TR2/3/3A continuing repairs to front clip

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Frank Canale

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• May 6, 2019

• #1

I had put off repairing the front body mounts and inner wing. I have a table built to set the front end on to do the repair and have started with the passenger side. All is going well. I started to make the template for the driver inner wing repair and noticed the back flange has been folded up approximately 1/2". The passenger side flange is flat and has not been folded up. Any ideas if this fold is necessary or just another oddity from years gone past. The photos are from behind the front body mount. The flange in question is part of the inner wing and the body mount bracket is spot welded to this area.

 

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LionelJrudd

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• May 6, 2019

• #2

Frank the lower part of my inner guards where it is spot welded on to the bracket were both folded up flush so that is how I made them.

Below you can see the flange as I fitted the repair section on the RH side

Here once the bracket was spot welded to the guard and then the flange turned up.

 

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Frank Canale

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• May 6, 2019

• #3

Thank you Lionel, Both sides of mine have the tab doubled over at the bottom like you did but the diagonal flange that wraps behind the body mount is what I have the question about. The passenger side is flat and the driver side has part of the flange doubled over.

 

Graham H

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• May 6, 2019

• #4

Does this help.

Graham

 

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LionelJrudd

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• May 6, 2019

• #5

Gotcha. Just flat.

 

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sp53

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• May 6, 2019

• #6

Hi Graham is your body a 1959, like TS-4something

 

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Frank Canale

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• May 6, 2019

• #7

Great ,that is what I thought. I could not figure any reason for it to be doubled over and it really did not look neat and even. Thank you Graham and Lionel for the pictures. My passenger side that was rusted out had an extra hole that I did not think should be there so I left it out of the repair panel( just has the one 1/2” hole) so that is off my mind. Hope to get the passenger body mount spot welded to the inner wing that has already been welded and then on to the driver side.

 

Graham H

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• May 6, 2019

• #8

Yes TS/57849 build date 24 August 1959

Graham

 

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Frank Canale

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• May 7, 2019

• #9

Passenger side is welded in but I am a little disappointed with the spot welds. Lionel sets the bar pretty high and looking back at his, has me thinking I might have to redo mine. I will decide after the driver side. I am going to have to make a better way to clamp the panels for spot welding and give lionels method a try. His sure do look good.

 

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sp53

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• May 7, 2019

• #10

Yes Frank Graham car is beautiful and very photogenic. The area you are working on is often a problem because the sheet metal is folded on the bottom and doubled for the body mount and water gets between the 2 pieces of tin at the inside seem and rust. The spot welds should be there and I am so much a purest I look for them. In the past I have taken a whole saw and drilled off the just the first lawyer of the doubled metal to see how bad it has rusted between the 2 sections and then if not too bad taken the whole saw and drilled another piece for the plug then welded that back in for a filler after I chipped off what is left of the old spot welds. That is one reason I look for the spot-welds because that area gets fixed very creatively sometimes. You are a much better welder and fabricator than I, so you will probably build something like Lionel. Incidentally, the little hole in Graham pictures is for a clip that holds the overflow for radiator.
steve

 

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DavidApp

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• May 7, 2019

• #11

Also I believe that Lionel is using a TIG welder for his spot welds.

David

 

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Frank Canale

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• May 7, 2019

• #12

I am also using a tig welder but I tried plug welds like I did on the frame and they worked great but that was two pieces of 16 gauge. That method did not work with the 20 gauge to the 16 gauge body mount bracket. My repair does not look bad but no where as good as Lionel's. The repair was great till I did the plug welds, The picture looks worse than it really is. The body mount bracket turned out very good. That bracket is a difficult bracket to form due to the shape. Only one flange can be formed in the brake and the rest has to be hammer formed. I made the mounting flange out of heavier 1/8" material and welded that flange in. The original flange was distorted and looked a little light to me so I added the heavier metal, Just like I did to the outrigger mounts. I am hoping this will make for a stiffer car.

 

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Graham H

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• May 7, 2019

• #13

I used a repair panel plus a piece of cut out panel steel much the same as yours

Graham

 

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Frank Canale

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• May 8, 2019

• #14

Thank You Graham for the pictures. The after picture of the painted car looks great and will be taken into consideration as to weather I redo the first repair or not. If I redo the repair it might save a little time when it comes time to do the paint work. I will take a little time to think about re doing the repair after the driver side is done.

 

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LionelJrudd

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• May 8, 2019

• #15

Frank, with my spot welds I use 125 amps dc and hold it for 2 to 2.5 seconds when spotting two pieces of body sheet. If the backing sheet is thicker, I increase the time a bit.

The two sheets need to be very clean and clamped very firmly together. Any gap between the sheets and the top sheet will blow out. I regularly use a three eigth inch copper plate as a heat sink behind the weld. This is not always convenient in tight corners but if used, can allow you to extend the period of the weld.

I think your plug welds look pretty good. The reason I started researching spot welds with the tig was because my plug welds looked so awful. Haven't gone back to plug welds except in extreme situations. I never seem to be able to get the filler rod, electrode and hole all together in the right place at the right time without getting a big blob of weld.

 

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Frank Canale

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• May 8, 2019

• #16

Hi Lionel, I hope to have the spot welding clamp done today. Looking forward to giving it a try. I used 2 welding clamps to clamp the pieces and that works ok but this new clamp might be better. The one question I have , are you spraying the mating pieces with weld thru primer that you spot welded. Anything that is folded or welded together is being sprayed with the weld thru primer so far and this might make the spot weld a little easier for me. Thanks for the information, I had gone back and looked up your work on the tub and found how you were spot welding your parts. Thank you for following , It is great to have others watching and giving advice. I am on my own here except for the followers on the forum, Great to have the extra help.

 

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LionelJrudd

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• May 8, 2019

• #17

Frank I am not using weld through primer on the welds. Had too mich trouble early on with the weld blowing out so now will depend on getting as much primer as I can into the joins after the weld. Copper rich weld through primer is probably OK but the tig seems a lot more sensitive to primer than the mig.