I've been putzing around with cars half my life, but have never really learned to weld...
I borrowed my friend's Miller 140 Mig welder to replace my trans tunnel for the 8 speed (with alot of help) and do some exhaust work, but I am considering purchasing my own welder and taking on a few more welding projects. I have some time to spend, but also have quite a bit invested in the car and need it to look decent in the end. (71 hemi cuda clone with 392/8spd in sassy grass green)
My car needs quite a bit of welding, but I'm not sure what I can do as a beginner:
- USCT Core support Stiffener
- Most of the factory holes in the engine compartment
- Antenna hole on the new fender (I only use carplay)
- Some of the body plug holes
- Quarter panels and tail panel (perhaps I need a professional for this?)
- potential rocker panel repairs if needed
Should I leave this stuff to the professionals?
If not, what welder would you recommend for this, and the apocolypse?
The Miller or Lincoln 140 welders are both very good. Plenty for sheet metal and thin plate steel. Just takes practice. Blank steel plugs are sold in different sizes to plug round holes.
Practice practice practice... and I'm sure you'll be able to do some nice presentable work. A welding class at a local vocational school might not be a bad idea either. Or just watch a lot of you tube. There's a few good channels to help learn. But it all comes down to lots of practice. You should also check out some videos on how to control warpage and movement. That is some useful knowledge also.
I would consider what else you might wanna use it for in the future also. If you're the type who is always working on things, and fixing things, and you just buy a cheap MIG welder now, you just may want to upgrade later. A multi-function welder (for instance one that does MIG, TIG, Stick, etc) might be a wise investment. And if you see yourself getting into welding a lot of aluminum, then an AC TIG welder would be nice to have too. Some machines do all of these things in one unit, but of course they are more money.
I would check out Everlast also. I did some shopping around and went with them. A good bang for your buck in my opinion and I've been happy with it. Mine does MIG, AC/DC TIG and Stick. But it would be nice to have a plasma cutter also. They make MIG /Stick /plasma machines ... and also TIG /Stick/ Plasma machines.
There are a lot of decent mig welders out there that can weld up to 1/4", good enough for 95% of what most of us do, just get one that uses gas NOT a flux core type. Mig welding is pretty easy, as said just practice technique and play with heat and wire speed settings and you can do it. Welding large panels requires patience and "stich" welding/cooling so as not to create too much heat and warp the area.
I bought a Miller 130 many years ago...using it more and more and enjoy learning/progressing with it. It can handle just about anything I need. Glad I bought it and makes me want to keep working on developing my welding
Following along, bought a welder years ago, tried a few times, and gave up.
Need to dig it out and try again
The guy behind the mask is going to be the limiting factor in anything you do on a car resto assuming you're MIG welding everything. You can drop serious coin on a Miller if you want, but I did my entire resto and structural mods with a Harbor Freight Vulcan MigMax 215. I've run countless hours, spools, and shield gas tanks through this thing and it has been flawless.
Definitely use a shield gas and skip flux core, and use a QUALITY wire spool. The rest is going to be on you.
Edit: Get a machine with real adjustments. Don't buy one that just has a couple of switches for heat and wire feed, but rotary knobs so you can dial it in exactly to what you like and need. Otherwise, if you have luck like me you'll want/need those adjustments to be in between the few settings they give you and that'll get annoying quick.
I bought a small used Miller MIG when I started on the 'Cuda (I think its 90 Amp with peak 130) - best tool I ever bought.
I had some stick welding instruction back in grade school and observed my step-dad when he was welding long time ago but mostly self taught.
I'm not good at it but I can get by and I welded my own quarter skins on and the painter said it was a decent job. IT does take practice and if you don't do it regularly you need to relearn some. When you are doing something like skins there is enough work to get decent at it. I ended up redoing a part of the first one.
Does not always look good - but does the job - and very handy to have in the shop. Use it way more than my acetylene torch now. I found part of the trick is in lighting the area you are working on and a good auto darken helmet. LED lights do not activate the auto darken - halogen will activate. So I have a couple small LED work lights I use to illuminate the work area close up so I can see well before striking an arc
I am a self-taught welder. You can do it too. One thing that helped me greatly was a DVD that I bought. Now that DVD is on Youtube. Here it is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNp8H5yHkME
I also teach the welding merit badge for the scouts and I use large portions of this video in my classroom instruction. As a self-taught welder, I have taught 64 kids to weld to date. Ironically, teaching the merit badge forced me to learn things that I did not know previously.
