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Location:
gold coast
Registered:
December 2004
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mig or ark?
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Wed, 26 October 2005 10:27
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i have searched and found alot of information about stich and spot welding seams in cars, one question i didnt find the answer to is, do you have to use a mig welder or can you just use an ark, i have access to an ark welder but not a mig, and from wat i understand they work on a simillar principle,
i was also wondering if there needs to be a specific distance between welds to work best,
thanks guys, jason
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Location:
Kita-Ku, Sapporo, Japan
Registered:
January 2003
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Re: mig or ark?
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Wed, 26 October 2005 11:00
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if this is for doriftoing, just use rivets 
ARC welders are usually for thicker materials.. say.. 1mm and over... whereas MIG can do thinner panels with the correct wire and gas.
stiTch welding is not really warranted, and you have to strip the entire car bare to get to the places where it would be useful... maybe just make up some reinforcing bars/gussets etc and weld them in instead.. or weld in a tower to tower cage
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Location:
gold coast
Registered:
December 2004
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Re: mig or ark?
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Wed, 26 October 2005 11:17
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it is my drift car and yeah shes completly stripped, can an ark be turned down to do thinner metal, also ive heard some bad stuff bout riviting, prob just do the weld job
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Location:
Kita-Ku, Sapporo, Japan
Registered:
January 2003
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Re: mig or ark?
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Wed, 26 October 2005 11:22
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ARC
sure you can turn it down, but yu can only get sticks so thin and no thinner 
go talk to a specific welding shop and tell them what you want to do...
and seriously, the chances of you noticing the difference in drift is negligible....
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Location:
Geelong, Vic
Registered:
November 2004
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Re: mig or ark?
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Wed, 26 October 2005 11:44
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MIG welding is the way to go for you 0.6mm or 0.9mm max wire
ARC welding is not suitable for welding car panels it puts too much heat into the panels causing distortion from shrinkage (MIG can too if your not careful)im sure there will be someone out there telling you ARC welding panels is possible... i wouldnt do it and im a boilermaker!
Hire a MIG and do it right the first time
cheers
phill
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Location:
1st street on the right
Registered:
November 2002
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Re: mig or ark?
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Wed, 26 October 2005 12:20
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Hi,
I'm new to the dorifto scene and having just picked up a mercedes sprintah I was looking to mod it ASAP.
I was starting with the body and of course this leads to the previous posts question about welding. I was told that if I plug weld my riveted seams that I would have results that would have been previously unknown to have existed. Perhaps even to the point that I won't need strut braces, roll cage or even teh famed coiloverz.
But seriously. Should I mix my riveting/welding genre, ie: stell chassis, stainless rivets and alloy welding (I've heard this can be done most sucessfully with my $99- supercheap gasless mig)
I was going to chop the roof as I thought while teh sprintah has good head room, it may be impeeding on it's performance having such a high centre of gravity. But Tony at the local chop shop said it would be fine. He also gave me a good deal on a 5M front cut, $2800- was pretty good value I thought.
Well must go, con is busy drilling the seams and riveting waits for no-one.
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Banned by his request
Location:
moved to tamworth
Registered:
July 2002
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Re: mig or ark?
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Wed, 26 October 2005 20:21
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tig works best for seem welding.it burns the paint and glue from between the seems so you dont have to clean it out.quicker.
mick
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Registered:
September 2005
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Re: mig or ark?
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Wed, 26 October 2005 21:08
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| oldcorollas wrote on Wed, 26 October 2005 20:52 |
ARC
sure you can turn it down, but yu can only get sticks so thin and no thinner
go talk to a specific welding shop and tell them what you want to do...
and seriously, the chances of you noticing the difference in drift is negligible....
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im afraid your wrong, seam welding really does stiffen up the chassis somewhat and is very noticeable.
forget arc welding, its messy, crude and leaves slag everywhere. Go borrow a mig (and not a gasless one either) and spend some time practising and then go for it.
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Location:
Canberra
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: mig or ark?
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Wed, 26 October 2005 22:03
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| kingmick wrote on Thu, 27 October 2005 06:21 |
tig works best for seem welding.it burns the paint and glue from between the seems so you dont have to clean it out.quicker.
mick
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I've always gone around the seams with an oxy and a wire brush first, then hit it with a MIG.
I've never heard of anyone using a TIG for seam welding - how on earth do you avoid weld contamination? It might burn the paint and seam sealer, but, unless you run an arc along the seam, then follow with a wire brush and then go back and weld, I can't see how you would get clean welds..
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I supported Toymods
Location:
melbourne.victoria.austra...
Registered:
June 2002
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Re: mig or ark?
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Wed, 26 October 2005 22:40
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MIG would be fine for this. and not gasless.
0.8mm wire with argoshield mix will be ideal.
make sure you have the areas you want to mig clean - get a wire wheel on your drill/angle grinder and clean the area back to bare metal to ensure minimum spatter/mess during the weld. this will ensure good penetration and a solid weld.
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Location:
Kita-Ku, Sapporo, Japan
Registered:
January 2003
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Re: mig or ark?
