My Old Van: 1987 Econoline E-150, or "Scope creep is my friend"

In reply to Rufledt :

Could be the wire feed rollers don't like 0.023" wire or aren't spec'd for those rollers. Don't know your machine, do they specify all wire dia. w/ those rollers? Some rollers don't work w/ all wire diameter.

yeah i switched the roller, seemed to be feeding normally.  It's an Eastwood mig 175. I'm guessing i'm doing something wrong or there is something i'm missing.  I used the right tip, it all seemed to work.  50% of the time it worked perfectly, but i was doing tacks and every other tac is far too frequent of a screw up.  I did maybe 20" of welding with the 030, and only caused maybe 4 holes that i had to fix.  No problems with the 030.

Did you try replacing the liner in the whip? A lot of times those cause intermittent problems no matter how nice your rollers are. They wear out and the wire can start snagging on it. 030 might be just thick enough to push through. 

or, readjust the roller tension for smaller dia. wire?

In reply to Smoke :

You might be on to something there.  I haven’t put more than a couple spools of wire through it so I doubt it’s worn out, but the smaller wire was certainly loose inside.  I could slide it in and out of the gun end almost a quarter inch.  The rollers were not slipping, I think it was just extra space inside.  The 030 wire felt solid in there, no slop.

testing a phone upload picture of the fender patch: 

Hope that works, better pictures when I get home to mess with the camera

ok since that worked, here are some in progress shots:

That big gap was a result of my sloppy cutting work.  Turns out I was supposed to cut inside the sharpie like, Not through the sharpie line.  I used a big chunk of copper as a backer, filled it in and ground smooth.

the edge looks pretty screwy, I need to cut that down a bit.  It was straight but shrinker/stretcher work kinda bulged it out a bit.  It’s oversized anyway, I figured I’d make it big and cut it down to fit.  This particular isn’t seen anyway, but fitting the piece and stuff was very good practice.  Now I need about a thousand more of those and I’ll feel more comfortable doing it

Your welding process looks pretty familiar!

The one comment would be that I see a lot of soot. That tells me that the parts being joined could be cleaner.

While I admit that I don't always live up to  my own standards for clean weldments, ( who has the patience) I do know that it makes a huge difference when I do and it is something that I am getting a lot better at doing because results are noticeable.

I use acetone to wipe parts. The one issue I have is that I am not all that comfortable having a flammable container of acetone near where I am welding. Or the rag after the fact.... Seems like everything that is suitable for cleaning a weld is also a fire hazard.

Pete

The fender definitely could have been cleaned better. Down in the crease I couldn’t get everything sparkly clean.  I don’t know exactly what would help get in that little area, but I don’t have much that can clean in tight spaces. That eastwood sander thing is great on big surfaces, hopeless in tight spaces, but it doesn’t claim to be for tight spaces.

  I have a die grinder and a corded drill, I’m sure there is an attachment for one of those that will work.  A Dremel might be nice too, those are pretty cheap, but I’ve never known one to last very long.

i tried wire wheels, but the inside surface wasn’t rusty and the primer they used is really tough to get through when it’s still stuck on good metal.

i used acetone on the stuff, but I know I left some junk down in the tight spot.   Funny you mentioned acetone fires... after the welding cart build I’m keeping my soaked rags in the steel can faaaar away from the welding 

In reply to Rufledt :

The rag thing is also why I seldom weld without an observer. You can get a pretty nice fire going  before you lift the helmet and notice the flames. I keep lots of cold beer in the fridge to attract observers and to put out the flames if need be!

You know, that spark-fire incident was witnessed by my wife.  She did most of the welding on the cart and she wasn’t a fan of occasionally getting a spark on her head or on her shirt.  I mentioned how Tig welders don’t spark, which led to me catching her -on camera- saying “we need a TIG welder” multiple times.  Yes, dear! 

A neat factoid. 

Solvent soaked rags in a pile can actually spontaneously combust. 

So no need for welding sparks!

Update time!  Progress has been slow, but i'll try to summarize what has happened.  Seems like many hours without much visible progress, but i've been working on, like, 5 projects at once, so progress isn't rapid.  

Speaking of one of the other projects, that welding cart shown above is done, and another welder sits on it now:

I've practiced enough that i'm pretty sure i can safely make stuff from non-thin steel, but thinner steel and aluminum makes me a bit more nervous.  Still practicing as time allows.  

Back to the van, I took the door off: 

That allows me to get to both sides of the drivers floor without walking around a door.  That got old quick.  I also took more of the interior apart as you can sorta see there.  I also dug into a whole in the floor, which turns out to be much worse than i expected, but still working on it:

Seems like the floor was rotten, the doubler thing under it was rotten, and the frame bit under it is fine.  Weird.  

