body work

[Snitty]

my welder will be paid off soon and i will be able to use it... I've got many rust spots on the jeep that I want to take care of before the winter. i have a few plans on what I will be doing.
-first, the outside corner of my front fender has pooped pretty good, so i'm going to cut that part right off and go with a flat fender setup, it will be easier to work with, nobody here has that, and it will add some badass points.
-second, the spot below/behind my passenger door has a hole i can fit 4 fingers into. i plan on cutting that out square and welding in a plate to replace it.. and i can see that the driver side will be in the same boat in the next year, i might just hit that as well...

do any of you have any suggestions on this? i'm new to body work, but want to do something decent

 

[jps4jeep]

When you cut your patch piece, use some 18 guage cold rolled steel (a little thicker than the factory 20 guage) Put a slight bevel on the edges of your patch piece, allows for more area for the weld bead to contact. Cut the piece like 1/16" smaller than the hole you cut out, oh ya cut out all the rust and spray a sh$t load of rustoleum primer up in there! Use some magnets to hold the piece flush with the body side, and stitch weld the pannel in. weld a small one inch stitch, blow cold air over the area, the one inch stitch on the oposite side. If you create too much heat, the body pannels will start to wrap pretty bad. If you can, spray primer and duplicolor under-coating on the back side (I found duplicolor to be best)

Grind the welds down nice and flush, use some mudd, bondo, body filler, what ever you call it and put on in smooth thin layers, let set up, sand and re-apply if needed! Prime paint and then get it dirty!

 

[cookie]

Snitty: Nothing against welding patches on the body but some of the new adhesives are pretty good. They are used by a lot of body-shops. www.fusor.com might be a good place for info if you are interested. My $.02 worth
Cookie

 

[Snitty]

i'm all about welding... even if it wasn't a good way... its freaking welding.. i can NEVER give up a chance to do that

 

[olyeller]

what kind of welder are you getting, snitty?
if its not a mig welder, you may be better off by oxy-acetylene welding the patches in. doing "fine" work with a stick welder can be a pia. tacking is a lot easier with the mig. also, the mig wire feed and amperage can be turned down so that thin stuff is no problem to weld, where the smallest welding rods i've seen is 3/32" - pretty small, but the wire is usually 0.030-0.035" dia and does not take as much heat to burn

 

[Snitty]

small 110v mig... i wouldn't pay for a stick welder... they can be found sitting in abandoned garages all over the world

 

[chinard]

I've been going hog-wild with the trusty pop-rivet gun lately.
Mostly just patching floorboard holes and re-inforcing the trunkbed area where there are weak patches.
I've been using the #20 cold rolled stuff and nuking it with tremclad (similar to rustoleum)
The results turned out pretty good.

I'm thinking about getting an oxy acetelyene next year when things start to thaw cause i have to repair my rear variance so that i can put some decent bumpers on. There's not enough left to attach anything bigger than bumperettes.
I'd go for an arcwelder, but i dont trust myself with one of those suckers, so i'm just gonna stick with what i know.

If i need some arc welding done, i can usually just ask my neighbour... I just gotta buy her some beers for the job