i took off a rag top off of my car and well, theirs some pretty bad rust spots. To much to just go over with fiberstrand. So basically im going to weld the metal. I have never welded before and my dad has a mig, tig and arc welder. Unfortunatly hes not home and i will have to teach myself how to weld. Good time to learn anyways. so ive removed all the rust and the metal is showing. What kind of welder would i use to fill in the holes?
I've done some small patch panel repairs with MIG welder but from what I've read it's hard and maybe not advisable to patch holes in rusty areas. I had a hard enough time with regular sheet metal not putting holes through it and still getting a solid weld. Can you show some pics? Maybe you can use small patch panels for the roof area.
no i dont have any pics. Just picture about a 6x3 patch of rusty metal that was filled with bondo awhile ago (dont know who did it.) i removed all the bad stuff and dont have any patch panels...so i was thinking about trying my best to weld in the spot...
I'm sure someone on here can give you better advice but if the area that needs a patch is fairly straight you could take any car as a donor and get a piece of metal out of there a little bigger than 6x3 and cut it out, then lay it on top of the rust area, mark that with a sharpie and then cut that out. Then go around it to patch it up.
hmm. Ya i suppose that would work. Since its my first time ever welding and it will probably look really bad and ill probably end up doing it wrong, it doesnt hurt to experiment.
Go with the Tig welder as you can turn that baby down nice and low but be advised that Tig is fairly hard and you need steady hands as one hand is holding the torch and one is holding the filler wire. If your hands are not that steady go with the Mig and turn it way down , match your wire speed up with your "heat". Remember that your wire should melt slowly as it is coming out of your tip or in other words if your welding wire is hitting your molten puddle to hard it will blow a hole through your steel which means your wire speed is set too high. If your wire comes out and tends to roll up slightly on your tip when your welding your wire speed is too slow. Always set your "heat" first then set your wire to match the "heat" , oh and test you weld on some scrap metal that is close to the same thickness as the metal on the Maverick to set everything up. If you do use the Mig welder keep the heat down on the steel by doing lots of small welds or spot welds to avoid warping the steel. It may help to have a bucket of water handy with a cup to pour water on the area after a few welds to stop the steel from warping. Don't bother with the "Arc or stick" welder as it is more for thicker steel or frame work and you could not turn it down enough to weld better than the Tig or Mig welders. Hope this helps.
that helps me a lot! ive been searching all over the place on the internet and couldnt find something solely on welding rust spots on cars. Thank you very much on the info and im sure it will be very helpful to me.
If you're going to weld the roof, I assume your head liner is out. (If not, it soon will be when molten metal starts falling on it.) I had to teach myself to do rust repair too. I'm a novice on this stuff but here's what I would do. Get these. http://www.eastwood.com/ew-panel-flanger.html Cut the rusted area out. Cut a patch panel about 3/8" bigger, on every side, than the area and use the flanging pliers all around the patch panel perimeter. Install the patch panel from the under side and "stitch weld" it in place. Don't try to run a bead. Just pull the trigger on the MIG welder for a second or two to make spot welds all along the seam. Start the arc on one side of the seam and end on the other. Grind off the high spots. Put a skim coat of fiberglass over the seam and level the fiberglass.
If your just trying to mig in some smaller pin holes, etc, you can back it with pure copper to help disapate the heat from the welding and the weld will not stick to it. Provides a good backer to build the weld up on. Another thing is to take your time and work from the outside of the hole a little at a time. There are some articles out there on it, just can't put my finger on one right now. Here's a link to Eastwoods welding section showing the different copper backing tools they have to give you an idea. - matt http://www.eastwood.com/metal-fabrication/welding.html
Rust Repair Bondo has a product with fiberglass strands in it and it works SUPER!! After you do the repair with the fiber Bondo, put a thin coat of regular Bondo over it and smooth to perfection. Texasjack
If it isn't structural and you don't have very big holes, I would try some of the Metal-to-Metal or AllMetal body fillers. They are suppose to have very small aluminum particles in them and seem to remember seeing them use it on the Muscle Car show on spike to round out the corners around the trim on the 62 Chevy. - Matt
its not the top of the roof roof. Its right behind the back window. That and their are some rust holes under the window trip... I tried using tig and mig today but i couldnt get the tig to melt the aluminum i was using. So i tried copper and it wouldt work with that as well. So im obviously doing something wrong. the mig is one of those self dispensing types where the metal is already in the welder and you pull the trigger and the metal comes out...something like that, but i couldnt get it to work either. i have no idea what im doing wrong...
Well, with any of them, the area has to be very clean, i.e. need to grind to bare metal and then off course the ground for the welder. Can't just hit the rusty spots with the welder with out cleaning it to bare metal. - Matt
