Last week we left off with running out of shielding gas. Off to the local cylinder exchange!
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Day 1: Bought a replacement cylinder (well, exchanged it). Asked -
just like every other time - about upgrading, they answered that they can't
do that anymore.
Day 2: The new cylinder is empty.
Day 3:
They have no other cylinders of my size. Manager is willing to upgrade
me from a #2 to a #3. Sends me home with a #3 cylinder, just pay the
difference in the exchange price (ten bucks!)
Day 4. This is a
carbon dioxide cylinder, fittings are different. Back to the store. |
Day 4, cont'd: No C25, but they have a #3 of pure Argon. That'd
work! The connector looks like it's the same.
Nope. I can't MIG with
pure argon - zero penetration. It's like welding teflon.
Call
up there, they don't know when they get new cylinders in.
Day 5. Call
in the morning, he says they have some #3 C25 cylinders.
Head up
after work, they do, they're in the wrong cabinet (in with the acetylene).
Net result: Five trips to the store (not named as I think he wasn't
supposed to upgrade me like that), $45 total expenditure, but now I have a
#3 C25 cylinder. | 
This is not the answer. |
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The argon gave some really crappy welds. When I go after the underside
I'll have to go over this again from there. |
| Measure once, cut twice-or-more with the plasma method of fitment on the
driver's side. |  |
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Leads to having to make a lot of bead to fill gaps. Towards the very
end dropped back and changed welder settings, from voltage D and speed 6
down to B and 3 1/2 - seems to have helped quite a bit. |
Time to work on closing out the back of the transmission hole - since
the remainder of the tunnel doesn't have to be raised, I can just slope down
as convenient.
Unfortunately, my first cut was actually halfway
through the brace. I'll have to have a more abrupt cap. |  |
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Better view of where the brace is. |
| So I started to measure and make a pattern, but decided instead to fake
it with a chunk of plate and the plasma (I'm enjoying it too much) |  |
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Welded up the mis-cut, weld-and-hammer-and-weld-and-cut-and hammer, it's
ugly but the tunnel is closed. Still need to grind the welds, need to
get more flap disks. |
| Passenger side. The new welder settings are helping. |  |
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Oh hell, that looks like progress. |
| Yep, that's real nice. |  |
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Still nice. |
| Next task: fix the rust hole across the back of the cab. |  |
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You know what's good at cutting out rust?
Plasma.
Tacked a bit
of angle iron to use as a guide and cut along it. |
| Little bit of cleanup and it looks like a nice clean spot for some
weldery. |  |
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Near side, where the big rust was. |
| Plasma again, cut some 16ga of the correct width to weld in place.
With the new welder settings it's just working out. |  |
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Ended up being three pieces of metal. Still needs cleanup but I really
like it. |
| Here's what it looks like from the bed. Not quite sure how I'll
handle this side - maybe try to use the TIG to smooth it? It's flush,
at least, if not smooth. Didn't *see* any pinholes but some may become
apparent once I grind both sides. |  |
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Started to cut for the replacement of the bed hatch cover - what I had was
this abomination of JC Whitney bed patch panels lap welded poorly.
Here you can see there was no penetration between these two |
| I do not know what the front of the bed floor hatch cover is supposed to
look like - is this part of the old cover left behind, or is that the mount? |  |
And with that, I've had enough. I need to research and find what the front of the bed hatch thing is supposed to look like. Hopefully another update next week!
