Welders Needed Info & Services

Shaun

Shaun

***StaGGeRed***
Right my sills are cream crackered they look ugly and are getting worse, so i ask of you fellow MSC members:
1. How much should i be looking at roughly for both sills completely done
2. Any volunteers? wouldn't want to travel much further than 2hours.

Any info/help appreciated.
 
mckenziecz said:
why are you worried to much? they have been patched in past and your MOT is not due yet
Click to expand...
It's not worrying as if the car is gonna fall apart on the motorway, it's just that how can you make a nice car with shoddy sills :(
I don't want to wait till Mot time and have to frantically find money.
the paint has started to flake off the rear quarter, if it was just underneath it wouldn't be on my mind so much and this is more important because until i get this done there is no point going ahead with my other plans.

Pictures: (look away if you can't handle extreme ugly images)
Sills5.jpg


Sills4.jpg


Sills3.jpg


Sills2.jpg


Sills.jpg
 
mckenziecz said:
there is nothing wrong with that at all. we can make it look better if that your main concern.
Click to expand...
Yes that is my main concern. Second is that it's all crumbling.
Don't forget to let me know when you are free for some chop chop :wasntme:
 
I tried making my sills look better by sanding back the rust/flaky paint then rust cure and then painting over it, looks better but I have a line where I didn't mask it properly and you can see where the paint is a slightly different colour, not sure how long it'll last either
 
We usually charge £40-60 a side to patch them up neatly, to MOT standard.

To replace them with a full sill panel would depend on how long it takes.


But... we are in Scotland, probably about as far away from you as we could be without leaving this island!
 
getawaycar said:
We usually charge £40-60 a side to patch them up neatly, to MOT standard.

To replace them with a full sill panel would depend on how long it takes.


But... we are in Scotland, probably about as far away from you as we could be without leaving this island!
Click to expand...

Aww that is a shame. looks like ill be heading down the cheap and easy route anyhow :glare:
 
you could probably pick up a cheap MIG welder second hand off gumtree or ebay. Even if you buy new, there not that expensive.
 
I done mines on one of my ex super-s. Cost £20 for two sills and i just replaced half of the sill as the fronts were sound. Now im no welder but once a welder is setup its easy, then it was a case of sanding, filling/primer/paint and lacquer. All out the tin and it looks great! Just spend loads of time preparing everything and make surfaces are back to the metal. I have pictures on this forum somewhere if you can find them. It was a red super-s which i went into the back of somebody. Oh and if you put it in a garage no offence to anyone but it will get welded on and undersealed. Youd pay alot to get a hidden finish replacement
 
its only the back-end of the sills that rust, and if members had taken my advice years ago to spend 10 mins removing the big plastic panels inside the rear 1/4,s and spraying chainlube down there, they never rust, end of fwn
 
Stani1029 said:
I done mines on one of my ex super-s. Cost £20 for two sills and i just replaced half of the sill as the fronts were sound. Now im no welder but once a welder is setup its easy, then it was a case of sanding, filling/primer/paint and lacquer. All out the tin and it looks great! Just spend loads of time preparing everything and make surfaces are back to the metal. I have pictures on this forum somewhere if you can find them. It was a red super-s which i went into the back of somebody. Oh and if you put it in a garage no offence to anyone but it will get welded on and undersealed. Youd pay alot to get a hidden finish replacement
Click to expand...
I get ya and thats what im worried of. OK diy myself then. might aswell learn it as i'm gonna need it at some point. :laugh:
 
frank said:
its only the back-end of the sills that rust, and if members had taken my advice years ago to spend 10 mins removing the big plastic panels inside the rear 1/4,s and spraying chainlube down there, they never rust, end of fwn
Click to expand...
I wasn't here years ago :down:
 
Hey! Shut up about DIY repairs, I've got a holiday to pay for! :laugh::laugh::laugh:

When we weld repair sections on its usually because a car has failed its MOT. We would be happy to tidy them up and fill the area but...

If was buying a car I'd prefer to beable to seepatches etc. had been welded on properly rather than wondering what as under some filler. Keeps the cost down for the customer too.

