First Weld - N/S Bulkhead Outrigger

I chose this is as my first weld job as the outrigger was so completely shot, almost any result would be an improvement!

I had a practice day in the garage first to figure out some settings for 2mm steel and to practice cutting, grinding, working with rustier metal, setting the gas flow right, and so on. I ended up making a weld box for my weld bits. Not flashy but useful actually!

Starting with rust..

Here's what I was starting with - shot to bits!:

The bulkhead bolt came out with some heat and hammer, it was very badly corroded, almost 2mm narrower at one point.

Behind the outrigger the rail was rotten so that needed repairing first:

I cut out 1" wider than the rot:

In future I'll be more careful to under cut and grind to fit, rather than over cut and have to weld with a gap. Once I'd tweaked my wire speed up (amps) and voltage down to compensate and avoid blowing through, I was able to work with the gap by "laddering" up both sides and then doing a vertical weld on each side. The result was lumpy..

but smoothed off well, as intended.

Starting to offer up the new outrigger. The new bulkhead bolt is also slotted into place to aid alignment:

On the front side, because there was a crossmember directly behind, I used a piece of 3mm plate to press the middle of the seam good and tight. I welded up to the plate, and from above it to the top, and then when I removed the clamp what was left to weld was sitting tight to the chassis rail:

After tacking top and bottom, I was able to get up the other side in one weld:

After cleaning up I gave it its first coat of Chassis-in-One:

 

Repairing the chassis rail was the hardest part, but not difficult or technical, just time consuming. Once that was done the outrigger was straightforward. Next job is the rear fuel tank outrigger.