My Harrison build - Page 6

Ryder · #**101** (**permalink**) 07-22-2013, 01:28 AM

Well, you wanted to know how the Chinese welder went. To start with, once is deciphered the excuse for English in the user manual, it went really well. Practiced for 2 hours in the afternoon on scrap - beads on a plate, fillet welds, outside fillet weld all went really nicely, got some pretty good looking welds happening. So I shut it off and went for a few beers.

Came back the next day and tried to use it, and there wasn't enough cleaning action. Kept messing around with the settings and figured out that for some reason the AC balance no longer works. There's no difference at all between max and min settings, and it's not burning through the oxide anymore. Can't even get it to do beads on a plate...

So, looks like it's going to get sent back for a refund. Starting to agree with the people who say that AC tigs cost several thousand dollars for a reason...

Kinda puts a pause on the tank now. I can't justify to the wife buying a proper AC tig, and I'm not buying another cheapie. It seems I've got a choice between sending the tank off for welding or making it out of steel. At least the ally I bought was DIRT cheap, paid $50 for a 2400 x1200 x 3 sheet, and it was worth 3 times that. Can probably recycle most of it into heaps of different things on the car if I go for a steel tank.

Zedn · #**102** (**permalink**) 07-22-2013, 01:46 AM

At least yours worked initially! I think mine was either balance stuck on max cleaning or current stuck on max current.

I picked up my new welder on Friday. I am soooo happy with it.

I bought a cigweld weldskill 200. It's fully digital acdc. I had a Chinese no name dc tig before that works fine and has done for 3 years, but the build quality between the cigweld and Chinese one is huge. Everything just feels solid and substantial on the cigweld. It even has adjustment on the handle for current.

For $1577 from my local welding shop it's sensational. Suck it up and pay the extra $500. You won't regret it! I got mine from welders supplies and service. They have a few stores around the place currently on sale at this price. It's only $50 more than the cheapest on eBay which is worth it to me to support local business.

No foot pedal, but with 4t I am having no need for one on 2mm alloy.

WeldSkill 200 AC/DC - Cigweld - Victor Technologies Asia Pacific - South Pacific

Ryder · #**103** (**permalink**) 07-25-2013, 06:20 PM

Ended up trying the DC function and being pretty happy with it. Have decided to keep the welder, and not kid myself with the idea I can do ally with a cheap AC TIG.

So with that in mind, I remade the fuel tank out of steel instead.
I went with 2mm sheet, I know that's overkill however;
1. the tank makes up the floor in the boot, so strong = good, and
2. I had some available.

The welds are ok, considering I've never TIG welded at all before a week ago i'm pretty happy with them.

popped it in the boot to make sure it's all ok. Still have to pressure test it, then weld the filler, pump flange and earth on. Then I can seal the inside and paint the outside. But I know it'll pass pressure testing - after I finished welding it up it was pretty hot, and as it cooled you could see there was a vacuum in it because it sucked the top and bottom in slightly

Going to seal it with POR 15 once it's done. Also need to clean the shed... and the car...

sambo · #**104** (**permalink**) 07-25-2013, 06:36 PM

Looking good! That stainless will be a lot easier to polish up than alum too.

I haven't welded a single thing on my car so I can only imagine how satisfying it must be to be doing more of the work yourself.

I notice on the previous page you had to move the take-up point for the engine mounts. I had the same problem with my Harrison but thought it was a one-off mistake, hopefully the new owner of the business picks this up and modifies the jig. The heads on my L98 are now roughly 130mm from the firewall/tunnel and there's 30mm between the balancer and the power rack. It's so low in the engine bay I'm thinking it might need a fancy induction system.

Gav · #**105** (**permalink**) 07-25-2013, 07:36 PM

You know you want too Sambo....

Ryder · #**106** (**permalink**) 07-25-2013, 08:53 PM

Yes, the engine mounts and power steering rack mounts are the only thing I've not been happy with on this car. Where the rack was, the steering shaft uni joints were binding because of the angle, and the engine mounts were too far forwards and offset to the drivers side. I've heard of engines being offset to the passenger side to compensate for driver weight, but can't see any reason for it to be on the drivers side.

