I am starting to repair some rust holes in my 66 Coupe. I was going to cut out the rust and weld new sheet metal in. I take it most people, when welding on the body, use a wire feeder welder instead of a stick welder. This way you have less mess and cleaner welds. I need to buy a welder on the cheap side. Also, what gauge is the sheet metal on the older stangs? This should be pretty easy to find, right?

Z

 

ok first off yes you need a mig welder preferably a gas shielded welder. they arn't cheap.

i think its about 16 or 18 gauge on the body.

there is some tricks to welding on the body that you need to lear befor jumping right in if you just do a continous weld it will warp the panel and cause you to have to use a ton of bondo to cover it all and make it look right. thr trick is to get the metal in to place and then tack it in then go around and make quarter inch tacks about half an inch apart all the way around let cool and repeat untill it is fully welded then you have to grind your weld down.

 

Pretty close Tim, but you want to spread the welds out even more, start at one side and then move to the other and so on. Also there are some heat gels that you can put on the panel. Honestly dude, this is not the type of work for a newb welder to try, there is a lot that can go wrong and it will be very very costly to fix if you warp the panels.

 

i also agree with these guys this is somthing that you should have exp in do it on a budddys car first and to use stick it is not prefered but i have a friend that did it once looked like swiss cheese until he got the hang of i lets just say a magnet would nots stick any where

 

Thanks for the info. I have done some welding in the past, just not on a body of a car. Since I am in no hurry to get her on the road and I want to learn, I think I will go ahead and try it. If I do a crap job I will just start over.

But very good info.

Z

 

the metal on the car is 22 gauge. if your worried about warping the panel just tack it all the way around instaed of running a continuos bead. i just did my 1/4 panel and it turned out fine. all you need is a 110 mig welder for this. your average $500 welder is good.

 

Thats good info. This sheet metal isn't too hard to find, probably from any steel supply company, right?

 

any steel supply will do. around here the local hardware store has it too

 

Why don't you just buy pre-formed replacement panels? And tack welding is not only a good idea it's the right way to do it, a bead WILL warp the panel very badly. FWIW I am a welder by trade.

 

dont do it, I tried to weld a quarter on my old can am warped the panel and it cost alot to get fixed. Just have some one weld it up and finish it yourself. Would save you alot of headache