well, turns out all my recent towing/bombing down cut lines/driving where only 4x4's should go/hooning has resulted in some premature failures of a few 965 components, bent up the subframe a bit, so went and grabbed one at the wreckers today, added a little bit of support...






nothing terribly pretty, just blasted off with a pressure washer and gravel-guarded, but should hold up for the time being.

That should hold up much better than the stock unit

That's got her stuck together...wonder what will break next

The mount into the body?

Haha, first autoX is this sunday, so we'll see!

I'm starting to get a bit of a handle on this whole welding thing I reckon, now just getting things to look better and be slightly more consistent!

Also have '84 ford ltd springs in the back, ipd sway up front. Cherry brace, and now too some modified strut mounts! This'll handle good eventually!

Hey Eric, Your welds are getting better, but I thought I'd give you some advice even though you didn't ask . Here's a good guideline, keep your weld bead down to no more than 50% larger than your material thickness. With MIG, STOP weaving unless you're either welding a T joint (fillet) or if you are filling a gap. It's easier to show how to do a weave properly than it is to explain...but here it goes (this is for everyone). Imagine you're welding a fillet or even a butt joint, what I see people doing (by looking at their welds) is drawing loopy "C's" which is not all wrong, but just leaves ugly welds and doesn't work worth a damn going up hill (and you'll have to learn to do up hill as well as overhead to weld on cars). This is a pattern that works for stick welding, not as well for MIG.

The process is much easier to do if you think about moving the wire to positions in a consistent pattern. When doing a butt joint with a gap to fill, I think about moving the wire from one side of the joint to the other spanning the gap quickly. Think "point, point, point..." as you are trying to hit points in a pattern. In a fillet you have to control the width of the weld and make it consistent. So don't weld the corner (this is a common mistake that leads to ugly welds), weld the walls. The corner then fills as you weld. My pattern is "V's" pointing backwards (I move the wire in a V with the bottom of the V pointing towards the start). Again, the more mechanical you can be the better...what you should see is a puddle rotating behind you as you go - no reversal in the molten pools rotation. I see this - some don't.

Your start weld (upper right - just a guess) shows that you need a little more heat. It should lay flatter than that. Then you get rolling, but the weave is too large to be pretty.

I'm going to suggest a couple of simple things to help you out...MIG for me anyways is easier if I can see it well. I weld with a #9 shade so I can see everything well (TIG would be blinding at this level). Push the puddle and tilt the gun back about 10 degrees. Get your head down so you can see the puddle - you should have to clean the smoke off your helmet after doing that weld on the painted parts. The welds look better with a minimal wire stick out (the distance between the wire and the puddle) of about 3/8" - that means get that arc distance down (I can still hear that one ringing in my ears from the old welder I learned from). Oh, and lastly, use two hands and take a seat (now there's a good quote).

Maybe Dale can post a few pics of his cross member (pardon... ).

I've got to say it Craig, it scares me that you can highlight my technique in like 3 seconds just from a picture! I'll have to try that on the mounts for the PV rails/front subframe now. How does the V shape look as far as speed? Is it quick through the point and slower around the beginning and edge?

Are you runing at Namao? Isnt that on Saturday the 15th? If so, look forward to seeing you there!

Hmmm, how to describe it...if you're going up hill (which I'll call up hand occasionally, ssdp) or doing a fillet (T joint) then the idea is to weld the walls with the V's oriented up and you point to the tip of the V, then down and up to the next point, spending about the same amount of time everywhere, but no time at the "points" or the middle. If you lag there it will go south quickly. Oh and of course the V's are not aligned, this is a stitch pattern - so it isn't like TIG. Get a key word to say over and over (I use point...point...point) and have that going in your head to give you rhythm. I don't really like to weld with music on or people grinding etc as it distracts my concentration.

I use the same basic technique for a fillet in the horizontal position. I try not to weave on a butt joint (these are hard to do with MIG as the start is cold and will tend to ball up then lay out along the weld - think "quick - slow" to even this out. Overlaps get a modified version of this weave technique, but as the weld bead is smaller, the weave just gets faster. Sometimes I rock the gun back and forth as I go balancing it on the nozzle (walking the cup for MIG) - this works well on short welds - not so well on longer ones.

I'm really snowed under welding in the garage right now, I'll take some pics to help this make sense. Just for sh!ts and giggles, a modified version your "C" technique can be used to make your MIG look like TIG. I don't advise this as it is just a look thing and not important. To do this (have fun when you get the hang of doing it the other way) pretend you are drawing a series of loops - go out further than you would doing V's and come back. I personally prefer to have my MIG look like MIG and TIG like TIG, but some people lay some very nice looking welds this way - think of it as the NEXT challenge. I do it on fillets sometimes if I'm bored.

Ok, this time I've got some pictures to show what I'm talking about - not the greatest photo's as the light in my garage sucks, but I think they illustrate the idea quite well.

Exhibit 1 - Small corner fillet weld. Note the shape of the crater at the end of the weld. It's got more weld near the edges and less in the centre. Note how that fills in as the weld gets going. I should have tilted the gun up at the end to fill the crater, but this is 1" 0.065" wall tube and blowing holes through it is very easy, so I didn't bother. Note the width of the heat affected zone.


Exhibit 2 - The big weave in a corner. This weld is bridging a pretty big gap which I filled with 1/8" flat bar and needed to hide the entire thing. I wanted to bridge the rounded corner of the 1" tube. Unfortunately, this weld is not as in focus as I would like, but it serves the purpose. Weld direction is from left to right and I did rotate at the end to fill the crater, though you can't see it as I welded up the sides. Note the way the light traces across the weld - it's straight which means that the weld is consistent with respect to width.

sweet! thanks again, looks like i'll have some stuff to practise for victoria day weekend

i'm certainly going to have to buy you copious quantities of beer should our paths ever cross.

sweet, lowering springs on the driverside today, and an offset strut mount, repacked/greased/painted mounts as well....

seems like my strut rod bushings are near toast though, hoping that won't give me too many problems at autoX sunday....

well, finished up both sides, including the lowering springs, car has a GREAT stance now, and handling to match. The thing actually scares me how well it corners. best guesstimate using strings and a plumb bob are about 2.4º and 2.6º of Camber L/R, i seem to have a bit too much toe-out as well now, so i'll have to fix that next time i'm in edmonton.

As well, tried replacing front brake lines as the drivers side was checking slightly, got that done, passenger side rounded off the flare, wondering if i have enough play to cut and flare a new fitting on, or what my plan of attack should be..... any tips?

i'll just leave this blurry cellphone picture of my new stance right here...

best time of the day was a 49.03 in a subaru STI, i managed to pull of a 55.00 flat, DEFINITELY need fatter tires than the UHP 195/55/15's on there now.