1973 Dodge Charger. "The Oly Express"

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

3) I am getting my MONEY out of my cutting wheels, I tell you what

Good times.

Here in South Africa we would have said that you even worked the TAX out of that disc. 

StripesSA1 said:

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

3) I am getting my MONEY out of my cutting wheels, I tell you what

Good times.

Here in South Africa we would have said that you even worked the TAX out of that disc. 

Oh man, it's not just my cutting wheels either.  I'm working the tax out of my flappy-discs too!

obsolete said:

Always enjoy these updates. Keep at it!

Thanks man!  This one's a bit early, but I thought I might have enough to send another your way.  I call it "Ebbs and Flows":

So first thing yesterday morning the tungsten was sharpened.  I think I'm using white tipped stuff, but can't remember as it's been a year or so since I bought the last batch.  I quit using the thoriated stuff a while back (red tipped), and this seems to work just fine.  For proof, I'll offer you this action shot of yours truly:

(flow)

OOPS!  (or "ebb").

Looks like I got a little carried away, a little too close to the edge there...  I wasn't worried as I saw a method of filling in gaps once on youtube where they clamped copper (but said aluminum could work) to the back and used it as a heat sink to build back up the area and fill it in.  Afterwards I could grind it smooth.

It worked!  (Flows)

I don't mean to sound surprised, but I've never had that sort of luck doing that before.  All I had to do now was grind it smooth and it'd be "wham bam" and all that...



Ouch!  (ebbs)

The danger wheel got me with its grinding wheel when I switched it on.  It kicked a bit with the torque and I was holding it a bit close to the spinny part...

Ah well, looks like I gotta up my PPE game (Mechanix "M-Pakt" gloves on order, to the tune of 50+ euro...).  But to be fair, I didn't actually mean to skimp on my safety gear.  When I asked for "Mechanics gloves" locally, this was the best they had...  Ah well, chicks dig scars and all that.

Either way, we ended Wednesday's session with my patch looking something like this:

And that made me happy (flows)

This morning I was so confident that today would be the day I move on to the next spot, that I brought a can of primer with me from the house out to the garage (I'm keeping that stuff inside because of the freezing temps we've been having.  The garage is detached, and there's absolutely no heat).

But first, all I had to do was touch up a few low spots with my TIG real quick and I would be in business...



(ebbs)

I wish I would have got pictures of the chain of failure that lead to that mess there, but dang if I wasn't seeing red...  I mean what a way to start my Thursday morning!

It basically started with me discovering a low spot in that repair section where I accidentally blew through before.  The hole I made with the torch this time was only a little bigger than what I just patched, but not so much that I wasn't confident in my aluminum backing abilities to get it built back up...

Needless to say, that was a failure.  It turns out that in all my working of that panel, I had made things pretty thin in the vicinity of my butt weld (like paper thin)...  The more I moved the torch, the more crap I blew through (including the aluminum)...  It didn't matter how light I kept my foot on that pedal, I was just melting stuff.  Eventually I took a "berk-it-all" and floored it until I hit something solid.  The result was a glob of goo that fell through the back side:

After that I decided to take a coffee break and simmer for a bit.  Once things settled, I figured there was nothing to do now but to cut the section square and weld in a new repair piece (again, there's a lot of grinding and hand filing I'm glossing over here.  I cut these things WIDE and work my way in slow.  Even then, I still get gaps...):

(Flows)

So that's where we're leaving off today.  You can see at the bottom of the picture there that there were one or two other "low spots" I wanted to touch up, but we'll get to that tomorrow (hopefully).  If all goes well, I'll primer the old piece and the new piece, and on Monday I can finally move on to the next section.  Only a couple weeks left on this shift, so fingers crossed I can make good use of the mornings

And I should say that as frustrating as it was to get so close to spraying primer on what I thought was "not too bad for a first patch", the above is exactly why I decided to start my learning curve on something as unimportant as a fender.  These butt welds, it turns out, are real butt kickers!  I much prefer the "lap" or "T" joints to these things any day!  But if it all does go wrong (and I make this thing uglier than it already is), then new fenders can be sourced easily enough from plenty of aftermarket providers of such things, and it's better to know where my limitations are now before I try my hand at something structural...

Good times.

Finally!!! 

Welder go "Brrrt", grider go "GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", and we ended up making the progress I wanted to make today...

And again that took way more than I've captured in the photos.  I easily went from "grinder" back to "welder" and back to "grinder" at least three times (patching up pin holes, building up low spots, burning through stuff...).

