Projects Project: Purdy - Revenge of the Purdinator

So who's gonna do the final fitting and welding of the replacement floorpans? Everything looks good so far, how do the floor supports under the car look/feel? And the inner rocker panels as well...I'm stoked to see you've got most everything cut out, I hope there isn't much more rust than that to take out of there...good job, and keep it up!...

 

Final fitting and welding? That would be me.

Picking up a Hobart Handler 140 this weekend at northern tool. They also have an auto-darkening helmet for dirt cheap. I welded in college (oxy and arc) and could lay a pretty nice arc bead, but plan on tinkering with alot of test metal before I start in on the pans. I found a great site with some good info on MIG (and other) welding:

http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/

I'm going for broke and plan on doing **** welds instead of overlaps. But I'll definitely be spending some time building up the confidence to do it before burning up the pans and what's left of the original car floor. And yeah, I could rent a welder but I've been looking for a good excuse to buy one and get back into doing it. And I *know* once I have it I'll find a hundred other little projects to use it for...

Supports under the car are solid, which has been a huge relief after all the pockets of floor rust. I have more pics and will post em tonight or tomorrow once all the cutting is done. I was able to pull the transmission access panel off a WHOLE lot easier than I first suspected. Cold chisel is my new BFF. I have a few clean-up cuts to do and should finish those and the driver's side cutting tonight.

Its really just the tops of the rockers that are most troublesome. You can see the tops in a few of the shots already posted. Most are rotted through (like the one hiding the old wasps nest), and the two that are reasonably intact still have a great deal of corrosion. The inner and underside of the rocker sections are fine, only surface corrosion at worst. Can I skin the top bits off and patch?

Thanks for the encouragement!!

 

Busy coupla days, my hands and wrists are aching. In no particular order:

Removed the gas tank and the fuel line up to the pump behind the firewall...



Which left a really spacious area underneath the tail...



...which came in handy when I cut up and removed the exhaust.



The floor pan cutting and cleaning continued with the rear driver side...





...then the front p***enger side...





...and I removed the trans access panel with a few well-placed whacks of a cold-chisel to encourage the bolts to back out.



The panel suffers from two significant areas of decay, but I think it'll be easier to patch them than fab a whole new panel from scratch (at least, for me).

The most discouraging so far has been the front floors, the drivers side in particular.



There's a great deal of rot that extends up into the area behind the brake pedal as well where the trans panel bolts to the drivers side floor. It was just too much decay to leave in place, so...



And even after that, there's still a bit more that should probably be removed. You can see the deep corrosion in the bottom left corner of the cutout where the brake kickplate bolts to. The p***enger front suffers in the same area and I just can't bring myself to cut either just yet. It seems stupid, but I've already cut SO much, and I know the rot has to go, I just need some time to wrap my head around the scope of the replacement effort. That, and every time I pick up the snips and go to squeeze, my hands go NUH-UH, NO WAY, OW.

I also found this after clearing out the p***enger pan:



The nut on the right has nearly completed decayed away. The one on the left doesn't look all that healthy either. The bolts securing the body to the frame on the drivers side aren't much better, and it makes me want to try and eyeball the ones mid and rear cab (which are currently under floor that I *didn't* intend to cut...>sigh<).

So firmly in denial for the moment, I s****ed what was left of the insulation from the floor areas that aren't rotted, and s****ed the insulation off the inside of the roof and made a royal mess:



But after cleanup here's how it looks:



And I picked up the Hobart Handler 140 and some accessories:





REALLY great guy at Northern Tool shoved everything but the welder into a $3 bucket, and I got 15% off the jacket, gloves, and helmet. The most I've done with the welder was get it set up and get the wire feed working smoothly...I've yet to lay a bead. I think I'm a bit nervous, healthy fear kinda thing. I've eaten house voltage before...add molten slag to that equation, I'ma take my time getting the thing sorted out.

