I found that WD40 does pretty well on cleaning up the sealant left behind from removing the rubber seals. It takes a little elbow grease, but it seemed to work quicker than other solutions I tried.

Pics or gtfo.

I am still working on my ghetto engine bay.

Thread revival!

What did you use for Seam welding your racecar? Mig, tig, rods or semi...

I have some time to work on the tub and will attack this while the wiring is out.

Mig.
It's as easy as laying down caulk.

I couldn't imagine tig welding all the seams, could take weeks, or even months.

Stick welding would be to messy.

LOL.

I could TIG it just as fast as a mig. No need for filler material, just melt down the hip to the point they bond. Being that your welding mild steel, you don't need to wait for a purge or postflow.

Being that the parts your welding here are all protruding with factory tack welds your not compromising anything with autogenously welding TIG.

I will probably be tig welding my seams sometime in the near future. I will let you know how it goes, I really expect that I will spend more money on prep time, then the actual welding.

The plus side of tig welding everything is not having to do all the post work. So that right there alone makes it worth it to use the tig process. A lot of times where i work i'll tig parts together even if there is 100 of them because that's 100 parts i don't have to grind down had i used the mig.

I know for a fact mig welding would be faster though. You can simply move the gun faster, it's easier to manuver and you don't have to stick your head right down next to it and worry about dipping the tip.

Pre prep always takes longest and costs the most.
But like i said, post prep and not having to grind out welds to make things look decent is key.

Honestly for me, I only own a TIG welder, so that is why I am doing it that way. I have only used a mig welder once in my life, and that was trying to seam weld a friends car. I did not care for it at all, but then again I was given no directions. Basically handed the mig welder and said go for it.

Tig FTW. This is from the local Miata forum: NorCal Rotary and Roadsters • View topic - WTB: seam welding the door openings

Twibs is on here somewhere I believe? He may be willing to chime in if he sees this.

Is it that much different than my flux core welding?

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1394733323

I even painted mine too.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1394733323

Just less mess?

That's nice Curly, I have access to flux core too. I'll give it a shot. Used MIG for trailer building and didn't like the mess it does and all the grinding needed.

Nice work BTW.

Soo iv mig'd and tig'd miatas. And by far its much nicer to tig the door seams. Its the little things that add up that make it worth while. no possible spatter hitting the windshield or windows causing burn sports on the glass, no spatter hitting anything (carpet, dash, etc) cause there is virtually none. The door seals continue to fit as they should without a heaping mess of hot glue gun style weld behind them.

On the door seams not much filler is needed only on a few sections where there is a large gap.

For the rest of the car its MUCH MUCH faster to mig weld. I have tig'd behind the fender area which wasn't to bad but the worst was behind the dash. ill probably never do that again.


On my personal car, i originally mig'd it then i got my tig so i ground off all the old welds and re did them. Much cleaner but a bunch of work.

Mig = some mess
flux core = more mess

Either will make a good seam weld.

You guys talking about your tigs.... most tig machines will stick weld as well :P Stick with HF start ftw.

I have a cone shaped wire wheel and a standard wire wheel in my DeWalt drill. They made all the difference. It really is a colossal mess, just be ready to wire wheel and vacuum once you're done. And make sure you're ready to do all of it at once, if you go back to do more, you'll recreate the mess within minutes.

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run a switch instead of a pedal. You can sit cross legged on the floor and weld away.

set the panel proper and running a switch is great. I use a switch for almost everything that isn't aluminum.

Arc control wasnt the issue. The issue was there is so much god damn sealer.

I also used a wire wheel, and it cleaned the surface like squeaky. It was less of a hassle for me since my tub was bare. Definitely the way to go here.

I recognize those photos! My old silver car!

Does anyone have advice on how to clean between the layers? I can clean the outside well enough with flapper disks, I'm sick of making booger welds from contamination and want to try and make these welds as pretty as I can with my mig.

