Another 66 impala project

[ari666]

hows your dash pad? im about to turf mine as i dont need it. does have a crack in it. you can have it free, but pay for postage.

i dunno, just seems such a waste to turf stuff like this but i dont know anyone who would need it and its in my way

 

[sleepa]

Not sure what condition mine is in, I'll have a close look tomorrow and get back to you. Thanks for the offer, might come in handy

No real updates yet, between working all day and the rain all I have done is clear out half the garage so I can fit a quarter of the impala in which should be enough to keep the parts I'm working on dry. Even if it was empty it still wouldn't fit the whole car in and be able to close the door. I didn't realise the sheer size of them until I bought one, they look so much smaller in pics.

Been thinking bout what to do with the car over the last week, tossing up whether to go tig or mig, reckon mig is best for the moment I'll prob get tig later for fabrication work.

Just have to see if the tool shop is open tomorrow then I can choose one and start working hopefully one that's in my budget, all the shiny tools are too pricey

 

[ari666]

my avice would be to go tig. the ability to add filler as you need it is a lifesaver, plus you can use the torce as an oxy to srink panels of you go a bit gung-ho on the heat. i needed to bend a bit of my chassis where the strut rod went, so i tigged it up till it was glowing and smashed ith with a hammer. 3mm steel works like butter when its cherry red.

i have mig, tig and oxy and i can easily say TIG is the best.

 

[sleepa]

Yeah I was thinking tig but the majority of opinion was mig is best for panel work probably due to the ease of use and speed. But I have heard that tig would be better due to the lower amps and flatter welds at the expense of speed and a fair bit of learning.

I didn't think about adding extra filler and using it to "heat" either. Looks like tig is best. Awesome. Always wanted to tig and now I have a justification.

 

[ari666]

have you used either on panel steel before? its a STEEP learning curve and one i would highly recommend. i hadnt touched a welder before i started my car and now id say im pretty good at it. still have a long way to go, but the impala is the sole reason i persued it, so i have it to thank.

there have been a LOT of fk ups along the way, but thats the best way to learn IMO.

this guy is a legend weldingtipsandtricks - YouTube

but he doesnt really cover panel steel which is the hardest to do (i think) alloy is pretty easy as long as its all clean. SS is easier. but welding a patch in flat is FKN HARD man. takes a lot of patience.

a MIG is only good for steel thats 3mm or more. i dont know who told you its better for panel steel but thats a flat out bunch of horse ****. panel welding needs spot welds and then about 20 minutes to "rest" as it cools down and reforms its original shape. soon as you spot youll see the metal expand and flat steel becomes a 'pyrimid' ,if you continue to weld while its out of shape youll make it distort, so when it cools down it pulls in all sorts of directions and a lot of the time its next to impossible to get the old shape back.

anyway enough rant. if youre learning from scracth, you may as well learn TIG straight away.

 

[sleepa]

Last time I used a mig was in high school on 6mm plate. I've used a stick on panel steel before to make a housing, was absolute ****! Got there in the end but burned a heap of holes.

My first opinion was I wanted tig, but everyone else said otherwise, Guess most people say mig coz it's easier but not better.
Doesn't matter I'm gonna go tig. Hearing it from someone who has done it first hand is way better then hearing people repeat what the mig sellers say.

 

[ari666]

only thing easier about mig is you can do it with one hand. but getting a 'spot' on the mig is a lot harder cos it needs to be perfect within 1/2 a second and half the time you end up with too much wire or over baking it. with a tig you give it the tiniest amount of footpedal (or use rising ramp on the settings if youve got a button on the torch) to get the weld started then ease a bit more heat in, add filler, stop and hold it so a bit more argon shields it while it cools then walk away for 20 mins.

so much cooler, so much more control. just takes some getting used to holding a torch with one hand, rod in the other and foot to control it all. but i liken it to driving a manual car. left hand gear stick, right hand steering wheel and foot on the loudness pedal.

a bit of advice too: get loads of rare earth magnets. youll need them to hold your patches in place while you weld.

 

[sleepa]

So just bought myself a new toy... 180 amp hf tig. No foot pedal but has a control on the torch, should work for what I need it to do.

Only problem is being Saturday I can't get a gas cylinder, so bought one of those little ones to practice on over the weekend then sort something out on Monday.

 

[sleepa]

That's it, should be alright, basically best I could afford at moment.

I can get a foot pedal attachment for it, and reading through it has a lot of features that will be useful like pulse settings as opposed to a scratch start tig which is basically a stick welder.

Anyway I have to wait til Monday to get a cylinder, tried a bunch of shops here and no one has a reg for the little bottles in stock.

On a plus side the guy I bought the impala off has the left hand guard and radiator for it I can have. Just gotta pick it up. So that's a couple of things I don't have to buy.

Also trying to track down a bonnet, nosecone and radiator support panel. By any chance would 65 parts work with the 66 guards?

 

[ari666]

66 rad support is the same.

nosecone is same

bonnet im prety sure is same

guards no chance, totally different.