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Wed, 26 October 2005 23:17
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| bluehachi wrote on Thu, 27 October 2005 07:08 |
im afraid your wrong, seam welding really does stiffen up the chassis somewhat and is very noticeable.
forget arc welding, its messy, crude and leaves slag everywhere. Go borrow a mig (and not a gasless one either) and spend some time practising and then go for it.
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oh, i guess i'm wrong then..
how much improvement did you find in your lap times after seam welding compared to before?
how can you quantify the change in a drift sense?
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Location:
Canberra
Registered:
October 2004
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Re: mig or ark?
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Thu, 27 October 2005 00:29
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just subscribing.. i want to see where this one goes 
oh.. and yeah you can't arc it sucessfully, there are probably people out there who can but wouldn't.. and it isn't you...
ben: just wondering, why do you think for seam welding it would be harder to get a non-contaminated weld with a TIG than a MIG?
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Location:
Canberra
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: mig or ark?
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Thu, 27 October 2005 00:46
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| SL666 wrote on Thu, 27 October 2005 10:29 |
ben: just wondering, why do you think for seam welding it would be harder to get a non-contaminated weld with a TIG than a MIG?
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I don't believe that a TIG would clean the surface like Mick seems to be saying (anyone who has ever used a TIG will tell you how bad a dirty surface is).
Once you've gone to the effort of cleaning out the seams with an oxy and wire brush, the difference would be down to time. You can probably get it done in about 1/10 the time with a MIG compared to a tig.
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Location:
Canberra
Registered:
October 2004
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Location:
Canberra
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: mig or ark?
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Thu, 27 October 2005 01:12
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For cleaning out seams, an oxy is great. You can just poke the flame down the gap, and if you follow it with a wire brush it gets rid of all the crud hiding in there. Getting the arc from a TIG into the gap would be bloody hard and you couldn't see what you are doing with the wire brush.
If you don't heat it before you weld, the stuff inside the seams will burn once you start to weld causing all sorts of contamination.
The other disadvantage of a TIG, is unless you have a hand controller, you need somewhere to put the pedal and it's nice to have a seat. It's kind of difficult to get to the back of an engine bay (or under a car) while seated...
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Location:
Canberra
Registered:
October 2004
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Re: mig or ark?
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Thu, 27 October 2005 01:25
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This might sounds like a silly question, but what are you burning out of the seams anyway? paint? wouldn't they have been spot welded in the first place?
i recon the plasma stream from the tig would heat it up enough to burn out anything thats going to burn when you weld it anyway..
yeah i hate positional stuff with tig.. in general our last two tig items are non rotatable vertical and horiz on some bigish pipe..
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Location:
Lost in the K hole
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: mig or ark?
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Thu, 27 October 2005 01:30
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| clubagreenie wrote on Wed, 26 October 2005 22:20 |
steel chassis, stainless rivets and alloy welding
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is that now a battery? level 23 weight reduction...
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Location:
Canberra
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: mig or ark?
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Thu, 27 October 2005 01:49
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| SL666 wrote on Thu, 27 October 2005 11:25 |
This might sounds like a silly question, but what are you burning out of the seams anyway? paint? wouldn't they have been spot welded in the first place?
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I'm not 100% sure what it is, but, if you try to weld straight over a seam, you'll see all sorts of stuff blowing out from underneath and trashing your weld.
I assume that they don't spot weld bare steel, there is a coating to stop water getting between the seams. If there is any sort of gap, you're going to get dirt, paint and oil trapped down there - all of which can contaminiate the weld. The plasma stream will melt some of it and loosten up some more, but, it won't get rid of it. Another advantage of the oxy is the velocity of the gas blowing out the nozzle clears out some more of the crud.
Don't get me wrong, tig welds would probably be slightly better, but I don't think it's worth the extra time and effort involved (particularly as you are just reinforcing the existing structure).
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Location:
Canberra
Registered:
October 2004
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Re: mig or ark?
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Thu, 27 October 2005 02:30
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| Quote: |
Don't get me wrong, tig welds would probably be slightly better, but I don't think it's worth the extra time and effort involved (particularly as you are just reinforcing the existing structure).
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oh hell no.. no way would i even think of doing it..
i think they would have to spot weld bare steel.. otherwise it wouldn't bond well.. they probably chuck some wierd goo in there after the fact... and years of dirt too i suspect..
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Location:
Canberra
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: mig or ark?
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Thu, 27 October 2005 02:39
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If you have a look at this picture:
You can see what was under the factory spot welded engine cover latch on my mr2. I don't know if all spot welded seams are like this though...
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I supported Toymods
Banned User
Location:
Brisbane
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: mig or ark?
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Thu, 27 October 2005 03:44
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They use seam sealer in seams which "you guessed it" seals the seam  You can use a spot welder to join materials togeather that have the sealer inbetween.
For new steel that is going to be seamed and spot welded, you can get weld through primer which allows the spot welds to fully bond.
This is how the factorys do it and any decent panel shop.
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