But, in the MEANtime, any and all advice on how to proceed with the pans would be most appreciated. I'm figuring I should address those rotted structural nuts *before* putting the pans in...I'm just afraid I'll have to cut so much to reveal the other strut points that I may as well see if I can find a single-sheet floor and have the WHOLE thing replaced. And I don't recall seeing full floor sheets for this ol girl... >.<

Thoughts?

 

Odds are they only make patch pans, maybe a drivers half and p***enger half pan...are you running flux core wire or hard wire and shielding gas? I'd recommend the hard wire and shielding gas...and find a local Harbor Freight and pick up a $5 bag of panel clips to hold your sheetmetal in place while you're tacking it in ...as for the structural mounts, it's hard for me to tell from the pic just how bad they are, so I have no idea what you'll need to do with that...your rockers can be patched, I've done it plenty of times where I just had to cut out a tiny spot, bend a 90 degree flange on the patch to match the factory spot weld flange and **** weld the rest of it, grind it smooth and nobody could tell...I'm glad you got the welder, the best practice you can do right now is take some of your old rusty sheetmetal you cut off, clean up the edges and **** weld 2 pieces together...if you can do that, then you're ready to go...good luck!...

 

your project is encouraging.....

 

Progress is good,but does us and your family a huge favor and invest in a better set of jack-stands,those stamped steel ones are very dangerous to use. A friend had two give-out under a Honda Civic!!!

 

Hahaha. I'm glad I bit my tongue on that one. It's coming along nicely keep us updated!

 

good luck with your project it really looks like a neat car , the hobart is a great little welder its the first real welder i ever got my hands on very beginer friendly get a piece of s**** out and run some practice beads with different settings to learn how to use it , like guy above said get some harbor frieght panel clamps cheap and they work good build on ,

 

You, for sure, are having at it. Purdy will be proud. What i am thinking is those Buick doors are heavy and you've made a lateral cut across the floor pan. True enough there is a frame below the body but the doors are hung from the body, not the frame. You might want to get something under the doors to support them and take the stress/weight off the floor pan via the 'a' pillar. You don't want the floor pan under tension when you weld the new panels, bad juju.
Keep the pics coming, you're doing a great job oj

 

Looks like you have quite a project to break in the new shop.

Frank

 

They're 3-ton stands I picked up at Sears, thought they were good to go? Every few days I give the car a kick and inspect them and have yet to hear a creak from the car and there's been no shifting that I can tell. What do better jack-stands look like?

oj: Actually, that's a great topic. With the extent of the cutting (and removal of the windows) one of my concerns has been that I'd be causing undue structural stress. I thought maybe leaving the doors in would be an indicator of whether or not I'm getting some kind of torsional twist. They all open and close smoothly, but you're saying shim them and take the stress at the hinges/hang points off? Makes sense. Thanks!!

 

Okay, here comes the hot magma! Welding noobness.

I bought this **** POS stand from Harbor Freight for about $20. It's solid but poorly engineered and its a miracle it doesn't wobble after being ***embled, but for $20 I figure I can knock the **** out of it and not care. I also lowered the garage door enough to spare p***ing street traffic - and mostly the neighbors across the street - from arc-eye.



I clipped out a small section from one of the excised patch panels...



...and got it cleaned up with the grinder.



I picked up 2 packs of panel clamps and a welding blanket and after slicing the test piece in half and attaching them together at one end with a panel clamp, I thought I'd try my first p*** on this setup:



I wasn't sure if the heat would set the damn table on fire, so putting the welding blanket between the pieces and the table SEEMED like a good idea. lol.



Of course I blow holes in the first attempt AND manage to weld the blanket to the metal.



So I give up on the **** weld for the moment and practice laying beads. When blowing those **** weld holes I felt like I was just getting too much wire so I turned it down from 30 to 20 and went at it again (after removing the blanket):



Better, but still blah. Damage to the table was actually much less than it appears after brushing off the black. Here's a close up of those welds:



I laid them in order from bottom to top, so the bead closest to the edge of the metal was the third or fourth try, and does look better. Here's the penetration underside:



Still kinda spotty. So I turned the test piece around 180 and tried a few more beads on the other side.



