned the main hangers after removing the fuel tank.



Had to notch the top of the chassis cut as it has a lipped return so won't just slide in as they must build the chassis around the main rail.

All welded and dressed back.



thats it for 2 weeks, back in work tomorrow.

 

Do you work on the rigs dude?