But that reminds me!  I burnt through the metal again!!!  Not so bad this time (my reaction time is getting better) but after I did it I found out what went wrong.  The setting on my pedal somehow got bumped up to about 50amps (from 30)!  I dialed it back down to where things should be and things went much better,

One reason why this wasn't immediately apparent to me is because I haven't been going "full pedal" right out of the gate.  What I do is take position, strike the ark with about half the pedal throw, and immediately start melting filler onto the joint.  Once I get a bit of a bubble going in the right spot, I floor it and push it down into the joint.  (if that makes sense.  Maybe I could capture the process on video so you guys could critique accordingly).

So when I was burning through stuff, I didn't immediately realize my amps had gone cattywampus because things would go fine while I was melting the rod at half-pedal, but when I floored it I'd blast right through.  Naturally I thought it was me doing the "oops" and not the machine. 

Anyhoo, glad I got that cleared up, and man was I glad to be done with this patch.  That took WAY more effort and was a WAY bigger challenge than I was expecting.  Just in time too, as today was one of my shorter garage days, and I was well past my "stop alarm" when I started throwing primer in its general direction.  The primer was more for a "finished look" than it is permanent.  I just wanted something on there to cover things.  It'll all be coming back off before this gets painted.

Also in the "just in time" category, dang if I'm not just about out of argon again!

I bet if I practiced this a bit, it'd take a LOT less time and gas.  That being said, I did learn a lot with my first trial by fire (or welding torch):

1st) Don't set up your butt weld on the outer radius of the bend.  Cutting along the top of the fender for that repair was dumb and it caused me a lot of headache.
2nd)  Watch how much you're working things.  Metal gets thin quick.
3rd) That joggle sucks, and I need to find a new way of going about duplicating it (or avoiding it altogether)
4th) Don't think the next step is going to take care of what you're ignoring in this step.
5th) Priming the panel was a good checkpoint to strive for, but the over-focus on meeting that goal gave me tunnel vision and only after posting the photos did I realize I forgot to fill in my tack weld holes before I shot the grey stuf...  (see: Reason why GRM needs a facepalm emoji...)

Should I take care of #5 on monday, here's what the next spot looks like:

Good times.

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

StripesSA1 said:

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

3) I am getting my MONEY out of my cutting wheels, I tell you what

Good times.

Here in South Africa we would have said that you even worked the TAX out of that disc. 

Oh man, it's not just my cutting wheels either.  I'm working the tax out of my flappy-discs too!

Screw it.... That is getting Super TAX out of your purchases. 

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

That glove.... Ouch!!!

And that is the reason I only use it for Action Cricket these days.

Also with that patch, I can see that by the end of that exercise, your temper could have melted that steel

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

One reason why this wasn't immediately apparent to me is because I haven't been going "full pedal" right out of the gate.  What I do is take position, strike the ark with about half the pedal throw, and immediately start melting filler onto the joint.  Once I get a bit of a bubble going in the right spot, I floor it and push it down into the joint.  (if that makes sense.  Maybe I could capture the process on video so you guys could critique accordingly).

 

Get your base/parent metal puddled before you start throwing filler at it. If you strike an arc and jam the filler in, you're making cold welds. This is a little tricky on thin metal, I know...but strike your arc with just enough pedal to light it off then back the pedal out and gradually bring it up until you see that base metal start to pool. Then add your filler and get moving. 

Having reread the thread, two thoughts:  sawhorse-like frames instead of the upright one for your body panels? Or make it so your current frame can partially lay over?

Second thought: take two pieces of your tiny filler wire, put them next to each other in a vice grip, put the other end in a drill, spin the drill to twist the wire together.  With no tension on it you've turned two 1.6mm pieces into one 3.2mm piece.  With a little bit of tension on the grill you can stretch it some and git it a bit thinner (but not a lot)

StripesSA1 said:

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

That glove.... Ouch!!!

And that is the reason I only use it for Action Cricket these days.

Also with that patch, I can see that by the end of that exercise, your temper could have melted that steel

Yeah, deadlines aren't my friend and working only for an hour or so every day (and having an expected goal) gets to me sometimes when my alarm is going off and I'm supposed to be getting ready for work.

It's all good though.  It works in my benefit sometimes because it gives me a full day to think about what I'm doing and how I could do it better before I go back at things.