I also recommend following Jody at Welding Tips and Tricks.com LOTS of good stuff there.
https://www.youtube.com/@weldingtipsandtricks
I have a Lincoln 140 amp MIG welder. The 140 amp is the largest that will run off of a 110V outlet. I used a Miller MIG welder of a similar size to mine once and I actually liked it better. I do not know what model or how the price compares.
Lastly, I recommend a good auto-dark helmet. I have a bunch of different ones and like the Lincoln 3350 the best.
Remember one thing when welding on the body sheet metal. Heating and warpage are the biggest concern. Make your sheet metal welds in 1/8" - 1/4" long stitches. Jump around so that no area gets hot. Keep doing that until all the 1/4" welds touch. You can even keep your air hose blow gun handy and blow air on it after each short weld to keep it cool.
Good Luck. Please do not hesitate to ask for more help.
One additional point that I would offer is to buy a large gas bottle. By us, the place that fills them is not open on the weekends. I don't want to need a refill on the weekend and not be able to get it. I have a 125 cubic foot bottle.
I appreciate all the tips - and encouragement!
I got a bit excited and picked up a Miller 221 on Facebook Marketplace at a screamin' deal... Will figure out a receptacle for the weird 240 plug this week.
I think I'll start with the core support stiffener next weekend. I believe I saw a few posts on the process there, and will study up this week. Should be fun!
Plenty of power for what it sounds like you want to do. I wouldn't use it on thick stuff though.
Your best bet will be to go get some sheet metal and start practicing. start with lap joints, then try some fillet welds and ultimately do some butt welds with full penetration without blowing through.
Once you can do that reasonably well, THEN start to think about welding stuff on the car.
As someone who has used MILES of flux core and continues to use it almost daily... don't use flux core.
You can absolutely get away with it... but don't. Unless you love grinding.
:barf:
I learned to weld by doing it. Sheet metal has it's challenges in that it is like welding paper. It burns really easy. That is the main thing you have to learn to deal with. A lot of people do a series of "spot' welds instead of drawing a bead, which helps a lot. I would practices a fair amount then tackle things that arn't easily viewable first or less forgiving if you make a mistake. Watch a lot of automotive body work videos for some tips and tricks. I think I watched a lot of Kevin Tetz body work videos and some other eastwood. You will notice they do tend to use that spot weld technique.
Yes. Don't ever weld a continuous bead on thin sheet metal. The amount of heat input doing that will warp your car into a pretzel knot.
I self taught myself MIG welding back in the mid 80's. The car I'm driving now is the same car I learned to weld on. It hasn't fallen apart on me yet...so I'll say you can do it.
One thing I did learn after several 'less than ideal' welds is.....get it REALLY REALLY clean, the cleaner the better and make sure your welder has a good ground clamp. And your ground clamp not too far from where you are welding. I've even welded stubs of metal onto the car frame to give me a good ground clamp spot.
I LOVE this thread - thanks everyone for your input here - I have a friend who is amazing at metal fab - he said if I bought a welder he would come buy and help me learn. Something I have wanted to know how to do since I was a teenager. Metal work is one of the few things I just figured I would never learn but I am looking for a decent used machine and the info here is awesome - this keeps me motivated!
Bought Eastwood's MIG 250 a few years ago when it first came out. This welder has dual power input so it works on either 120 or 240. I hated it. Would always trip the overload protection even when under a light load. Called Eastwood. They sent out another one that was a little better but not great. Had some other issue with it shortly after the warranty expired. Called Eastwood, they didn't ask any questions, just sent me a new welder. Whatever the problem was they must have fixed it because this welder worked great right out of the box. Have used it on sheet metal and 1/2" steel plating. Easy to use, just as good as the other big dollar welders I've used. Even taught my wife to weld with it in less than an hour.
Morale of the story... You don't have to always spend the most to get good quality, but might want to hold off on buying the latest models until the bugs have been worked out.
A safety and convenience note.
Have a dedicated outlet for your welder with a 30 amp breaker. Otherwise as said if you are sharing the circuit with other items, you will likely keep tripping your breaker when making welds longer than 30 seconds.