Only blew one hole, but before the hole that top one was looking good. Here's the underside of those:



I was trying the half-moon crescent motion, but what REALLY felt natural was during cursive e's, amp setting at 1, wire feed at 20. I felt like I had more control and less blow-through. The hole on the last bead was caused by spending just a TAD too much time in one spot while drawing my e. I'm using the .30 flux core sample spool that came with the welder, hence all the spatter (right?)

Also, I'm a righty and had it set in my mind to try pushing the weld from right-to-left which I did on the **** weld attempt, but switched to left-to-right pulling on all the other beads because pushing felt too unnatural.

So, one blown **** weld and 8-9 test beads, I was having a blast but we're in the middle of a cold snap here in FL and even with the welding jacket on I was shivering in the garage so I decided to call it a night. I'll cut more test pieces and play around some more tomorrow!!

 

My more-door is a no-door! But my spare bedroom is now a four-door. Funny how that works out.

An earlier post had brought up the subject of undue stress potentially caused by so much of the floors being removed and the doors still on the car. I decided it might be best to pop the doors off to avoid the structural strain, not to mention it'd be easier to get in and around the thing in general with the doors gone.





Like everything, the first door was the worst to remove. Once I got the feel of popping those big hinge screws loose without stripping em, the other three doors were clear of the car in a single night. The check links on the rear doors are still stuck to the B pillars though; they're recessed in the pillar and I can't get the cold chisel on em and they're *******S. I'll have to use heat to get em out.

Since I've been doing this project pretty much solo, I've worked out ways to handle the awkward stuff. Here's how I got the doors off without them dropping into my lap or onto the ground:



The buckets acted a bit like a piston, with the orange one sinking only as far as needed onto the white one to compensate for the weight.

To pull a door, I made sure all screws on the hinges and check links were loose enough to remove quickly, then removed the screws from the bottom hinge first, then top, then the check link. Removing the bottom hinge screws first allowed the door to sink slightly onto the buckets while it swung in a bit if needed where the door pillars stopped any more swinging movement. I'd brace the door slightly with my knee to keep the door upright and prevent it from twisting while pulling the top hinge and check link screws out. Once all screws were removed and the door balanced, I could hop out of the cab and lift it neatly off the car. The doors actually weren't as heavy as I thought they'd be.

In the past few evenings I've also cleared out more of the wiring harness, and a few of the bits around the engine, too.





Why is it the more I take her apart the more she looks like a car? It's kinda cool. With her doors gone I can picture her rolling down the ***embly line while many hands tend to different spots, building her slowly, the buzz of power tools and a flurry of welding sparks.

This project has had a few frustrating points so far, but overall its been a blast. I'm getting such a kick out of the new house and being able to come HOME to a project like this, and have been learning so much spending time with the car nearly every day.

And I really love being able to post progress here and share it with folks! Thanks so much for keeping up with the thread and throwing in 2 cents now and again, its greatly appreciated!!

 

you're doing good....I can't wait to see more.

 

I've got a LOT of tips for you as far as welding goes...PM me sometime when you get a chance and I'll get you all set up to get those floors patched...glad to see you're still making progress and enjoying the house...keep it up!...

 

Welding noobness, round 2!

I cut a 9" inch strip about 3/4" wide and panel clamped it in for my first patch attempt:



Managed to get it tacked in with a few ****py spot-welds:



...then smacked one of the welds with a hammer and the whole thing popped out. Even just trying to lay the spots I was getting so much blow-through on the attempts I finally just said screw it, I'm picking up shielding gas.

Got me a pony bottle of argon/co2, got it set up and starting playing with it on s****.



Wow, what a difference in the bead!! A lot less spatter, but my control is still ****py. Plus, the bead lays REALLY high on the metal and I'm getting no penetration:





I tinkered with wire feed and amperage - I had been on my flux-core settings of 1/25 but bumped it to 2/25-30 and still seemed to lack penetration and had high beads. So before I go bleeding this pony bottle dry of gas, any suggestions?

