My dad calls welds like those "bird shit" and he almost never swears. I'm glad that you made it safely out of that 720. - Joe
not true my friend. everything else you said is pretty right on but MIG welding is NOT supperior to TIG. i barely know how to TIG and i do everything with a MIG. i LOVE my MIG but i have no dillusions about the fact that TIG is far superior. take a welding class or metalurgy class and you'll be VERY surprised.
True- But when it comes to Chassis work-I.E. Structural work on exsting Chassis steel, Mig has 1 advantage over T.I.G. most of the steel used to build a stock frame is what we would call "dirty"- lots and lots of impurities. Mig has the leg up simply because the weld puddle is easier to maintain through that shit. it's not like welding steel coupons together on a table. But I digress... The point I was making is that the DESIGN of the (I don't even want to call it this) suspension was doomed well before the torch ever got any where near the metal. T.I.G, M.I.G., Oxy Acetelyne, Sacred blood of the Lamb, I don't care, it was gonna break. All of the weight and support is in the wrong places. it's like trying to get a fat girl to stand on a water baloon with high heels on. something is gonna give up.
that kinda of work scares the SHIT out of me. Someone buys that car and has no idea of the underside looks like, that's the kinda shit that gets people killed...Timebomb. not fucking funny one bit!!!
im building a 56 premier right now and i also thought that car was sick! did he look under his car before he picked it up and paid for it?!?! never mind ray charles, i think helen keller did that work!
i honestly think somebody needs to do some time for that. that is BEYOND neglegance. i've had to fix some pretty fucked up suspension in my time but that is worse than anything i've seen before. i'd i've seen some scary shit!!
Thanks for posting the pics... wow, you know, you HEAR about this kind of stuff, but seeing it... The only solution is to cut all that crap out of there and start fresh. I think there are two lessons here: Know the shop that does the work. No reputable shop would ever have let a car leave like that. I'm surprised that someone, somewhere, hadn't already said something about it. Good grief -- surely someone changing the oil would've seen that... or is it just me? CRAWL UNDER IT before you buy it. I've never personally seen anything that bad, but I walked away from a Jeep once because when I crawled under it, the frame was a hack job. One hard bounce and it would've folded in half. Me, I don't mind welding body panels, or brackets to a frame, or that sort of thing, but when it comes to chassis/suspension mods, I get a pro. "A man's gotta know his limitations" -- Dirty Harry. My son and are building a Model A rat rod to take cross country and to the top of Pike's Peak. I told him that when we get to that point, we're taking the frame to a pro. It might not have doors or paint, but the last thing I need is having it break in half, mid-way through Kansas or on the way up Pike's Peak.
{ it's like trying to get a fat girl to stand on a water baloon with high heels on. something is gonna give up.[/quote]} thats funny as hell, The work? unfortunatly looks like gerbil got into the dudes crack supply and shit all over it. the only notch i've seen worse is a mini truck c notch that was two 1/4 x 1 steel plates bolted to the frame with out any boxing and yes the frame had been cut completely thru. I personally would take one of those {4-link--ha-ha} bars off the car and beat him with it, but that just me i'm a KY hick and that how we get down.
This is horrible. There's just no reason for the person responsible for that piss poor engineering and shoddy workmanship to continue in the automotive biz. Period. Get a job at Walmart as a greeter where he's no longer endangering other's lives. No one could put out work like that on one car and then do terrific suspension work on another- the skills just aren't there. As other's have said in this post about knowing their own limitations and having someone more capable do their welding to critical parts the fabricruncher that did this obviously doesn't know his limitations. I ran a body shop 20 years ago and did some restoration work in addition to regular work. I had an hourly rate for resto work, billing the customer monthly labor and materials. Pretty much the norm. The owners of these cars were in and out of my shop regularly to check progress, take pictures, ask questions blah, blah, blah. They saw the work. If something didn't look right they could discuss it. Other people were in and out of the shop daily- salesman, buddys of the car owner, friends of mine, potential customers. The work in progress was always a great selling tool for future work. Over the course of a project hundreds of people saw my work. If things for whatever reason looked like the work in the pictures of this car someone would definitely have spoken up. I feel bad for the owner of this car. He got a poor job and is lucky to be alive and not hurt anyone else. I'm not critisizing the owner of this car in any way here- he obviously took the car to people he trusted on their reputation. And the suspension guy let him down. But you would think that even if the owner couldn't check on the progress of the car in person before the final payment was made on this suspension work that someone else passing through the shop would have seen this abortion in progress and said wait a minute this just isn't going to cut it. And even once the suspension was done- wasn't the car ever inspected or serviced on a lift where someone might have looked at this mess and had the same reaction we are looking at the pictures? Hope it all ends up right in the end.
almost looks like the same guy that did my setup before I bought it...boxed the frame with sheetmetal, tack welded most of the suspension, geometry on my 4 link was setup to work like a 2 link tack welded motormounts... LUX remember all that??? haha
I'm pretty sure I have repressed most of it. (In my Hank Hill Voice) "Swallow it down, Bobby...Don't let it come back up..." Sheesh. The half inch thick steel is part of the problem- it doesn't flex at all, and facilitates the steel fatiguing. Someone should tell this guy we aren't trying to build bridges-we want to drive over them.