Any time we have welded patches on Micra sills we tidy up the weld a bit with the grinder then splash a (thin) coat of stonechip on to stop it rusting as fast.

We have fitted a few full sills on Micras. At the edge that joins the bottom of the rear wing we have ground the weld right down and primered the area. Its up to the customer whether they have it hidden or not.

I'm always suspicious if someone has filled or fibreglassed this area, especially on a Micra. There are too many Micras out there where if you scratch away the filler Tony the Tiger will be staring back at you! :laugh:

(Please note, not all filled or fibreglassed Micra sills are dodgy, just the ones I have seen! Tony the Tiger is a trademark of Kellogs)
 
getawaycar said:
Hey! Shut up about DIY repairs, I've got a holiday to pay for! :laugh::laugh::laugh:

When we weld repair sections on its usually because a car has failed its MOT. We would be happy to tidy them up and fill the area but...

If was buying a car I'd prefer to beable to seepatches etc. had been welded on properly rather than wondering what as under some filler. Keeps the cost down for the customer too.

Any time we have welded patches on Micra sills we tidy up the weld a bit with the grinder then splash a (thin) coat of stonechip on to stop it rusting as fast.

We have fitted a few full sills on Micras. At the edge that joins the bottom of the rear wing we have ground the weld right down and primered the area. Its up to the customer whether they have it hidden or not.

I'm always suspicious if someone has filled or fibreglassed this area, especially on a Micra. There are too many Micras out there where if you scratch away the filler Tony the Tiger will be staring back at you! :laugh:

(Please note, not all filled or fibreglassed Micra sills are dodgy, just the ones I have seen! Tony the Tiger is a trademark of Kellogs)
Click to expand...

LOL TM
So what welder am i looking for does it have to be anything in particular? might get myself a xmas pressie!
3.gif
 
You will get much better welds if you spend a bit more and get a half decent welder. i would spend about £200 second hand if i were you.
 
Yeah, a decent brand second hand Mig is a better buy than an 'Aldi' new one.

Clarke and SIP arent the most reliable but they are simple, easy to fix/modify and cheap! I wouldn't have anything else!

Dont be tempted by 'Gasless' welders, the weld quality isn't the best even if you are a decent welder and the wire is expensive. In the long run you are better to get one that uses gas. nes ta use gs are easier to sell on when you are finished/upgrading/sick of welding!

Don't bother with expensive lessons. 15 minutes and some scrap metal and you will be able to weld as good as anyone. There are plenty decent free online tutorials too. Look here...

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/

or here...

http://retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=usetharch&action=display&thread=70135

(Y)
 
My own welder is a SIP 195 Turbo. Its bigger than most DIYers need but its used almost daily. I got it from a bloke who made wrought iron gates. His shed roof fell in on it and he was scared to turn it on afterwards! We got it for £50 and a service for his van! :laugh:

We have upgraded it with an extra fan (most welders have a thermal cutout so the cooler you keep it the longer you can weld between tea breaks!)

a Euro torch liner adaptor (meant we could change the cheap plastic liner, which overheats and melts, with a decent metal one.)

a longer earth lead (for some reason MIG welders always have a pointlessly short one)

and the wire feed/motor from our old Mac tools one. As SIP is the Vauxhall of welders the one it had was shi...not very good.

attachment.php
 
Thankyou guys. am on the hunt on eBay as we speak then off to the pub. then back online for drunken bidding!
ebay.png
&
images
=
images
then
images
 
lol haha you should have seen the state of my sill when i got mine.... it had a patch welded on very badly with nothing on top to protect it

so i attacked it with a grinder and some underseal and im happy with it... as it doesnt chip or anything and keeps it looking neat lol
 
get a gas one, get the best you can afford, dont look at spending any less than about £200 and do not buy a sip machine, you will need 0.6mm wire also, but if i were you id consider someone else doing it, gas can also be expensive if you dont use it often enough to rent a big bottle, or use it too often to keep using disposable bottles

then sills look quite bad previous repairs, if it were mine id cut them out and do it properly.
 
one member welded the patches on from the inside iirc (kennirobbo ?) so that when they are skimmed with filler and painted there,s no ugly bulge fwn
which goes to how good the access to the inside is (prevention is better than cure :suspect:)
 
i did my k10 ones properly, cut out the rust and made a piece that fit in, seem welded and ground flat, like it wasnt there, but not blowing mu y own horn, i knew what i was doing and had all the right equipment at my disposal
 
I'd go for 0.8 wire rather than 0.6 because of the thickness of the metal you are welding and its easier to get decent looking welds.

