Welding 101

After almost a two month hiatus I was back working on the MG this weekend.  With all my new gear I was anxious to get to the next phase, welding.   I had practiced in the basement a few times over the past month but after l caught the welding directions on fire I was banned to the shed…

I have a small heater now to take the curse off.  It works quite well and I was down to just my shirt in pretty short order.

I started back in by finishing up removing the door pillar.  I had purchased a new one and the one that was on the car was pretty beat up.  Before I can replace it I need to finish off the inner sill replacement.

With the bad parts cut away it was time to start adding stuff back on.  This is my first *official* new weld onto the car.  This was not accomplished without a high amount of anxiety…

After a bit of grinding I was pretty happy with the results.  Note, better welding = less grinding.

From there it was off to section under the front door pillar.

A bit more grinding and some primer and Walla!  Good as new (almost…)

And the Walls Come Tumbling down…

Well is been a *long* winter here in the Northeast.  It seams as though as soon as it stops snowing, it start again…   Its been so cold and I have been so busy its been awhile since I a have been out to the shed.  I received all sort of great gift for Christmas and I have been dying to try them out.

I was getting motivated to get back out there when a bit of tragedy struck.  I was on the road a few weeks ago and was able to make it back home despite an ongoing three day storm.  As I rolled into the yard Gail gave me a look that I knew wasn’t good.  She said that she was out shoveling and heard a terrible noise coming from the shed and that it was *leaning* a bit.  I knew that with all the snow load that wasn’t good…

What should have been a square was looking pretty trapezoidal…

I hiked down to get a better look and when I got around the corner my worst fears were confirmed…  Total structural failure and collapse.  Somewhere under there was my MG…

I climbed inside and here is what I saw..

The good news is that all the snow and ice was sitting squarely on the car and the main support that failed was right across where the doors should have been and the other support was just suspended in mid air where the hood should have been.

After a fair bit of digging…

Lots of twisted metal but no obvious damage to the MG.

A trip to Home Depot and some 2x4’s I was able to get her pieced back together.  At least enough to limp through the rest of the winter I hope….