I've made new mounts and fitted LS1 mounts to the motor, which drops it an inch, moved the engine back 60mm and put it back to the centre of the car. Bit of work. I know why it's so far forwards - there are clearance issues with the transmission tunnel using the LS2 and T56 combo. I may need to rework a bit of the tunnel too. Where I have it now, I've just barely had clearance once the driveline phasing is done, and that's after I lowered the engine an inch. Won't take much to fix up at the initial chassis build stage, a bit more work now.

On the bright side, it's looking good now.

Zedn · #**107** (**permalink**) 07-26-2013, 03:20 AM

If the AC function doesnt work i would send it back for a replacement.

You will be able to AC weld if you can DC. It is harder, but im getting the hang of it pretty quickly.

This is after about 1 hour of welding AC. Im still getting used to feeding the rod smoothly as it goes a lot quicker than steel.

leroy17 · #**108** (**permalink**) 01-01-2014, 06:49 PM

Any updates from the later part of the year or over xmas.

Ryder · #**109** (**permalink**) 01-03-2014, 05:31 PM

Not too much to be honest. Done a few little bits here and there, made some drawings for things to machine up when I'm back at work, started routing the wiring.
Modified the pedals to fit really neatly, moved them back as far as possible to fit my long legs. They will be just brushing the carpet when fully in now when fully depressed. made the fuel tank and fitted it. Found out the stock headers will fit on passenger side with minor mods and made a new set for the drivers side in the same style. Yet to have them blasted and painted. Still holding out hope I can run live side pipes at some stage in whatever state I eventually end up settling down in and i'm not trying to squeeze high power from the motor - they will do fine for now. Got the seats for it and started to fit them, but cant do it properly until I've shaped a bit of the foam here and there and had them recovered, and not recovering them till I do the rest of the interior. But at least they were good enough to work out pedal position properly.

At the stage now where there is lots of half finished stuff that cant be done until other stuff is done first, so I'm going to kick it off with a bit of important machine work like re drilling the front hubs for the ford pattern, making whatever other parts I need to set wheel alignment, flaring the guards out, then I guess I can do brake lines, wiring, fuel lines ect ect. Would really help to have more space at home and my own lathe and mill! SO many little things I could just machine up.

Honestly I really need to just pick an area and work on it till it's finished before moving on, but its frustrating how much stuff I cant finish in one go because I don't have the parts/tools or something isn't quite right/i'm not happy with how it looks. But on the bright side, the stuff that I have finished I'm really happy with

Rossba · #**110** (**permalink**) 01-04-2014, 02:02 AM

Going well with the build.
I can remember when I was working in a maintenance shop I had access to all these great machines but couldn't use them for my own work.
All I had at home was a arc welder, grinder, bur grinder, hacksaw, files, hole saw pedestal drill, bench grinder. Spend lots of time making things rough then cleaning them up.
Had to pay some people to do things that I could do but didn't have the machines.
Keep going

Ryder · #**111** (**permalink**) 01-12-2014, 07:44 PM

Some pics of the few things I've done lately. Sorry for the bad Iphone pics, I forget how bad the things are in low light.

Here is the passenger side headers temporarily bolted to the block. I used the stock headers, cut the header plate off and about an inch of the pipes, angled them in a bit more and welded them up to a new header plate. Not the neatest weld but due to shortening the pipes I had an 8mm gap to weld up on two of them (they were now lower on the plate if that makes sense). Really not worried TBH because it lets me use the stock cat and it cost me only $60 for a set of header plates instead of $1000+ to have headers made. Still hoping to make good live sidepipe headers one day, for now this will be fine.

Will do the same for the drivers side. They still need to be painted obviously. Wonder if I can find a header paint that wont turn black after the first week?

You can kinda get a feel for how much further back the motor is now, there'll be better pics to follow down the track. It sits about 140mm away from the firewall now instead of 200 and sits about 30mm lower.