Anyone remember what voltage and wire feed settings they used?

Show a picture of your welds. Might be just a case of proper machine set up. Cantamination usually results in bubbling, spattering and wierd growths while the weld is cooling. Of course, this is only from my own personal experience.

Wire wheel seams, scrape out what sealant you can with a carpet knife then heat up the seam with a hand held torch and wire brush whatever burnt crap escapes. Once the sealant you can't see has burned, when the mig wire hits it doesn't booger much if any at all.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1439215814
Left most weld was the first which I didn't "burn" with the torch, heated the rest up and wire brushed the ensuing soot and got much better results

Oh, yeah. You're good to go.

This is a scrap piece of the car, I'm still new so any advice is appreciated.

I see growths, I imagine I need to get it cleaner? How would I clean between the seams?




Update: Sounds like burn the area with a torch is the solution to cleaning between the pinched seams?

It's not a full blow solution as it doesn't get it all. But I have found it helps greatly.

Also those welds look cold (keep in mind I am self taught and no expert)

^^^^ yes, contaminated and cold. Those worms and mountains are from grinder dust and the adhesive. Blow it all out with air, then weld. And turn it up! You can stitch with lots of heat.

^ not entirely true. My little Lincoln 125 amp on the lowest setting can still burn through the thin stuff. That's probably down to my impatience though and trying to run a longer bead than I should without cooling down.

That's why I used the word stitch. One Bead, wait for orange to cool, then another. Repeat as necessary. It starts to go pretty fast. Not ideal for structural steel building, but fine for a seam on a car. Wire size can have a pretty big effect too, but . 030 sounds fine.

Edit: maybe stitch wasn't the best wording for what I was meaning.

Changed to different size and type of wire. That seems to have made a huge difference, the welds self clean much better and the pools are hotter and easier to control.

My little 110 doesn't seem to have enough voltage to weld with that other stuff.

What are you finding works better? I just bought some 035 wire from NAPA today prepping for some seam welding this off season. I forget the brand name, really didn't think it would matter all that much.

.25 Hobart solid core mig has a copper coating, with argon co2 75/25. Lincoln electric 140 hd, set to d on power, 2 on feed. May not be the best, but seems to be working.

I usually stick to a welding supply shop, but depends on what your Napa has, maybe some nice stuff. I'm using Hobart .023 wire, same as above, otherwise. Copper coated wire and using c25 gas. Cleaning the item being welded is key.

Stumbled on this thread while looking at other people's seam welding. Hope to have pics of my subframe rails and seam welding in the next coming weeks, Chassis is stripped but still removing seam sealer, one panel at a time.

So far, all I've done is subframes and control arms, and other various parts. I had them sand blasted and that saved me prep time. On the Chassis parts I have done, I've used paint stripper (muratic acid) and scotch-lock buffing pads to clean the areas. So far, so good!

Settings seem odd to me. Just saying. Seems hot for any sheet metal on a miata and not enough wire speed.

And you can definitely weld .03 and .035 wire with your machine...

how the hell do you get it to weld sheet on D.

On my 125 amp flux core Lincoln its A and a gnats cock above 1 wire feed. Must be the 035 wire.

Because Flux core burns quite a bit hotter. And...you weld like a pussy. I weld hot as hell, I just move fast.

Not a pro over here. I fully realize I may be doing it all wrong. I would love suggestions on how to do it better.

Less heat was fat beads with less penetration.

I have a bit of vintage Mazda miata sheet I've cut off to run beads on. I will run and take a photo of any combo setting on this wire and gas.

Is it plausible to do this type of work with just the flux core or is running gas a necessity?

I would think the Flux core is the best option. I think you can get wire specifically designed for dirty work.
In fact I would try Flux core and gas if I did any more seam welding

I think a good quality Flux core wire and proper settings you'd be fine. My personal preference is always gas, but if you don't mind the bit of mess, flux core would work.