WTF!! how is this supposed to work?!?! and as for the rest of it shit I thought I welded bad, and I won't even attempt to weld a frame, cause I know my limits, but shit the pieces used for the c-noth don't even fit, the top of the notch is so thin. And I love the birdshit welds. Fuck the drivers lucky to still be alive driving that thing around, do we know the name of the shop? This place needs to be exposed, so people can avoid it.
WTF!!!!!!!! I seriously feel sick now after Looking at that quaility craftsmanship. Who did the welding and fab work on that, Stevie wonder?? Id straight beat the crap outta the genius that was behind that one!! Seriously, Thats someones life their playin with!!!!
Dont blame the MIG for the shoddy work. A LOT of people dont realize you have to grind and prep the metal to get proper penetration- you cant just start welding on 50 years of road grime and oil. Ive seen girth and longitudinal root-weld seams done with GMAW (MIG) on pressure vessels rated to 500psi. I personally welded together a 45-Ton oven the size of a 3-bedroom house- all with mig. Thats 90,000 lbs that was distributed to 4 lifting eyelets that were 6"x10"x1/2" with a 4" eye. It all boils down to what was previous said: its horseshit to believe youre a welder just because you have a welding machine in your garage. Take a class at your local community college, people.
can a newbie try to learn from this? even I can tell this is unreal. formost statement, a very heavy auto. with a very big motor. trac bar welded to thin steel, not very well braced on frame side. not setting level with axle (assumeing that the car is resting on the jack). looks like the shock is against the axle. large welded blocks, thin doubled lower ummm link. small u-bolts attached to welded tabs. thin un re-enforced bag mount to frame. pipe through frame should have been welded also. bag mount should be on or part of a cross brace rail to rail. upper link hitting on horrible muli repaired frame cut out. shock should be mounted on a cross brace, not a single shear welded bolt. shock is jamed against axle. the c channel should have been at least 3/16 th plate boxing in the frame for at least 2 or 3 feet each way and should have curves vs the angles shown here. metal to thick and welded across frame vs dove tailing the stress points. fuel line ran poorly and is rubber that looks like it has been rubbing. or maybe that is the air bag line?? looks to be 3/16 th's welded to ?? 1/16th?? from the look of the torn edge the weld was under cut making it thinner then it looks here. trac bar welded poorly to the very thin frame steel with alot of leverage available. just noticed no grind marks on the steel to even clean it up. from the looks of the welds they just burned through the under coating. that looks like it is cracked also and has been moving. (edit, it is a tie wrap.) also repair plate not even welded on this side. trac bar bolt is not long enough to engage the nylock nut. bracet welded to frame with out additional support. mild square tube as a link. bet the hem joint is bolted to a nut welded on the other side. a four link should be more like I/ \I each on its own re-enforce mount or crossmember. this is closer to a 3 link. hacked off cross member on frame. looks like an ag joint, so two different metals scabbed together. this one is just unreal.. I would love to know if there is a bushing sleeve in the frame joint or just a hole drilled through the square tube. I don't see any hardness markings on the bolt. should be at least a grade 5. wow, something hitting one bent u-bolt. scrap used as filler? Is that a chain link melted in there also? axle tube not re-enforced and weld is under cut. also looks like something has almost worn through the bar it self. it looks like galvanized pipe in this picture, (I say that because of the grinding marks) u-bolt to small for that big of a block. Those weld tabs WOW. this whole thing looks to be made up of scraps that where in the junk pile. this is the part that I would like to learn about. I would also like to know your thoughts on what I see that was wrong. I am new here so trying to fit in and learn. like I said earlier, I would have boxed the frame both ways 2 or 3 feet. for this particular spot I may have used something like a 6 inch 1/4 to 3/8 inch thick pipe cut in half as part of my frame boxing. with a bump stop at the top of it. hope I stated that in a way that gives a correct visual of what I mean. I don't think that I have ever seen welding this poor. even when I was a very young kid just playing with the welder. this is the car a 56 Lincoln I would never have thought a car that nice looking would have something like that going on under it. the bag install, I would have braced from frame rail to frame rail as that looks like a very very heavy auto. Of course I would have never touched the car with all the rest of that going on. And I would have sat down in the shade and cried if I found that under my car. And thank god that I was alive to cry in the shade. So is this guy going to do something about it? my last truck I drove the wheels off of and sent it to the junk yard vs selling it to some one as I didn't feel it was safe anymore. And it had nothing wrong with it like that.
Yep, after loading pictures into a photo editor the bolts have no hardness marks. just standard hardware bolts. I think that makes them grade 2 or lower.
Whats scary is I knew a guy who was too lazy to loosen and unthread long Grade 2 bolts, so he would just tighten them a few turns until they sheared. And he wasnt a gorrila by any means.
G%#@#am!!!!! thats got to be the worst hack job I've ever seen!!! And to think that he drove it for so long before it broke! The shop that did that and the other shop that put in the bags and didnt fix it should all get death by leathal ennama! Some times you have to pay to get good work and have a shop that will stand by its work.....Not make some trailer queen thats not safe to drive, and I've seen thoes in the world of motorcycles too!.......Roach.
Sadly that work looks just like alot of work I seen done by guys whom call this place home. Safety first I say. But yes does look cool on the outside. Satin
Mr Springs the guy is like a cat, he survives a botched job and then lands at your place. I hate to see slipshod work done by anyone, but at least now he'll get treated right.
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