Thanks!
I've had my Mig welder for quite a while now, and thought I'd downsize a bit. Most of the work I do is sheet metal, and the occasional 1/8 or 3/16 plate. I had looked at the Miller 211's online and on eBay, so I had a price range in mind. I stopped by my local Welding supply and was pleased to find that he had those prices beat by a good bit. So it came home with me..
First order of business was to test it out and do a comparison to the coupon I had done with the old machine. I still had the 11 lb. roll of .023 EZ Grind, so that was used in the new machine. Here are the results...
Both versions, .023 EZ grind and the .035 ER70S-7 in the old machine had very similar results. Good wetting, nice flat weld for minimal build, less grinding, less cleanup.
Back to the front end of the car, the hood had been giving us fits when opening, it was dragging the cowl vent in a few spots...
Removed the hood and altered the angle of the rear flange for better clearance to the cowl vent....
After refitting, the problem persisted, but was not as pronounced. We did notice the center of the hood was sagging a bit. So I jumped inside the engine compartment with the torch and did some contracting of the rear brace to give the center a lift...
Cooling off the hot spots with a damp rag did the trick. Next we worked on getting the hood's rear edge to match up to the cowl. This is something that the driver will stare at continually, so it needs to be a whole lot better than it is now:
Further refinements included this and others:
After taking the hood on and off about a dozen times, this is closer, and the outer edge adjacent to the fender needs to "droop" a bit more. We're running out of time this evening, so we'll try our luck next time with the rocker panel roller to see how well it addresses the edge.