Air products do special deals for low/occasional users. They also do Feromax gas which gives you cleaner welds than using argoshield/argon/CO2 mix.

Welding sills from the inside will give you a better base if you intend filling them etc. but it does involve more ######ing about. If you have a look at my blog you get a good look at whats underneath your sills.

If you cut out the patches and weld one large section in it will look far better as it is. Any decent panel supplier will sell you pre shaped angle section, 3"x1/2" for the outer sill, 1"x1" and 2"x1! for the inner if needed is what we use. It works out about £7 for a metre length. It means you can leave as much of the original sill as you need, rather than covering it up with a sill repair section.
 
i personally get far better results with 0.6 rather than 0.8, especially on bodywork, i find it helps when the wire is smaller than the thickness of the metal, stops the inexperianced blowing as many holes.
 
This was our Super S inner sill when we cut out the dodgy repair panel...

attachment.php


And thats how it looked after we had finished. We just ground down the weld and painted it. We are going to race (and probably crash) it anyway, so there was no need to beautify it! :laugh:

attachment.php
 
lol at the neg camber in the pics! some good advice on this thread.
I think once you have decided to spend some decent money of the machine (which you should have by now), they next question is which gas bottles you want to use, i would look for a welder that can use big bottles from places like BOC and also the little ones which you can get from places like machine mart and the like. the little bottles are fine but cost around £10 and dont last that long. The other option is getting the much bigger bottles from BOC which makes the gas alot cheaper but you have to rend the bottle from then which if you only use the welder once a year will end up more expensive. if your not going to use the welder much then i would consider getting someone else to do the work (as superls said). I dont know anyone who enjoys doing welding on cars, its not fun. but its expensive to get done so lots of people do it themselves to save money, me included.
 
I'm getting a quality inverter MMA welder for Christmas. People say you can't weld car panels with stick but this thing's supposed to be dead stable down to something daft like 10 amps. Gonna get a door from a scrappy, cut it up and see if you can weld car steel with 1.6mm electrodes. Results to follow :grinning:
 
6.5x55 said:
I'm getting a quality inverter MMA welder for Christmas. People say you can't weld car panels with stick but this thing's supposed to be dead stable down to something daft like 10 amps. Gonna get a door from a scrappy, cut it up and see if you can weld car steel with 1.6mm electrodes. Results to follow :grinning:
Click to expand...

that will be interesting guy :cool: my exhaust systems were stick welded with my old (70,s) welder :grinning:
 
Cheers getawaycar. That looks like an AC buzzbox. Welding stick with AC is a royal pain in the 'arris. People joke that that's why they're called 'stick' welders :laugh:. Inverters run DC current and are far more pleasant to use. Not knocking buzz boxes, I'm sure alot of people learned on them.
 
6.5x55 said:
I'm getting a quality inverter MMA welder for Christmas. People say you can't weld car panels with stick but this thing's supposed to be dead stable down to something daft like 10 amps. Gonna get a door from a scrappy, cut it up and see if you can weld car steel with 1.6mm electrodes. Results to follow :grinning:
Click to expand...

witch one you getting soomething like this
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/INVERTER-FUSI...415?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item56410f70cf
or this
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Telwin-Force-...634?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item1e605fd73a
 

Similar threads

Shaun
K11 Coilpack Info Needed
Replies
6
Views
948
nathan.warren69
nathan.warren69
W
Newbie after some info...
Replies
4
Views
820
Whatmot1
W
C
timing chain - worse case scenario info
Replies
3
Views
344
CMF_sarge3uk
C
James
  • Locked
  • Sticky
JAE 2018 - The info thread
Replies
0
Views
1K
James
James
James
  • Locked
  • Sticky
JAE 2017 - The Info Thread!
Replies
1
Views
1K
James
James
Back
Top