I don't have all the details yet and I hope the person to whom this happened will post the story: I was supposed to stripe a Deuce vicky for Matt(cartman)today and he was scheduled to show up about 10am.He just got the car together and wanted to get it done for the Billetproof show tomorrow. He lives up around the Grand Rapids area which is a couple hour drive from here so he left early.He apparently got only about a mile from home when(from what I gathered from his phone call)the bracket holding the steering box separated from the frame.Luckily he was only going slow(not yet onto the highway)and managed to get the car stopped. That is what I know of it so far;hopefully if he isn't too bummed out he'll post the full story. I don't know who did the welding on the bracket but my point is: If you haven't got the experience in attaching what is obviously a critical part,farm the job out to someone who does.It's all well and good to be able to say you built the entire car by yourself,but the last thing you want to do is compromise the safety(yours and the people you hopefully DON'T come in contact with!)of the vehicle. This is a situation that could have been catastrophic had this happened on the highway at speed.Thankfully it didn't and no one was injured. Anyway I felt that I had to post this for no other reason than maybe there are people out there with cars who might want to check some of the welds on their cars.It doesn't hurt to do it now 'cause it'll sure'n'hell hurt a lot more later! Thanks for listening to me. Ray aka safariknut
I jimmied together a gm column to my 49 shaft and box but after some questions were raised about how I did it I went back to the stock column just so the same scenario didn't happen to me
When I converted my 56 Chevy rear suspension to a 62 Chevy "3-link" I had all my welds checked by a buddy of mine. He is a professional welder . He told me that I had done a good job although the welds would have looked a lot better if he had done the welding.I wouldn´t have to worry for the welds to hold up. His words were something like " Not bad for a hairdresser!" I always have a bad feeling when I did something by myself. Until someone who nknows his business says: Alright dude, well done!Self confidence may be a bad safety guide...
I'm NOT trying to play "one up manship", but I had an incident happen to me a number of years ago that COULD have been VERY serious. It had to do with my rush to get my rod on the road AND the fact that I couldn't WELD worth a damn. I had a "T" roadster, flathead powered. The rod was running but the stock wishbones were hitting the pan so we were making a modification by spliting the front wishbones. The split wishbones needed the mounting brackets mounted on the frame. A friend (who was a good welder) had left his "buzz box" at my place. He couldn't make it over that night, so I figured; Hey welding's easy, so I "gobbed" on lots of weld and decided to take it for a spin. I had stopped at a set of lights, someone came up beside me and gave me the "nod." The lights turned green, I side stepped the clutch and "hit it." The next thing I knew I was INSIDE! a jewelry store! The car just cleared the concrete pillars on either side of the window! My poor weld had broken off, (left side) the front axle twisted to the left, ripped off the brake line and I sailed across the intersection and through the window. While spending the night in jail; (the owner of the store and the police spent the night doing inventory because they thought I had planned this "trick" as a way to steal merchandise) I came to the conclusion, NEVER DO YOUR OWN WELDING UNLESS YOUR AN EXPERT!! Especially on SUSPENTION!!
I bought a project car with a proffesionally built frame. They did not use a splined coupling on the vega box. They used a smoth bore coupling and relied on a 1/4" set screw on the flat of the shaft to secure it. Check everything when you get a car, especially if from a "rod shop".
A friend built a 49 Merc. chopped coupe, drove it for a few times a sold it. The guy who bought it drove to Fl. and was coming off the interstate, stepped on the brake and the pedal broke off. He had done his own welding also.
You got that right, Andy! That's a big reason we build instead of buy. Got tired of re-doing somebody else's screwups. They might not be purty but we know what we got.
Welding is like ***. The more you do it the better you get. don't learn on critical parts. weld on s**** and cut the weld open to see what the weld looks like on the inside. when it looks the same all the way through and the penatration is good then go to your car. pogo
Matt is a lucky guy for sure. I would imagine he built a bigger car so he could take his family along. Good thing it didn't happen with a car full. Here is a pic of one of his old rides
One of the best bits of advice I've ever seen on this board. Thanx Ray. I always just tack my stuff together and then take it to the certified proffessional welder so I know it's glued togther properly.
What's scary is to look at most stuff nowadays (cars, bike, go karts, etc) how ****py the welds are. A neighbor has a mini chopper he bought at a local auto parts store. The welds are absolutely horrible! They're just globs on the surface, and so far I've repared 3 different places on it for him. It goes about 20-25 mph, and one of the repairs was to a small weld holding on the handlebars! Of course, I look at my Specialized P2 mountain bike for an axample of perfect welds.
That is exactly why my 47 Ford coupe is in some one else's shop now. I am having ALL my suspension parts welded in by a welder along with the bracket for the master cyl and pedal ***y. I do not trust my welding on any structural parts.
I was going to subcontract to build some parts for an ultralite airplane kit manufacturer. He was having the fuselage structure welded at the local muffler shop. Probably with coat hangers!
How do you guys transfer your cars to the shop where they receive the final welding? Do you just do a lot of litle tack welds so nothing gets tweaked while the car is bouncing along on the trailer? just seems like something might move.
With a good trailer and tiedowns, the car should not move much, if any . Good tack welds should hold. The real test is in the loading on the trailer. When the car hits the ramp and when it rolls off the ramp onto the trailer floor are the test.
[ QUOTE ] How do you guys transfer your cars to the shop where they receive the final welding? Do you just do a lot of litle tack welds so nothing gets tweaked while the car is bouncing along on the trailer? just seems like something might move. [/ QUOTE ] I'm in the middle of a project at the moment. Once major ***emblies have been tacked together, I dis***emble them and take them to a certified welder for finish welding. Having things apart makes it easier for him to "roll" things around to get at each and every weld. Because he does aircraft (airframes) and other critical ***emblies; he x-rays EVERYTHING (that will be in a HIGH Stress application) he welds to insure proper penetration. Might be a bit "overkill"; but I sleep better knowing that everything is "glued together" RIGHT! After my first experience of bad welding, I don't want to spend another night in jail; or worse yet on a "slab!"