Mezzanine said:

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

One reason why this wasn't immediately apparent to me is because I haven't been going "full pedal" right out of the gate.  What I do is take position, strike the ark with about half the pedal throw, and immediately start melting filler onto the joint.  Once I get a bit of a bubble going in the right spot, I floor it and push it down into the joint.  (if that makes sense.  Maybe I could capture the process on video so you guys could critique accordingly).

 

Get your base/parent metal puddled before you start throwing filler at it. If you strike an arc and jam the filler in, you're making cold welds. This is a little tricky on thin metal, I know...but strike your arc with just enough pedal to light it off then back the pedal out and gradually bring it up until you see that base metal start to pool. Then add your filler and get moving. 

I think I got what you're sayin, and perfect timing too.  I'm about to start my next patch but will head over to my practice piece for a minute and see if I can put it into action. 

Mr_Asa said:

Having reread the thread, two thoughts:  sawhorse-like frames instead of the upright one for your body panels? Or make it so your current frame can partially lay over?

Second thought: take two pieces of your tiny filler wire, put them next to each other in a vice grip, put the other end in a drill, spin the drill to twist the wire together.  With no tension on it you've turned two 1.6mm pieces into one 3.2mm piece.  With a little bit of tension on the grill you can stretch it some and git it a bit thinner (but not a lot)

To the first:  I 100% expect saw horses to be in my future.  That's a good idea.  Right now the rack is serving it's purpose, but I will need a change of mounting structures and saw horses seem to have lots of advantages over what I'm currently using.

Second:  I've got about 5-kilos 0f 2.4mm wire that seems to be "just right" but I went looking and I seem to have lost my pair of safety wire pliers (and that really has me bothered.  I've had those FOREVER...).  Those would have worked perfectly for what you were suggesting.

Ok, first things first, I started this WAY back when I ran out of steel while working the first repair piece.  Having finished that late last week, I picked this section up again on Monday:

My next repair section was just down the line from the first

Looking at where the holes were, it looked to me that they were at the exact locations of some "bumps" that ran along this edge (pictured "center", below)

In the youtube videos I'm watching, the hosts always mention these in their floorboard repairs as apparently these ribs give the floor strength.  I figure this is probably a FAR less important piece, but thought it would be fun to see if I couldnt duplicate these somehow.

Looking further down the line, I had a good set of three that I could measure from to get an idea of what's the what:

Edge to edge, the appear to be 3/4" apart, and 1.25" long....

Sounds easy enough.

My first thought was to make a recess in a piece of metal, and use my newly acquired autobody hammer to make a dimple, but I thought 3/4" was a bit too small of a target to repeatedly aim for. 

Instead I came up with this:

Ok, it's ugly but dang that was WAY closer than I expected to get on my rough draft!

First thing I though was "ok, that's one.  But how are you going to do two more that are the same depth?"

So I went back and smashed a few more dents into the panel:




And that's where I noticed I had a few more problems.

1) the metal is tearing and I think it's because the edges of that stainless round stock are just too dang sharp.

2) I need a way to aim this thing (it's rather blind when I put a sheet of metal over the hole...)

This is what I came up with:

To assist with the aiming issue, I gave myself a set of cross hairs on the bottom piece:

To help prevent the tearing, I decided to flatten my piece of stainless bar stock, and then taper the edges a bit by hand:

(Dont laugh, that was actually kind of hard to do)

Then I added cross hairs on to my bar stock...

And I thought I had myself a tool that could do the job! 


Sooooo going back to that repair section (and glossing over things a bit), we cut out the discrepant area:





I bent my replacement piece in my vice using my angle stock and square bar stock, just like last time (except this time was easier, because no joggle).

After that I smashed a few dents into the repair piece in my new hydraulic press contraption...

Ta-da!!!!

I mean, the dents are SLIGHTLY off but I dont think anyone who wasn't looking would ever notice

Next up comes a days worth of grinding and before you can say "worcestershire sauce" we have ourselves another repair piece!

Is it perfect?  Nah.

Was it fun?  Hell yeah!


Anyhoo, that's not magic holding that piece in there and obviously my fitment isn't good enough for friction to be doing the job...  No, between the last update an now some magnets I ordered from Germany showed up (along with my gloves!).  They look something like this:




I like these a lot better than those panel holders I showed a few posts back.  No gap required for these to be in place.  Although I did think I remembered reading somewhere that a magnet will pull your arc...  More to follow I guess.

But that's where we need to stop for now.  I did get my tack welds filled in:

Practice piece and final draft shown.

