Continuing the unending saga of the car that will end up made entirely of
weld bead.
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MWS was happy to swap out the incorrect liner -
they didn't have an .024 one, but swapped the wrong one out for an .035 one.
I hadn't installed it yet here, which is my excuse for these welds. |
A little bit of grinding helps. | |
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Patched the gaps at the front and back, and then
added the crossbar brace. |
A center post to help give it some strength. |
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Strong enough to support me, at least. |
Primed the well. | |
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Time to install the new liner - this is the one I
got mailorder (the .024 one); of course, I kinked it during install.
At least I had the .035 one from MWS. |
Patched the middle of the <no idea what you'd call it - middle brace?> |
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Driver's side will be a little more involved. |
.. and of course I failed to take any pictures in the "after" phase. |
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Filled the brace with POR-15. Seemed the best
call for protecting it once it's closed up. |
Wanted to verify that the smuggler's box would clear the brace. It
does. | |
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However, mine is no longer viable. Add to the
shopping list. |
Patched a small hole in the pass side wheelwell (at the end of the
mid-brace-thing) | |
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Idea: let's chop up the crappy patch panel that was
in the front of the bed to fix this rotted area. |
An aside: This Porter-Cable PXCM024-0275 is utter garbage.
This is the second one I've had fail with just an hour or so of usage, and
both failed in the same way - the air inlet breaks off. |
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Also the head is not well secured; randomly
reclocks itself during usage. Will not be buying any more PC products. |
Time to start patching that gap. Seems to be working decently
enough... which means it's time for me to be low on shielding gas again. |
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Powered through despite the low gas. They're
not pretty welds, but I've not shown you pretty welds yet so I'd hope your
expectations were correctly set in advance. |
One additional patch for the very end. This one was an odd shape
because it wasn't patched right last time (don't ask me why?) |
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Partially ground. A reminder: It's not a
showcar. It ain't got to be a showcar finish.
I went to spray
real paint in here, but apparently everything is old. The "Chassis
Black" can was solid. The single-stage black's reducer can was
bone-dry. The old Chromacolor I'd painted the EC with in '99 or so
both the reducer can was also dry... so I need some sort of paint for this. |
Might as well put the lid on, for now. |
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New shielding gas tomorrow, probably.