Calling all experienced Welders in SoCal!!

Cherry Blossom · Post by **Cherry Blossom** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 9:57 pm

i need someone in the socal area to cut and weld the front subframe and crossmember to make my SR20DE fit. also need the engine mount pads welded in.

i would obviously need you to come to my house. im in mission viejo.

i was gonna buy a welder but i decided im not up to the job because i dont wanna' screw it up. i would rather pay an experienced welder to do a good quality job.

please let me know if you can do it and what you charge.
i want to get this engine in!!

SLOroadster · Post by **SLOroadster** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 11:20 pm

Its too bad you are going that route. An R16 or U20 bolts right in and requires no welding. It also retains the value of the car. Once cut, it can never go back.

However its your car, do what you will.

Will

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 8:42 am

A bit of advice that could save you a bunch of money in the end...Since all of the cutting and welding on the frame and X member also involves fabricating and fitting in new pieces, make all the cuts yourself. Also, do all the metal fabrication too. Once you have your pieces all cut and ready to weld onto the frame, go rent yourself a MIG welder. You need about 1/2 an hour of training with a MIG welder to get good enough to simply tack weld your newly fabricated pieces in place. I guarantee that once you start tacking them in there, you'll find some that you need to pull out and re-shape, grind a little off the side, etc. This way, you get all that fussing around with fabricating and fitting done on your time and you are not paying a welder to sit there and watch you re-make a tranny mount that isn't quite right. Once you have everything all tacked in and you are happy with it, call the pro in to weld it all in for real.

spriso · Post by **spriso** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 9:17 am

Its too bad you are going that route. An R16 or U20 bolts right in and requires no welding. It also retains the value of the car. Once cut, it can never go back.

It is obvious that Will has never done any metal fabrication work, as if he had, he would realize how incorrect this statement is. The roadster frame can be reversed back to stock if you so desired. Finding someone who owned a SR converted roadster that was not satisfied with the performance, economy, and reliability is going to very, very difficult though!

Don't let the biased comments of this poster deter you from doing the work yourself, or finding a friend to do the welding for you.

Michael

DELETED · Post by **DELETED** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 1:22 pm

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Cherry Blossom · Post by **Cherry Blossom** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 1:34 pm

thanks dave for the advice. i may just go that route. or maybe even practice until im good enough to weld the hole thing instead of just tacking it. im just worried about doing a bad job and then regretting it.

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 3:55 pm

No problem. Happy to help!

I can tell you from my SR swap project that I had ZERO welding experience prior to this project. I did a small amount of practice on scrap steel with a borrowed MIG welder from work and then turned to the car itself. I learned that I can stick two pieces of metal together. I learned that I can make a really nice pretty weld about 10% of the time. So far nothing I welded has broken. Time will tell and it's definitely in the back of my mind all the time. I really don't drive the car hard because I'm too afraid of breaking one of my fragile motor mounts. As with any project, there are things you look back at and wish you had done differently. The two that really stick out in my mind and bug the heck out of me are 1) not properly painting the engine bay when it was stripped, and 2) not having a pro weld up my mounts and chassis mods.

My suggestion for you would be to go the tack weld and have a pro finish it off route. Or, invest a bit of money and time and take a community college/tech school welding class, then do the welding yourself.

JoeK · Post by **JoeK** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 8:55 pm

I agree with Dave. Welding is easy, welding really well isn't so easy. Until you get good, you never really know how good your penetration is.

TR · Post by TR » Tue Sep 06, 2005 9:06 pm

I'll agree with everything posted!

It had been a long time since I had used a welder when I started the project, and it is obvious how much my work improved as I went. Every lesson learned shows as each step I got better.

If you want to learn from a pro, take a course at a community college like Dave suggested, then your work will be better than ours!

You can also start on the minor items as practice and work your way up to the more important items.

I don't have the same reservations as Dave, mine is mainly that I wish I had spent more time and had more patience. The quality of my work shows where I hurried, but that is my nature.

Otherwise, it is very easy to build a super reliable car that runs really well every day, and you'll never have to say you were unlucky when an 35+ year old parts breaks and leaves you stranded.

Alvin has put 16K hard miles on his car since he got it, I don't think he has had an issue. I'm getting close to 10K miles on mine and I drive the snot out of it. Gas and oil and a thermastat are all that I have put into it.

Now, after all of that, I will say that a conversion takes a lot of work. Plumbing, wiring, fuel pump, frame mods, etc. Make sure you know exactly what you are getting into before you start! You can see some of what I did here:

http://www.311s.org/tech/engine/swaps.html

Hope this helps, TR

Post by **spl310** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 9:15 pm

Here is a thought since the welding is an issue. There is a guy out on the west coast that has an SR20 swapped car he bought out of Texas on eBay. He has it up for sale for less than he paid. If you want an SR20 car, you may be ahead of the game getting that car since it has already had the mods (if they were done well enough to suit you) and just doing the finish work it needs. That eliminates your down time, and you can focus on the fun part of making it YOUR car.

Of course the down side is that you would have two roadsters then. I am sure that you could resolve that problem....

Cherry Blossom · Post by **Cherry Blossom** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 2:40 pm

thanks TR for the help and the link.

spl310, i almost bought that car before i bought the one i have now but i think hes now in norcal. anyways, im pretty attached the car i have now.

twinight · Post by **twinight** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 7:34 pm

Cherry Blossom wrote: i would obviously need you to come to my house. im in mission viejo.

Hey,
I'm down the street Ladera ranch. You might have seen my red 1600 shooting up and down crown valley.

Steve
70' 1600

SLOroadster · Post by **SLOroadster** » Fri Sep 09, 2005 11:44 pm

I do metal fab all the time. I am a very good welder. MIG, TIG, gas, I can braze with the best. The only way to reverse a SR'd frame, is to find another frame to kill inorder to harvest a new cross member. That is unless you have a full steel mill at your command. You guys may think I'm SR envious, but it would only be if I had a 240sx, until then (as in a second car) the U20 is where its at. As for the signature line, it seems to me that in Blazing Saddles, the Mexicans tossed the badges in the dirt, and went on with their business.

Will

DELETED · Post by **DELETED** » Sat Sep 10, 2005 2:14 am

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67 1/2 1600 · Post by **67 1/2 1600** » Sat Sep 10, 2005 2:18 am

Cant we all just get along?

Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

Calling all experienced Welders in SoCal!!

Calling all experienced Welders in SoCal!!

Re: Calling all experienced Welders in SoCal!!