I'm a huge Miller fan. I have a small (120v) Miller MIG that I have zero complaints with. Had it for 20 years and run it on a 20 amp 120v outlet with no issues. I'd go Miller again in a heartbeat.
Lots of good info here wanted to pass along my experience. I was fortunate to have a community college class, intro to welding in my area. It helped me tremendously, if not plenty of good channels on youtube. My vote is for the Hobart 210 mvp. I absolutely love my machine, some reasons, if I need any consumables or parts they are at tractor supply. I can swap between 110 and 220 in 2 mins. Really comes in hand when you get asked to weld something that can't be brought to your shop. The Hobart 210 mvp can handle sheet metal on 110v or weld your neighbors tractor on 220. if it hasn't been mentioned, spend the extra money on shielding gas and learn with solid wire. You will get discouraged intially on flux core wire. Man once you get halfway decent, you'll be amazed who comes out of the wood work asking you to weld who knows what, you won't have to buy beer for yourself for a while... Good luck !
Oh search a old post from my myself, I put up a smaller welding table I made for tight areas that can be extended if you want to copy it.
I have a Miller 110 which is 130 Amp for small jobs, sheet metal etc. Also have a Miller 250 which 220 Amp for the heavier duty jobs. Both are now over 30 years old and never had any issues with them and still work great. I am in the market for a home use tig welder now.
I know it's an older thread but in the event someone else is considering a welder, I thought I'd add that I too love the Miller brand.
I bought a Miller 140 and the best feature in my view is the automatic wire feed. As you play with the heat setting, it adjusts speed so it's one less thing to consider as a newbie, which I was.
It handles sheet metal beautifully. Especially with thinner .024" wire which I prefer. I find 3/16" is about the thickest it will handle even though the unit is rated for up to 1/4"
Like most things, there's a learning curve. You can look at my early stuff compared to now and see a dramatic difference in weld quality.
A dedicated circuit is nice but for my unit, 20 amp is all that's needed. I use it on 15 amp circuits and the only time it pops the breaker is if I have other items drawing power on the same circuit.
Get yourself a nice quality helmet too. Super bright lights on the work surface make life much easier too.
I know people who use mig welders without the gas bottle. The gas simply pushes oxygen in the air away from the weld for a better weld surface. You can weld with the gas bottle but you need flux core wire. And the unit has a polarity configuration inside to switch. No big deal. Those units are intended for outdoor use, like ranchers welding fences in windy conditions. Gas bottle is the nice way to go!
The original poster asked if it's something best left to professionals. My answer to that would be if you knew you only needed it once and might not use it again, probably better to pay for the work. Why spend weeks or months practicing to weld in a bracket? But if you have lots to do, as I did, teaching yourself to weld is very rewarding.
I am glad I found this older thread. When I finally starting working on restoring my A66 Challenger vert that I owned since 1979 (in storage 84-2015) it needed patches on the bottom of the rear quarters, a new trunk floor, one trunk extension, smaller patches in a wheel well, and potentially a partial panel in the front driver's side floor. The only welding I ever did was over 40 years ago brazing exhaust systems with an Oxyacetylene torch. I picked up a Hobart 140 Handler Welder, watched Utube videos and practiced on some sheet metal.
A lot of good tips made in the postings here are very relevant. The 140 did a great job of doing the metal repairs on the Challenger. I bought a 2 piece AMD trunk floor and butt welded it in, adding in one new trunk extension. The inner quarters and outer bottom quarter panels also needed patch panels. Long story short, the pre-practice paid off. Some lessons learned; watch and adjust your speed and heat when welding new metal to the original panels for blow through-easy to do. Definitely weld with shield gas/solid wire. Practice your technique with plug welds; very handy for welding in a trunk floor. I kept a wet rag to cool each butt weld on the quarters to minimize warping after EACH weld. And as Dodj noted; make sure the metal is clean and look for a good ground spot. Amazing what you can do if you practice while saving a ton of labor money!Pics below of my work and what I was dealing with!
Nice work! It's amazing how fast a person can progress in this skill if they are motivated.
After a while, you start to convince yourself that you can save anything. Last week, we were working on a buddy's rusty 70 Cuda and rather than waste $250-300 on a transmission cross member, we decided to repair the existing one. It came out super nice!
I keep sheets of 18 ga. and 14 ga. metal on hand to fabricate the patches I need. Ten years ago, I would have thought this skill impossible to learn.