Sorry, I didn't post before, I've kinda been trying to forget the whole thing. Realize two things before the story. First, I'm basically a (gulp) checkbook rodder. Having said the first, I do know enough about welding, metal work etc to be dangerous. Here's what happened...After nearly two years my car is basically done. I've been dreaming about a Safriknut stripe job on my 32'Ford ******* Vicky(I call it a roadster for 5) for a long time. I get the car on a Thurs. afternoon and test drive a few miles back to home. Friday morning the kids are begging for a ride to school, but I got too much going on at work, so I say "not today". Early Saturday morning I fire up the car for the much anticipated trip to Safriknut's. I drive to the end of my street and turn right, nice long straight road with new blacktop..so I do what what comes natural, punch it...flying down the road at about 70-80mph and suddenly the steering becomes strangly light..My first thought..OH ****..my second thought..Damn this is gonna hurt... Fortunately I didn't panick. There was no traffic and the car tracked pretty straight so I slowed down real gently. Got stopped and jumped out for a look....The fabricated coupler between the steering box and the knuckle joints had failed. The joints just hung straight down toward the road. There was no steering at all. I reached down to see what had happened. Somebody had bolted the "D shaft" to the knuckles and added a spot weld for safety. Problem was that the knuckles are cast and the shaft is cold steel and you can't weld the two together. Plus the bolts didn't tighten the down around the "D Shaft" anyway. So it was only the spot welds holding it together to begin with. I managed to get back home(only a mile or so) by turning the wheels by hand to get pointed in the right direction and driving very slowly. Thank God, I was by myself and ok. Scared as hell but ok. Then pissed. The guy who had done most of the work on the car(its fresh) is somebody who I've known for a long time. I respected his skills and I always knew that whatever he had done it was above all safe..until this. We had even gone the extra mile and cost to add some saftey features. He knew better than to try and weld cast steel and even admitted it. Somebody really could have gotten hurt. Most of all it ruined my plan to pick up my 7year old autistic son from school for a "drive in" lunch. I had planned that for two years. Anyway...Check your steering folks!! By the way a big THANKS to Ray(Safariknut) for his concern. I had called to say I wasn't gonna make it and he took the time to call me back, just to make sure I was ok. Thanks Ray!
Like Carp's said we need to get all Automotive structural welding certified over here, before road worthy is issued. Sounds like a lucky escape.
Hey Matt: Just happy to hear you're all right.A similar incident happened to my son when he was driving a beer truck.Going along M-50(not far from our house and the idler arm broke at about 50-55 mph.Luckily the road was dead straight and no traffic and he got it stopped before it went off the road.That was the last day he drove for them;they were more concerned about the load he was carrying! Anyway,whenever you get it sorted out let me know. Ray
i just bought a welder....now i'm thinking i should of just had someone else do my welding ....at least when i die,i'll know it was my fault
What has happened to me once was not welding related but it was steering related. A buddy of mine built a race car for himself, put a couple of seasons on it and then sold it to another friend of mine. He ( the new owner ) lets me wring the thing out on a short oval track we rented, and I am having lots of fun doing long very sideways powerslides. Untill it suddenly turns into the slide ( violently, like flipping a swich )and I stuff it into the guardrail. The steering arms had been put on with the wrong size nut and bolt ( Metric on a Standard Size car ) and the wrong grade ( soft **** ). When they sheared off mid corner, the outside front wheel turned untill it hit the suspension and locked up. Believe me or not, the owner of the car thanked me for wrecking his car, he was going to be on a longer high speed track the next weekend...
Many Many years ago(1964) in a place far away ( East Sidalia Mo.) I helped a friend put together a roadster with an early Hemi. All he had was hand tools and a 1/4 inch drill. We would get things to bolt on and then pack the frame ,whatever ,to the local welding shop and then pack it home again. It took a long time and a lot of wasted motion but it got built and driven. There is nothing wrong with tack welding a few parts at a time and then leting someone else do the final welding. Also I am a big fan of useing your tax money to it's fullest extent. Go to your community college or high school and bug them for some winter cl***es on welding ,machine shop ect. I used to attend the cl***es for Machine shop locally and I could not beleive I could have access to a two million dollar shop for less than $ 100. The instructer was nice enough to let us spend some snowy Sat. there working on progets for free. I would bet you could weld a complete frame as a cl*** project and never have to even own a welder.
I am sure all of us who have done our own fabricating and wrenching have our own "stupid me" stories to tell. I think sometimes two things happen to cause this. Either the lack of experience or rushing to get done within some stupid time frame. Having deadlines is a two edge sword. It gives us incentive to finish but involves chances in missing an important item. The problem being... There's a hell of alot of work for one guy when building these things. Its easy to get sidetracked and over indulgent, each having their own problems. What I don't understand is. Even if the tack weld didn't hold. The double bolts on these joints should hold it providing they are torque correctly.
Side note: Just because you have a so-called "pro" welder do your welds for you does not mean ****. I had a "pro" weld the kick up to the back of my frame for me - specifically for safety reasons, as I did not trust my own (newly aquired) welding skills for something safety related. Well...HIS "pro" welds broke while still sitting in my garage without even the weight of the motor, trans, etc. and having never even been subjected to the strains of any use at all. Moral of the story: No matter who did the welds, periodically crawl under over and around with a flashlight and inspect every weld.
The Jalopy Journal
