i have an gasless wirefeed welder. its rate up to a 1/4 thick metal. would i be able to safely weld in a rolbar with this welder? i don't have the monry to spend to pay someoen to do it right now. if its not possible i'll just have to save up and wait

 

it might work but i doubt you have the ability. fluxed cored wire is a bad choice for this. you'd want GMAW (mig) or GTAW (tig)

 

what if i got it all where i wanted it and tacke4d everything into place and then got someone to just come and finish up all the welds. i have the ability to do the cutting and fitting i just don't have a high enough quality welder. would that work?

 

id be sure to work out a deal with a welder first... but yes, theres a big chance to save money by fitting everything yourself...


the catch being, if the guy makes his money off fitting and welding stuff, you made a job that he could have made big money off of, into little money... so some guys want to do it all, or have nothing to do with it.... id be sure to have someone lined up to weld it first. then go ahead and fit and tack it.

 

btw, if the weld is really dirty, hes going to have to grid your tack away, then finish welding it... you cannot grind on the welds and be NHRA legal, so either do a clean tack, or be ready for him to cut the tack off as hes welding it...

 

mr dude how would grinding the tacks not be nhra legal, how would they even know? grinding the tacks would be the proper way to prep them to be made part of the finial weld.

 

yea, im trying to say that he cant have anything extra because he cant grind it off, so he needs to make a clean tack......

athough ive been fumbling my words all day today.... just ignore me.

 

Ede, why would flux cored wire be bad for this type of welding

 

excessive heat input compared to deposition rate, you'd make a lot of holes. not that it couldn't be done, it's just not the best method to use, not even second best. it's hard to weld the end of a piece of tube.

 

not to mention excessive spatter Had a weird experience last Thursday installing a cage in a buddies chevelle. All I had to do is fit and weld using his stuff and the welds looked like ****. It was a Hobart 170 with .035 mig wire and even that spattered like crazy. I ran out his little 2 lb. spool in a hurry and had him buy some .030 wire instead-what a difference. No spatter and my usual beautiful bead I've never experienced anything like that before. He told me the .035 was mig wire, but maybe it was flux core? and yes I had the CO mix on

 

flux wire is usually thicker. you'd drag fluxed wire and push solid wire, big differance there.

 

what if the car was only going to be run at the track a few times and was just desired for better strength. i will be preping and painting the rollbar and will only see track time maybe once a year if that.

this is topless89rs. i'm at school on a friends name

 

I would still say MIG it in. I had a 8 point put in my car last spring and it ran me right at 300 bucks for the welding job. I prepp'd the interior, had several bars already precut and marked just had to be trimmed and Mig'd in. You're gonna have to be really careful if you try to fluxcore it in... especially on the 6x6 plates that have to go against the sheet metal.

As for paint and stuff I did that right after the roll bar was migged in (about a week or so stupid fedex lost my package). I used Por-15 gloss black.

 

Fireturd, do you have any finished pictures of the paint job on your cage? I was thinking about using the POR-15 as well, but I was a little concerned about seeing brush marks. Did you brush it or spray it?
Thanks.

 

I didn't even try to make it look good... I used the 25 or 50 cents toss away brushs from Walmart. There a few spots with minor runs, but hey I tested the paint about a week after it dried. I hit a bolt off the swing out multiple times in the same spot all it did was make the paint loose it's glossy finish.

http://www.sounddomain.com/memberpage/433125/2 Some on page 1 also.

If you want more I can take some (digital camera) and PM to you.

 

hey fireturd...did you remove your gastank to weld in those rear bars?

 

The gas tank should be removed for safety reasons.... I haven't finished up the rear bars yet. Because I didn't feel like pulling the tank doing the bars then installing the tank then having to pull it again a year later. I'm getting a new 383 carb motor so I planned on switching to carb pump and taking out the FI one. I am thinking about just using the FI one for awhile, since I wanted to use a return type regulator anyways. I'll get the rear bars weld'd in when ever I swap to a carb pump or the FI burns up.

The bars are weld'd to the 6x6 plates but I just put some industrial strength expoxy under the plates to keep them from rattling. How strong is it? I climbed in and stood in the hatch well and tried with both hands to pull on side of the bars up and I couldn't. So it's good enough now for the street... nearest 1/4 mile strip is around 2 hour drive for me.

 

Also the clearanced bars option includes the regular side bars too. So you get 2 pairs of side bars. We used the regular side bars for extra steel to cut and make the x-brace between the rear bars from. This helps renforce the rear bars and transfer a little more weight to the shocks. (Spohn suggested this idea to me.)

 

When your welding the plates in out back, be sure to jump around and stitch weld. This metal above the tank is very thin and will warp easily, I found out quickly enough to prevent the rest from doing so, just be warned so it does'nt happen to ya. I left my tank in place, I'm confident enough in my ablility and the point of welding is too penetrate the metal and not burn through, but stuff happens so IMO dropping the tank is a little overkill, but when it comes to utmost safety there is no overkill.
Like Fireturd said order the rear clearance bars, wish I would have so I could've left the back seat intact even though it never gets used for people, just looks more finished. I caged a Chevelle last weekend and he bought those bars, I personally dont htink they are as strong as going straight back, but looks amazing when it's all said and done.

 

When we were doing my roll bar the welding shop wouldn't do the rear bars with the tank in place. Which was another reason why it didn't get done at that time.

I think it all comes back to if you wanna keep the arm rests or not. I can't really see how it wouldn't be as strudy as regular straight side bars. Just like there was a post about a year ago people were saying how swing out pins weren't as safe as regular weld in. Bottom line is to check out the NHRA Tech Book if you want to be legal. There are all kinds of rules about height of main hoop, crossmember, side bars, and rear bars to think about.

For me even with clearanced bars I couldn't leave the back seat intact for the fact I'm around 6'5 and I had to move the main hoop back so I could fit in the car with the seat all the way back. That moved the hoop up where the ledge of the rear seats were, which put the crossmember joint to transmission tunnel bars right where the cushions should have went back.

If you order the swings out (I would recommend it for a street car) make sure you get them right. S&W have a weird 2 piece weld in one that is kind of a pita. We had to grind to get it to fit right. I think Comp Engineering makes a 1 piece per side now you might just get that little kit. They sale them out of summit and jegs and you can just order the swing out kit.

Main thing is just to plan for it all (read up on all your Tech Rules).