Also took to some more of the rusty bits with the drum sander.  Some came out nice:

Some will need more work:

I'm pretty sure that started on the outside as a paint chip, but one spot appears to be through (though i can't jam a pick through it).  

I also found more rust in the rear wheel well after taking the wheel off:

That'll be fun to tackle.  

more stuff happened, but visually it isn't much different.  i got some new air tools to help, an air nibbler and needle scaler, those will probably help speed up some of the tearing apart.  Looking around in the interior i'm starting to think more and more that i'm not going to reuse any of it.  Might as well just rip it all out quickly so i can get to that side of the steel.  The windows look OK, but they were cut into the side, and the makeshift window wells inside are mostly plactic with cracking and sun damage.  I don't know exactly how I want the interior, but i want the steel to all be fixed anyway. 

Up to now i've been documenting and bagging things for reassembly, but i plan to reassemble the door and front end and stuff.  If i don't want to reassemble the interior as-is, why would I want to preserve every screw and cracked plastic trim piece?  

The only reason for systematically documenting the interior stuff as you take it apart is to it becomes a habit and you develop a system. 

Pete

let me tell a quick story of pain and triumph, of victory through suffering, of a single, stubborn bolt, and it's demise.  

Behold, this bolt.  It is one of the many, many body mounts on my van.  I shall name him "Jerald".  Jerald is a shiny happy person.  There is a small recess in the driver's floor, where Jerald used to live.  This little spot, hidden under the carpet, collected salty water from my snow boots for years.  This high sodium diet made Jerald stubborn and bitter.  He didn't want to come out.  Sockets and breaker bars be damned, Jerald won the battle.  Impact guns and gallons of penetrating oil couldn't budge him.  

At last, Mr. Grinder took off Jerald's head.  His corpse, imbued with the bitterness of the decades, still wouldn't budge.  20oz hammer, mini sledge, nothing could make him budge.  Until this guy showed up:

I'll call him "Steve".  Steve is a 50lb section of old rail road track.  The battle looked to be a stalemate, and then Jerald budged 1/4".  He IS mortal after all!  pounding Jerald up and down with a big hammer and Steve, and the damn burst; seeming gallons of liquid rust began pouring out around the rubber bushing, spilling Jerald's blood all over the garage floor.  One last death blow and Jerald's dead, headless corpse hit the floor with a mix of of "clang" and the "crunch" that can only mean Steve and I have defeated the rusty jerk, Jerald.  May he burn for all eternity...

On the subject of using a 50lb chunk of steel as a hammer for, like, an hour, does anybody know a good chiropractor? 

I hate those kind of days. It's a great feeling after you've succeeded, but you still spent all your time removing *a* bolt. 

I still consider it a victory.  It was difficult and time consuming, but I wasn't beaten by the bolt.  

I have discovered something thanks to some Harbor Freight coupons... An air nibbler and needle scaler make for some pretty awesome tools.  Deafeningly awesome tools.  It's also very easy to accidentally pummel right through some rust with the needle scaler.

Spent a bit more time in the garage yesterday, doing a little of everything.  First off, I started peeling back layers of interior, and there are SOOO many layers...

I disturbed the final resting place of many insects. Here's one:

Removing more seats, but it still looks awfully crowded in here:

Of course there is A screw blocked by the rear bench.  I hadn't planned on removing all the seats, but I might have to.  Perhaps getting ahead of myself i took out a window:

This inner window well thing was cracking around all the screws, but i'm saving it anyway.  The window frame itself is all extruded aluminum, so it's looking OK

So much wasted space inside the walls! (once i removed the fiberglass insulation)

Looks like they just hacked that beam out of the way.  The window opening was cut pretty smoothly, but the bare metal wasn't painted or anything.  Not a huge problem in this window, but the rear window will be an issue...

It held for over 20 years like that, so not a terrible problem, and it will be easy to patch once i get the window out of there.  Speaking of windows, these are just cut into the side, which is fine, but the windows are more or less straight while the side of the van has a style line:

What i'm thinking about is maybe fabricating up a small recess like the factory windows:

Maybe a bit more flush for the top part, and recessed like the factory ones on the bottom (below the line on the body).  I could potentially use the same window/frame.  Body fab work comes after rust repair, however, so I put a pin in that idea and moved on.

