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I think I should remove "Welding" from my profile.

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I finally got the driver's side floorboard welded down. All I can say is "Thank g_d for carpet". A welder I am not. But, that sucker is down, and tight. Since I actually overlaid the new floor over the old around the perimeter, this gave me a slight "lift on the new floor where it stands proud of the old about 1/8". The only area this poses a problem is where the center console brace needs to bolt through the two holes in the floor and into a frame brace. The floor has a slight gap over this brace. The PO had stripped the four weld nuts in this bracket (2 on each side) and rather than try to weld in new nuts (please read subject line of this post), I drilled out the nuts with a 9/32" bit, tapped the nuts to a 5/16" x 24 fine thread and used a larger bolt. I put some fender washers under the bolts (sans console brace) and slowly sucked them down till the floor touches the brackets. Leave it for a few days and let the floorboard adapt. Thank goodness the plastic tranny cover is just that, plastic. Shouldn't have a problem.
Got lots of grinding and "prettying up" to do before I put primer and seal the bottom of the floors where I have overlap. Will inject paint and then body sealer to prevent any moisture trap. Probably can pop the overlap with a hammer and chisel in a few spots to seal this envelope.

Will eventually post pictures. My wife caught one from behind me while welding, pants sliding off, showing my "plumbers butt", not a pretty picture.

I am one tired puppy tonight.
 
Re: I think I should remove "Welding" from my prof

Also, I primed the bottom of the floorboard with Red Lead Primer before welding it in, all but about an inch on the weld edges so as not to screw up my welds. I can get to these areas to prime and paint by injection spraying. Could never have satisfactorily painted the bottom of the floor after it was welded down. The original cars all had exposed red primer on the bottom of the floors, were never painted any color at the factory.
 
Re: I think I should remove "Welding" from my prof

Don't feel too bad about your welds. Welding thinner metal like the floors takes a little skill and lots of practice. Once you develop the feel for it, it is not too bad. I was having a pretty hard time with my welding then paid for a few classes which really helped and filled in a lot of unknowns. Throw in about a years practice on thicker gauge stuff and now it is pretty easy, although I still pay to have my aluminum welded.

Now if I had a TIG, that might be a different story, but then I would probably be divorced. BTW, be careful welding around paint (fumes), I rigged up a resperator to fit under my welding helmet when I knew I would melt some paint.

I also put a fan above the weld to blow the fumes out/away, but not so low as to blow the shielding gas off the weld.
 
Re: I think I should remove "Welding" from my prof

I think I told ya before: some of the finest welding I've ever seen was done by a dentist. You guys have great "hands."

Keep at it. You'll soon put the rest of us to shame. In my case it's already happened.
 
Re: I think I should remove "Welding" from my prof

Some of the best welds that I have seen were made by a male surgical nurse. Course he was covering a weekend shift in his parents muffler shop, which he grew up welding in. Very purty welds on my exhaust from that fellow. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif
 
Re: I think I should remove "Welding" from my prof

I feel your pain... I just finished the floor in the junkpile spit tonight! No more welding for a while, YEAH!(normally I like to weld, but I have a ton of hours in fixing a severly rusted RX7 for a friend last fall) It can really be a bear dealing with thin rusted sheet metal. Get a few pix up, if you show me yours, I'll show you mine! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif Anyhow, as my Dad used to say,"anyone can weld, but you have to do it every day to be considered a welder..."
 
Re: I think I should remove "Welding" from my prof

I'm with frankenstang, I can weld but I'm not a welder. It's amazing about the things "Dads" said coming back to us as we go through life.

Cheers, Tinkerman
 
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