Topic: Bodywork with a flux cored welder?

[Thierry]

 My wife bought me a flux cored wire welder instead of a MIG welder to fix the body work on my car and someone told me it will be useless for a car and I should replace it with a MIG one. I have a lot of patches on doors, fenders, rocker and quarters to weld and I would like to know your opinion about it. I don't mind spending extra time grinding after each weld but will they be strong enough and will it wrap the metal if there is no gas?

[66GTKFB]

I use three different types of welding on my cars depending on the situation - gas, arc and wire with argon. Ford used a lot of spot welding and lead filler in the assembly line but none of those others, and they did not repair panels or do body work like we are faced with. Almost any type of panel welding is going to cause warpage so invest in some Eastwood welding aids, clips, clamps, etc, and practice, practice, practice.
Jim

[Thierry]

 Yes, I will have to get a lot of metal before I can weld on the car. Thanks.

[xnutt]

we have some heat repellant at work that we use for welding body panels. i work at an exhaust shop that does alittle bit of every thing. i'll find out the name of the stuff and tell you.

as far as flux core welding goes it's just a gassless wire mig (unlees i'm missing something).

[Thierry]

 Thanks, the more stuff I get to make nicer welds the better it is.
Yes a flux core welder is a MIG one without the gas. The problem is that the gas is supposed to make cleaner and stronger welds. I don't have any structural parts to weld so I guess it won't be too bad but I will probably have to find a better one to fix the thicker metal of the floor.

[Mark57]

I first used a flux core welder and found that after some practice I got pretty good with it.Then after getting a MIG welder I found better control in ease of welding and less slag to clean up. So its a matter practice and patience

[Thierry]

 I did my first patch panel welds on a cheap car last week end and it went pretty good. I am still working on the car but I will post photos of my work soon. The pros will say I made a big mess but it will last much longer than bondo and after a lot of cleaning up with the grinder it doesn't look bad at all.

[Soaring]

So... Where are the pics.  I Want to see how my Canadian friend welds .

[Thierry]

 Well, like I said the welds are not perfect so I want to wait to be done to show the final result
I am painting the area with a roller and it takes a lot of time and work.
 Yes, I hear you saying "Is he nuts"?  This method is getting popular and the magazine "Hot Rod" painted a Ford Falcon with great results for a total cost of a $100. If you want to read the hundreds of pages in a forum discussion where it all started, it's here: Paint job on a budget

[rmodel65]

yeah ive seen that, thats crazily time consuming. personally id go for some 2k and a buffer

[Thierry]

 Yes, it took me for ever to paint with this method but I had to test it and now I know that I will never paint an entire car with a roller 
Here is the photos of my work. It looks crappy and it needs a few more coats of paint, wet sanding and a buffer but I think it will stay like it is. It will now pass the inspection and it will last a few years 
The total cost for the job is only $80 including the paint and all the material used. The welder's cost is about $300.00 but a better one can be rented for a lot cheaper.
 For that price there is no excuse to fix holes with bondo   

[Soaring]

I'm wondering how much rust is on the other side.  Yeah, but with maybe another layer of paint and wet sanding she'll look pretty good, at least for a few years.  Good job Thierry!

[Thierry]

 The location on the photos was the only one with holes but I had to sand and paint a few other places to remove surface rust. It looks worse on the pictures than when you look at the car but we'll buy a new one after the summer and until then we have a car that looks decent enough 

[Soaring]

Yeah, I'm surprised at how little rust there is if you use that as a daily driver in the winter with the salt covered roads.  I had a 316I Beamer in Germany for 4 years, and even though I bought used, it had very little rust after the 4 years, and the Krauts salt their roads heavily.  I found out that BMW dips their cars' bodies in zinc before painting them.  Works.......
But, the big three in the U.S. have no thought of having their cars last more than 4 or 5 years, so use as little rust prevention as possible.  I think if I bought a new car and had to drive it in the salted snow country, I would POR 15 the hell out of the undercarriage before I put one mile on it. 

[Thierry]

 We only had this car since the past 3 years and before that it was used as a second car and was kept in a garage. That explains why there is not much rust. The holes I fixed came from a pin hole in the rocker panel under the door. Water came in from there and stayed in the back of the rocker.
 European cars have a 10 or more years warranty against rust perforation in Europe but I have seen German cars in Canada much younger than that with a lot of rust damage. 5 or 6 months driving on salted roads makes a big difference compared to the 2/3 months they have where I was based in Germany.

[Hickwitha84stang]

I'm not sure what brand of welder your wife bought you. But you might want to look into a conversion kit. I have a Lincoln Electric flux core welder, and they make a conversion kit to make them a solid wire mig welder. So it opens up your options to flux core, dual shield (flux core with gas), and standard mig. That way you don't have to buy different welders. 

[Thierry]

This is very interesting and I never heard about this option. I also have a Lincoln Electric welder and I have found their kit but it's not cheap. I will look into this option when time will come. Thanks for the tip
MIG conversion kit

[carlosch]

i heard about this through the mechanic from an auto shops. they've used this to repair some ford parts.

[Amy75]

I have definitely bought my husband the wrong thing a time or two