This week, I kept finding "things" I needed to do before welding the floor in. The inner wall patch I was making needed the strap piece shaped to follow the inner wheel house. So I used the stretcher to put the shape in it.
Then I went to weld it to the side wall patch. I thought it would be a good idea to hold the pieces together with a large magnet. Then I couldn't get the mig gun to weld worth a dang. It kept sputtering like I didn't have the gas turned on and seemed to run out of wire. I kept turning up the pressure on the gas and feed rate on the wire until it looked decent, but then the puddle would run away. After 10 minutes of trying to figure out what happened to the welder, I realized the magnet was interfering with the process and moved the weld further away from it. I never considered the magnetic force on this would have such a drastic effect. Live and learn.
It followed the curvature nicely, but still didn't follow the wall offset, so back in the shrinker to pull the sides in.
OK, got that done, now I have to final weld the A pillar braces to the rocker, so got that done.
THEN I got to final prep of the pan. Punched 136 holes in the rocker flanges and tunnel seam, cleaned off the EDP where I need to weld and clamped it in.
We have a special vice grip with a U shape that holds the panels tight to weld thru, but the flanges were too short, so I had to move a pair of standard vise grips down the line and clamped every one on both sides for a tight fit.
Look Mom, no clamps. It's part of the body now.
