Newbie welder here...trying to get ready to do some bodywork on my cj8.
inside panel of my wleder says to use 2.5V 55 wire speed settings for 16ga with .030 wire. I practiced with those settings on some of the metal I cut out of the body , but kept burning holes through the weld (hope that makes sense...instead of a getting weld bead, I just burned up the material so there was about a 1/8" gap between the pieces I was trying to weld together).
I am experimenting with different settings, but thought I'd ask those that have done this before what settings work best for them in this situation.
Also, when replacing a cut-out piece of sheet metal in the tub, can I just butt-weld the piece in place and then grind smooth, or should I search around for better methods? (sorry, no time to search right now...heading out for the evening).
I have done a little welding on body stuff like shaving door handles..etc..I try to just but weld the stuff I do but not sure if this is the correct way the pro's do it or not.But I always have good results with not much warpage in any.I have a larger Miller than you have but I usaully set mine on the lowest setting or the second to the lowest.Then I turn my wire feed down to in the single digit's.Basicly really really slow.This way I can burn thin sheet metal without it getting away from me and burning holes.You can also try spot welding till you get better at it.Just weld a spot then the weld another spot untill you have the whole thing welded up.Then be prepared to do a little grindig to smooth the welds down flat and a little bondo to clean everything up.
55/2.5v is high for sheetmetal, especially with .030" wire.
What gas are you using?
Smaller wire will make it easier to weld sheetmetal without blowing through.
When welding the floors of my MJ (also with a Miller 175, using 75%Argon/25%Co2):
with .023" wire, 45/1.9v was PERFECT.
when I jumped up slightly to .025" wire, dialing the speed setting back to 35 kept me from blowing out the thin spots, but still welded great.
40 probably would've worked fine too.
With .030", I'd probably start around 30-35/1.8v, and adjust as necessary.
Even better would be to buy a spool of smaller wire to make sheetmetal easier, and save the .030" for bigger stuff.
With my Lincoln, on 16ga, using .24 wire helps. Otherwise, just turn keep turning down the settings until you don't burn through! Its not really that hard. I tend to turn my feed speed and voltage down together. For 16ga, I probably use about 1/6th turn on both knobs but its been a while.
I have a Miilermatic 200 loaded with .035 wire and I use it for evrything....you can do the 16GA with what you have, you just need practice....try making a few spots spread out a few inches apart along your seam, making sure they penetrate well enough (should be NO problem on 16GA). After you get to the end of your seam, go back to the beginning and put more spots next to the first set, then repeat till you have a solid seam.....this technique keeps the heat down and stops you from burning through.
BTW, as far as butt welding, spot welding, or whatever:
On my MJ, the floors are part of the uni-frame, so I wanted the new floors atleast as strong as the originals.
I overlapped atleast 1" (sometimes more), and drilled holes where it overlapped, so I could spotweld @ the overlaps, in addition to running beads at the ends of the sheetmetal.
Underneath, I plan to weld the ends of the original sheetmetal where it overlaps the new stuff, but haven't done that yet.
Filling it in the overlap underneath with seam sealer would probably be fine in a non-unibody like a CJ though.
First off is this were you care what it looks like? You try to lay a continuations weld down on gages that thin your going to have a ton of warp and distortion.
The proper way to butt weld panels like that is to make a spot and then jump an inch and make a spot till the end then lay the next spot and jump to the end. That keeps the burn through down. It keeps the heat down to help prevent warp. Its more time consuming but the end result is better.
If you don't give a crap about the end product then turn the heat down and go for it.
???? The only 16ga setting recommended for 3/45 on mine on the chart is for .035" wire with Flux core and no gas??? I double-checked and the settings I have above are what is on my chart.
Thanks for the replies. I will see about getting a smaller spool of wire, I do have some .035" but no help there.
I would prefer that the welds look good, even though they will pretty much be covered by rocker gaurds, etc.
I am also welding in an entire new floor panel, from firewall back to where the cj tub kicks up about 4". I drilled out all the original spot welds there when removing my original floor so I plan to spot weld the new one back in then use body caulk (or whatever it's called) to seal all the way around.
Doing spot welds like that is a little trickier then you would think. Practice some on some scrap and try pealing it apart.
I have helped to put a floor in a CJ5. We ended up leaving a lip IN SIDE the tub at the fire wall as opposed to trying to weld that lip where the floor meets the fire wall. It worked out quite well. The rear where it meats the cargo floor we had pretty good luck just doing the spot welds. The sides were a bitch. Had a good amount of distortion in a visible area where you want minimal filler in case you flex te panel. We ended up just leaving it with no filler and using a tall plate rocker protector to hide the weld spots. It also got a coat of bed liner it wasnt supose to.
What I meant by spot welds was kinda of like poison spyder welds all of there stuff.I dont like that kinda of welding for thick stuff but thin sometimes seem to help the heat build up for me.
What I meant by spot welds was kinda of like poison spyder welds all of there stuff.I dont like that kinda of welding for thick stuff but thin sometimes seem to help the heat build up for me.
I ended up practicing on some scrap and the setting that worked best for me was voltage below 1 and wire speed at just under 50. But I had a pretty big weld bead to grind off. Please note that I am not recommending these as the optimum settings...just that they worked for me because I am (at this point anyway) a terrible newb welder.
Well, in case anybody is interested, here is a part of a write up I did on the cj-8 board that shows some of my rust repair. (note for purposes of THIS thread, I should have taken pictures of the weld...I will do that tomorrow when I do some more rust repair to show the bead I am getting with that setting). :
1. Cut out the rusted area completely. I used a cut off wheel, but you can use a sawzall or jigsaw if you have them.
2. Get a piece of 16ga sheet metal and cut it to fit your cut-out hole. I used some cardboard to trace a template, then cut my new sheet metal piece, then used a grinder to get it to fit snug all the way around. I used c-clamps to hold it flush with the tub sheet metal.
3. Weld it. I practiced with some scrap pieces first to try and get my machine settings correct. Remember to make short welds and skip around a bit and take breaks to keep the metal from getting too hot. OK, no picture here, as my weld looked UGLY! (Sorry, told you I wasn't a welder....yet )
4. Get the bad welder's best friend, the grinder, and grind the weld bead down flush with the tub sheet metal. Again, take lots of breaks and move around a little to keep the metal from overheating, or else it will warp on you.
You can stll see my weld bead here, but I am thinking that I will either do a little fill-in welding and grinding to smooth it out, or just add a little bondo.
Later
-Mike
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