The tacks were easy enough once I got the amps dialed in.  I didn't want to do any more butt welding until I practiced what Mezzanine said about starting my arc though.  Unfortunately we're out of time for this month.  Next month I'll be on Second shift, so the house will be taking priority in the mornings (I've got trees to prune, grape vines to cut back, ground to dig out, the whole works...).  If I get to a stopping point, I can always come back and play with the car for a bit, but no promises

Good times.

I will say that this week was a bit slower that weeks previous.  Mostly because I went home sick from work on Monday.  It later turned out it wasn't covid, but it layed me out pretty good.  Normally we'd all be cheering "yay, more garage time!!!" but we kept the kids home from school (just in case) and there was lots to do (book work, missed class assignments, general entertainment, etc).  Add in the fact that the weather still looks like this outside:




And it's hard to get motivated to get out to the garage (but super easy to get motiveated to take the family out sledding.  There's a HUGE hill about 10 minutes away that is just AWESOME).


That isn't to say I didn't get anything done though, because LOTS of needless shopping happened.

First I ordered (and recived) this:

That's a good ol fashioned "Made in USA" Sears Craftsman autobody hammer right there!  I don't know how I found this semi-locally, but it arrived in the mail in 3 days flat

I have a HUGE soft spot for old Craftsman stuff.  It was all my grandfathers ever had or used, and if anyone is responsible for me being out in the garage and doing stuff (or building a house) it's my grandfathers'.  Any time I get the chance, to buy "old craftsman" I jump at it.

Shortly thereafter I found a Weiand "Stealth" intake on the ForBBodiesOnly classifieds, and made an attempt at it (I really am serious about not starting this 318 with that 2-barrel).  @ $225 bucks it stood to save me a fair bit of change over the purchase of a new one.  Unfortunately the gentleman is out of pocket for a month, and then I'll be out of pocket for the next, and the stars just didn't line up...

BUT!  Shortly after THAT I found an Edelbrock performer on Ebay for about the same price!




Not that I needed that manifold, mind you.  I just couldn't stand not doing something "car related"

Anyhoo, all the COVID tests came back negative shortly after all that shopping and now it's back to the daily grind.

Good times.

Oh!  I didn't know you had a whole topic, logging your Charger progress.

To break in your new hammer, you should have the kids hold a nail while you swing it.  If you need help with any old Grandpa phrases, I got you.

RamenTamer said:

Oh!  I didn't know you had a whole topic, logging your Charger progress.

To break in your new hammer, you should have the kids hold a nail while you swing it.  If you need help with any old Grandpa phrases, I got you.

 

Hahaha!  Yes, please drop those in when you see me doing something that warrants such a thing 

Everyone, I'd like to introduce my brother!  He's dailies a KA24 (I believe) swapped Datsun pickup and what I believe to be a 100% stock Datsun B210.

The Grandfather he is referring to was a retired machinist from Boeing and a retired Chief from the Navy.  While his quotes would most certainly fly under the forum filter RADAR, they were....  shall we say....  unique 

Ramentamer, meet GRM 

The truck is engine swapped with a KA24DE, yes.  It's up on stilts, right now, though.  Needs fixing, new brakes and a little lift. 

I've been driving the B210, which is stock, but I want to put a slightly larger engine in it.  I think an L20b.  These hills in the PNW are mightier than the little go-kart engine that comes stock in a B210.  I won't win any races with an L20b.  But, it'll have a lot more giddy up than the stock A14.  Should be a fairly straightforward job, too.  

Once I have the parts to work on the truck, I'll make my own topic for it.  Folks come in here for your insane Charger project.  Which I'm digging.  I think it's pretty funny how similar we are when it comes to working on something.  "Well, I don't have the right tools for this, but...Where's my hammer?  That should do..." 

RamenTamer said:

The truck is engine swapped with a KA24DE, yes.  It's up on stilts, right now, though.  Needs fixing, new brakes and a little lift. 

I've been driving the B210, which is stock, but I want to put a slightly larger engine in it.  I think an L20b.  These hills in the PNW are mightier than the little go-kart engine that comes stock in a B210.  I won't win any races with an L20b.  But, it'll have a lot more giddy up than the stock A14.  Should be a fairly straightforward job, too.  

Once I have the parts to work on the truck, I'll make my own topic for it.  Folks come in here for your insane Charger project.  Which I'm digging.  I think it's pretty funny how similar we are when it comes to working on something.  "Well, I don't have the right tools for this, but...Where's my hammer?  That should do..." 