Speaking of thinking way too far ahead, this thing has a huge drip rail:

I'm not sure how I feel about it.  Water still gets in the door and stuff, plus it is missing some of it's metal:

Old cars have drip rails, why do new cars not have drip rails?  I know people shave them regularly.  I intend to use this a lot, however, though not in inclement weather if I can help it, certainly not in snow/salt like I used to.  I plan to store it in a garage so it's not going to be in the weather unless being used.  Should I fix the drip rail, or take the shortcut to just shaving it off? Not going to act on either choice for quite a while, just thinking ahead.  This thing has beastly wind noise, too, so i'm hoping getting the drip rail off the A pillar will help cut that a little.

Anyways, back to the window.  I found some pretty gross crud in the window channel on the inside.  I used to sit next to this window when I was a kid, and I do love beef jerky...

Anyways, back to the hole in the floor, now without the stubborn bolt:

Cut:

Cleanup:

CAD:

Thats for a doubler that was under the floor, on top of the sub frame there.  The hole goes through the subframe and mounds the body to the ladder chassis.  The bushings under there still look great.  That's good news.  Anyways, thats welded to the subframe but not around that hole.  I didn't continue, waiting on some 3M weld through primer to use between the panels.  The floor will go on top, and that's basically flat except for a small recess where the bolt sits so the floor feels flat through the carpet.  More of that to come.

The sun was going down so I decided to wash my car.  I took it through a touch-free auto car wash and like usual it didnt' try off very well...:

Much better after a simple hand wash

Thoughts on the window and drip rail?  

I think adding a step will add some stiffness to the panel. Did these windows ever leak at the seal? A lot of these conversions have issues with leaks as vibration in the panel breaks the seal. It would be cool to see them set into the body line, and would probably help with wind noise too. 

Newer cars have the drip rails built into door jambs, or ha e weather stripping designed to shed water. Most cars with shaved drip rails leak water into the cabin when driven in the rain because the weather stripping isn't up to the task of keeping out water. This era of rubber seals were mostly designed just to keep out wind, and generally leaked some water regardless.

The drip rail is a handy place to attach the light bar and roof rack.  I like the idea of mounting the windows in a recessed channel but that seems like quite an undertaking if there wasn’t something wrong with them previously.  

Those are both very good arguments for keeping the drip rails, im keeping them.  Mounting stuff and not getting wet when driving, both good.

setting the windows in slightly would be quite a job, but im willing to try.  The windows started leaking slightly after many years, right around that crease in the side.  Now that i have the window out, the side panel isnt very stiff.  They chopped out a brace to get the window in there, and im thinking setting them in a channel would stiffen the side while also allowing the window sealing surface to be flush.  Previously a relatively flat window had to seal against the crease in the body.    All the rust on the rear window is on that crease or below it.

Tonight my wife wanted to remove the rear side window, so that's what we did!

And yes, we unbolted the back seat (had to) and turned it sideways so we had a place to sit at stare at the gaping hole we just put in the side of the van.  I think this thing is bigger inside than my dorm room in college:

The aforementioned window rust:

The worst looking spot along the window bottom.  I couldn't rip the metal off with my hands, but i would bet $100 it'll need to be cut out and patched to make it look decent.  The leading edge of the window is showing some rust along the line in the body:

The rear edge, however, is rust free:

You can see the line the seal made in the paint, how it was squished where the body bulges out and barely touching where the body goes in above it.  No wonder they rusted.  The real shock is that it took 20 years to start rusting.  That was 11 years ago, though, so it's a LOT of rust...

Still waiting on my weld through 3M primer to get here before I go ahead with the patch, wasn't planning on that till this weekend, though.  I also realized my wife and I have very different ideas on how we want this van to be finished.  I very much intend this to be used by US, and not just ME, so we will have to figure out something that makes us both happy.  First common ground is we both want a van that isn't rusty, so the work we're doing will continue as planned.

I'd make a frame that fits the window, then flange it to fit the body and sopt/rosette weld it to the inside of the van skin. 

Thats a pretty good idea, i like it.  Also as a side note im getting the stuff to do solid aircraft rivets, thats giving me bad ideas...

It has the advantage of allowing you to cut out most of the rust to allow for the recesses and eliminates the need for finicky butt joints. 

Solid riveting sounds like fun, but with a TIG welder I don't know how much use I'd have for that capability. 

I'm not good enough at TIG welding to do car related things yet, but getting the solid rivet stuff was more a decision from the perspective of "I can get everything else I need for this for $15, I should do it" than from any actual plans to use it.  The idea of them not loosening over time sounds good, but also not being able to remove them means I have to be careful where I plan to use them. 

Oh, and someone got me punch and flare dies for my birthday.  Those are gonna be fun to play with, too 

Rufledt said:

Someone showed me this:

I usually detest fiberglass plastered all over...

Obviously this has something to do with the new riveting tools. 

Bare brushed aluminum errywrr!