Should I turn it up to 3/25-30 (am I not getting enough heat)? Or is my shielding gas flow off? Its set per instructions which I tested, to flow at 20 cfh when the trigger is pressed. But the instructions mention that the default should be adjusted based on the wire being used but there's nothing on the wire reel label that mentions optimum cfh. I'm using ER70S-6 .023 solid core wire from Chicago Electric. I picked up a .024 spool of Hobart wire, but couldn't find .024 tips.

Is the brownish color surrounding the bead indicative of something, or just normal?

 

do you have to switch your polarity on the hobart ? i know when i go from flux core to gas welding wire on my miller you have to swap polarity , by opening side cover and moving two br*** contact bars keep practicing you will get it argon / co2 make s a cleaner weld than flux core dont give up

 

Check your welder's instructions for wiring polarity between flux core and solid core wire, I think captainjunk is probably right about your polarity being backwards...if the polarity is right, then I'd step up the amperage (heat) setting...shielding gas will cool your weld very fast compared to flux core that burns hot and is cooled by the ambient air temp...my guess is that your polarity +/- is backwards...but check your welder's instructions first...

 

Sonuva*****, you're dead on. I read your comment and checked the instructions and yup, reverse polarity for solid core. THANK YOU!

Won't get a chance to play with it until tomorrow, but given that I'll set it for DCEP, any other tips as far as settings (2/25 vs 3/25, etc.) or CFH flow, or...?

You're definitely right about the bead, even with the wrong polarity and me being a noob at it, the weld is so much cleaner...like soldering! Nice.

 

When you've got your polarity and settings correct, it should sound like you're frying bacon, just a very consistent frying sound with no splutters or pops, and the weld should lay flat on the panel with minimal warpage on the opposite side of the panel from your weld...you should also be getting a uniform blue colored "halo" of heat in the sheetmetal all the way around your weld after it cools...good luck!...

 

Well, you've got a neat project here and now you have most of the easy work done. I look forward to following your progress. This is the way you learn..........and some of it you will learn the hard way. But, that's ok. Most of us did the same.

Good luck!!!

 

great read and awesome pictures ta-boot!

Make sure you labeled EVERYTHING so when the time comes to reinstall you will know where they all go... may sound like no big deal, but after a few months, you may just forget some of those small parts are located on the car.

Please keep posting, this is a great thread.

Cheers.

 

Thanks for all the help and encouragement, gang!!

Yardwork consumed my sunday, and recovering from yardwork consumed my monday, so tonight was the first chance I had to set the polarity correctly on the Hobart and give it another shot on some s****.

So here's the s****:



And here're the welds on the s****:



It's just going to take practice, practice, practice. Penetration on those welds:



I played with wire feed and amp and pretty much came to the conclusion that 2/25 was about where I needed to be, and just watch for blowout. Best penetration, clean bead, and more frying bacon noise, etc. seemed to be at that setting. And the **** weld, for as ugly as it looked, was ROCK solid. I couldn't bend the metal at the gap and it stood up to my beating the warpage out of it from the heat.

Once I got it flat I thought, hey, I'll just grind that bad boy down and see how it looks:



Then I put the 3M stripper in the grinder and:



Woo! Except for the couple of holes, it looks pretty damn tight. I was proud of myself.

And on the subject of owning metal, one of the evenings past I decided I'd try to pull off the rear bumper. So PB blaster and 1/4" torque wrench in hand I went after the 6 carriage bolts. I ain't pe***e but I ain't a big girl either, and just sitting on my **** and putting my shoulder into the effort (no breaker bar), I managed to remove 3 of the nuts before hitting this one:



So nearly 40yr old girl > 60 yr old steel. I couldn't believe I'd managed to shear the thing off. Needless to say I've been letting the last 2 bolts stew in some PB.

