It's Welding Time

Troy made it over Wednesday to weld the Panhard/track bar bracket and subframe connectors! Here he is unloading and setting up his welder.

This is pretty much what I did while Troy welded. There really was no way for me to help and I had to watch through the welding mask, so I just blindly snapped pictures when I could. In this picture you can see the shadow of my beautiful wife. She stopped out briefly to bring us some Mountain Dew and take this picture. Thanks Sara!

I took a ton of pictures and thanks to the magic of Google+ Photos I have some short animations to share. :)

After Troy finished welding the Panhard/track bar bracket, he moved on to the subframe connectors. We needed to grind the paint down to the metal before we could weld them. Using my 4" angle grinder, we couldn't get to the outer sides of the rear subframe connector mounts. Troy is going to bring over a die grinder to do these spots.

More animated shots of Troy welding and grinding the subframe connectors.

I asked Troy if he could tack weld the stress cracks that had developed on the passenger side door. The donor door we found for the driver side did not have this problem. Troy is sanding the three spots we are going to weld.

You can see the two sanded stress cracks in this picture. One is dead center in the picture and the other spot is just above and to the right.

The third spot we're going to weld is actually a poorly done factory pinch weld. You can see the sanded area in the center of this picture. 

Animations of Troy welding and then grinding the welds.

After Troy left I snapped pictures of the areas we welded. None of the welds or surrounding areas have been cleaned up in these pictures, so you see a lot of white powdery residue. Here is the Panhard/track bar bracket.

This is the driver side rear subframe connector mount (interior).

This is the passenger side rear subframe connector mount (interior).

This is the driver side front subframe connector mount (exterior).

This is the driver side front subframe connector mount (interior).

This is the passenger side front subframe connector mount (interior).

This is the passenger side rear subframe connector mount (exterior).

Troy said he plans to come over to install the rear end this Saturday, and finish up the exterior welds on the rear subframe connector mounts. I need to get the Panhard/track bar bracket painted with POR-15 by Saturday.