Pix or it ain't happening....

And regarding the gammer quote....

No matter where in the world you're from, each and every mechanically minded car enthusiast thinks the same thing once or twice when facing a problem...

The bigger the problem? The bigger the hammer..... 

I'm gonna need a bigger hammer...

Hi RamenTamer! I remember you and that little truck from when Billy visited us in Tacoma a few years ago. Welcome to the boards! 

StripesSA1 said:

RamenTamer said:

The truck is engine swapped with a KA24DE, yes.  It's up on stilts, right now, though.  Needs fixing, new brakes and a little lift. 

I've been driving the B210, which is stock, but I want to put a slightly larger engine in it.  I think an L20b.  These hills in the PNW are mightier than the little go-kart engine that comes stock in a B210.  I won't win any races with an L20b.  But, it'll have a lot more giddy up than the stock A14.  Should be a fairly straightforward job, too.  

Once I have the parts to work on the truck, I'll make my own topic for it.  Folks come in here for your insane Charger project.  Which I'm digging.  I think it's pretty funny how similar we are when it comes to working on something.  "Well, I don't have the right tools for this, but...Where's my hammer?  That should do..." 

Pix or it ain't happening....

And regarding the gammer quote....

No matter where in the world you're from, each and every mechanically minded car enthusiast thinks the same thing once or twice when facing a problem...

 

The bigger the problem? The bigger the hammer..... 

I will admit that my hammer collection has grown a bit since I started this here project

Mezzanine said:

Hi RamenTamer! I remember you and that little truck from when Billy visited us in Tacoma a few years ago. Welcome to the boards! 

Oh man, the Tacoma barbecue in the park with you and Burrito and the family!!!   Man, that feels like forever ago...

You know.... I do believe that was the last time your Fiat was touched (cough, elbow, wink wink).
 

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

That is indeed a nice collection of problem solvers 

Ok, speaking of slacking I haven't really done anything to the Charger this last week or so, but I did play with the welder a bit.  Here's how that went:


So, following Mezzanine's instructions, I sliced up a bit of that same old scrap that I've been working with and figured I'd play around a bit.  Remembering how things went last time, I bumped the amps ever so slightly...

Seems easy enough right???

WRONG!!!!

Apparently if you change one thing, then everything in my brain goes all haywire and I have to relearn everything all over again...  I really wasn't happy with how this was turning out (but also very happy it wasn't turning out like this on my project )

Time to cut another practice piece, me thinks...

I moved up to solid metal (upper right) just to prove that I'm not an idiot an COULD actually lay a bead, but then I went back to the cut and everything went all cattywampus!

First I blew through the edge.  No problem, I scooted in a bit and then weird stuff started to happen.  I was getting showers of sparks, my welds were cratered and full of holes...

I checked my gas and resharpened my tungsten... I even thought it might be the rough edges of the cut so I took out my smoothest files and cleaned things to surgical levels of stupid...  And of course I wiped things down with acetone again, but nothing seemed to help.  No matter what I did to the metal, it just wouldn't cooperate.

After all that the metal had cooled down a bit, so I figured I'd hit it with a hammer and see if I couldn't break the thing along the weld I just made (just for destructive testing purposes)

I couldn't.  Despite all its flaws, that darn weld was harder than the metal around it.

Much googling followed.

First I read that the spark showers sometimes happen with mild steel due to too much something or other (tin?) in the metal.  Ignoring the fact that I hadn't had any trouble until now, I decided to toss my old test piece (just in case) and make a new one out of that sheet of steel I just purchased.  I also turned up my gas a bit:

The results were much better, but  (how do I say the "process of welding the piece didn't flow as smooth as I felt it should have?")

Overall I felt the machine needed a little more "amp" and I also wanted to try the thinner filler rod again:

I made a few dabs to extend the same weld (above) and you can see that things kind of flatten out a bit.  I liked that, so that's what I went with for my next pass:

Now if I could only weld in a straight dang line

Ah well.  I was happy with the machine settings, so I left things where they were.  I've since refilled my spare bottle of argon, so I'll kill this one with more practice runs if I get another chance.  Till then, it's just lots of grape trimming (4-mornings and counting so far)...

Good times.

StripesSA1 said:

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

That is indeed a nice collection of problem solvers 

Thanks!  I figure if I add in a "sparkle wrench", I'll have the whole set!