I've got some more 18 gauge sheet metal on the way and cutting s**** with tin snips is getting to be a pain in the ****. I'm considering getting gun-grip electric shears just so I can get on with practicing the welding/patching instead of wasting energy and timing wrestling with the snips. A few more nights practicing control with the solid wire, I think I'll try that patch strip again in the car....

 

Try practicing the overlapping spot welds, that'll minimize a lot of your warpage issues...6 or 7 solid spot welds overlapping each other and moving to another area of the panel, and don't go back to any area to weld again until you can touch it bare handed without burning yourself...OR lay a 1 inch long solid bead and move to another area...either method will work for floors...your welds are looking pretty good so far, good luck with the rest of the practicing!...

 

I put my first patch panel in tonight!

And the cold chisel is no longer my BFF, these pair of shears are. I'm a fickle gal.



I picked up the shears and four pieces of fresh 1'x2' 18 gauge cold rolled steel and set to laying beads to practice a bit more. Like a hot knife through ****er, using the shears I snipped off about 5" of one of the sheets, then divided it again into thirds. My first spot welds were ****, it was like my control and feel for the whole thing had disappeared. At which point I realized, oh duh, the stuff I *had* been working with was actually NOT 18 gauge but something thinner, maybe more like 20 or 22.



Ah so! I snapped the bad weld apart and turned the pieces around to try on fresh sides and did this:



Trying what Ruiner suggested by putting down an inch bead, moving a few inches away, laying another, letting it cool, filling in the gaps, etc. worked out well. So then I decided to get frisky...



...and I tack in the third piece to the other two and start connecting the dots:



...banging on it with a hammer to keep the heat warpage to a minimum in between connecting dots.



So they're not perfect, but no blow throughs! And penetration is sweeeet:



My confidence up, I played a bit more with the s**** doing push beads and pull beads and realized, wow, push works a ton better. (Push for me is right right to left):



So I resolve to fight the urge to lay pull welds and instead do pushes. And decide I need to give up s**** before I bleed the pony bottle of shielding gas dry, and put in a real patch on the car. The candidate? The hole left in the floor on the front p***enger side when I removed the under-seat heater.

So I clamped the steel over the hole and weighted it flat with a paint can:



Then crawled under the car with a soapstone pencil and drew the outline of the hole onto the steel.



Knowing that I needed to spare just a bit of metal because the pencil was fat, I used the shears and cut just outside the lines then trimmed the corners with tin snips. Using welding magnets, I fit the piece to the hole and marked it so I'd know if (when) I fumbled the piece which way it fit best.



Using the grinder, I cleaned up the metal around the hole and since the magnets were doing a great job of holding the patch piece when I fit it, I decided I'd just use them while putting down tack welds instead of messing with panel clamps.



Working opposite sides at a time, giving the metal a chance to cool and whacking it a bit with the hammer, I started connecting the dots:



I continued in this fashion until it was done:





I won't get a chance to clean up the welds til later this weekend, but huzzah! My first patch!!

 

thats is completly rodical! those welds look a lot better keep up the good work.

 

Thanks!!

Yardwork got rained out today and its cold as a witch's *** on top of that so I only had enough in me to get the patch cleaned up this morning. Probably spend the rest of the day hibernating...





Couple of blow-thrus but none of em very big, and the patch lays pretty flat so no real warpage from heat. It *looks* like it bubbles up in the center, but that's just from the light hitting the edges of where I was grinding. It *does* dip a bit in one corner, though.

I got my eye on the transmission access panel for my next welding/fab mini-project...



Get it cleaned up and repair the two spots that are rotted out (in the pic, the bottom corner and a section of the edge on the opposite side).

 

your doing good , thats the thing with welding the more you do it the better you get at it , small multiple s***ch welds alternating sides will help cut down on warpage , when i learned to weld instructor said push weld when you were using mig so you could watch your puddle of weld , keep up the good work

 

Where's the updates?!? ...your silence had damned well better mean you're making a LOT of progress!!! ...

 

updates?