Ulu

That was just the argon solenoid clicking on and off. Right now I am still catching up the misc floor welding.

I can mass produce something nobody wants? I don’t need money that bad.

2 bottles of argon later, I have the tunnel done, all the front closures, gussets, plug welds, and such are complete. The mid-crossmember is welded in. It has 3 little gussets. Needs a fourth. 26 of 34 welds on the small angle iron crossmembers are done. A few welds remain to do on the rear closures. Then the main frame elements will all be welded.

Please don’t start any ugly contests. 🤪 Well I burned through the rest of my Argon today. I got the floor plug welded in six places where it was still needed, and I made some little gussets & tacked them in on the frame rails. I welded the top of the tunnel to the crossmember, and now I need to roll the frame twice, so I can continue welding the vertical part in a flat position. I’m gonna take tomorrow off & avoid welding. Then Monday, it’s back to the welding shop for more gas.

I got all of the frame rails fully seamed, top and bottom now. I did this with dozens of skip welds, so there are lots of stops and starts. There’s some pretty ugly ones right there, but the rails will be very solid. I also got the rest of the floor ledgers welded to the crossmember. Before I roll it again, I need to weld on the tunnel, and partially weld the tunnel to the crossmember. The floor still needs work in the corners There’s still lots of welding to do on the big square gussets in the photo above, On the crossmember to frame connections, and the forward frame closures.

Do you guys watch Preston Tucker’s Speed Shop on youtube?

I rolled the frame back and forth today, to get all the floor ledger welds. I put on 50 welds there, plus another dozen on the pan patches and frame closures. I wedged 10 extra legs under the frame for my safety.

Seats will fit ok. Gusseting in these corners will be a pain.

I did have to invert my big clamp to get things on center. It’s still wrong in this pic. But now I finally have the frame flipped back right-side-up. I’ve never seen it in this position before, with the frame rails and firewall crossmember attached. This is indeed a project milestone.

I started cutting away the jig today, and the frame is ready to roll over. It developed about 5/16” of positive camber from full seam welding of the bottom rails. I want a little, but I will probably loose half of that when I weld the top. This frame originally had a crooked sag. More on the driver side, where all the shoddy rust repair had been.

Today I got the entire bottom of the frame seamed up. There are just a few more small welds to get on the bottom, and one big one along the tunnel to the crossmember. Also I repaired Hung-Tonga and a few other more minor welds. I am getting much better at this, and there is one secret that I never understood well before. Never look at the arc once it is going. It is hard not to, But don’t! Look only at the puddle. The puddle tells you what to do. If you have the heat close enough, the arc will be ok if the puddle is ok. Once you are controlling the puddle, your speed will tell you if you want more or less heat (amps). Why didn’t I learn this in 1972?

I have nearly completed seam welding the bottom of the frame. I was just going to skip-weld, but I’m having too much fun. I’ve filled in the skips. Most of the welds are looking like this: Not perfect, but nice enough. But a few times I did this: Welded the electrode right to the steel. This resulted in drilling and grinding and brushing, but fortunately I made about 15 feet of seam welding (in 1” to 1.5” skips) and only screwed up about 3 times. That was the worst one, looking like Hunga-Tonga going off in the Pacific.

I did a lot of cleaning, grinding and welding today. All the brackets and hangers are on solid now. I started welding up the rails, until I ran out of argon. Then it was off to Fresno Oxy for a bottle of gas. All of the welds are ok and some of them look better than I have done before.

Yeah, it is, & it wasn’t my first experience with this technique or my 5th. Speaker holes, antenna holes, patch holes, access holes. . . . Necessity is a muther but this time I just grit-whomped ‘er into submission. For NOW . . . . I’m going to hold out on any more holesaw biz. This was all me stalling for prime welding conditions. Tomorrow AM will be better.

Busting it out with a prybar. Using the saw as a gauge, I slowly grind it out round.

It was too breezy to do any more welding, and I decided I would put some “speed holes” in, to lighten my huge gussets. There were two unnecessary slots in one gusset, and this would make them match. I had an old (new) 1.75” hole saw, so: I was just starting the second one when my hole saw decided to croak. I sharpened it, but that was wasted effort. It has lost temper and is useless for cutting even this mild steel. I should have done this on the drill press before welding. I could cut the welds and use my flycutter, but I decided to do it the hard way. Drilling a hundred little holes, bust it loose, then grind smooth. I want to do this to the two subframe hangers, but not without a better hole saw.

I’ve been thinking about this for a couple days, and I have finally built something that will work, without much effort. This big clamp-on pivot will let me flip the frame over. It took two days of hunting through parts and deciding what to build. But it only took 15 minutes with saw and drill and ratchet wrenches. I know it doesn’t look too substantial, but it is stronger than me, and I can lift the front of the fame by hand. It is 3x heavier on the other end.

I got the subframe hangers drilled and tacked in place. The setup was a pain, but it is getting done.

Yesterday, I finally got my floor pan corners trimmed off & the frame rails tied to the VW frame “clip” with big 0.140” thick steel gussets. Now real steel connects the front and rear frames, instead of the sheet metal pan. I can lift a corner of the frame and it does not flex. Everything is tacked together heavily. Just a bit more welding and I will prepare to flip the frame over. Meanwhile, the neighbor’s cat was out there teasing my favorite squirrel. He was really upset too. I have never heard a louder squirrel in my life. I had to go chase the cat off my fencepost, so I could hear myself think.

Ok, the driver side patch is in now too. now I have to trim both patches to fit the big gussets.

Wow! That’s a lot of cards. I owned exactly two baseball cards in my life. A Tops Mickey Mantle & a Rodger Maris. How did I get so lucky? They must have printed a lot more cards of the popular players. I never bought any more cards before or since. It was that terrible chewing gum that came with them. They ended up being my bookmarks in highschool, and lost over 50 years ago.

Several mundane issues have slowed me down, but I did get one of the floor patches welded down today. I also welded in the pan doubler, and welded it to the cast hook. No pix of that yet. I was about to start the driver side, when my wife brought me another distraction to deal with. More fun tomorrow.

I am just priming with dilute phosphoric acid wash. The paint is self etching too, so this makes it stick well without filler or sealer primers.

I was considering polyurethane, but I didn’t think it would hold paint.

I won’t have any sealer aimed at the sky on this roadster. It will strictly be on the inside and outside of the floor. It will have to fill gaps around the flutes.