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Smoothed shock towers and Cage Nuts?
Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 8:38 pm
by RideQuality
Was wondering if anyne here has experience smoothing the terrible welds on our shock towers, or if anyone had replaced the cage nuts used to hold the fender splash shields, with a welded in version?
Any help is appreciated. Thanks
Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 10:27 pm
by KKC
You could smooth out the ruff welds if you want to by grinding them smooth, but if I was going to do that, I'd re-weld all those seams with a MIG welder as I'm sure those welds were originally stick welded and I wouldn't trust them to survive grinding all that much. Stick welding produces an extremely hard weld and grinding them smooth will most likely cause them to crack. But that's just been my experience. I understand the reasons for you wanting to smoothing out these snotty welds, but they need to done correctly to ensure structural integrity.
As far as welding in nuts in place of the cage nuts, you'd have to make absolutely certain that your fenders are aligned perfectly before welding. This would mean being absolutely sure that everything lines up perfectly because once you do weld them, that's where they will be permanently. Instead, I would get new caged nuts and save yourself a lot of hassles with welding in nuts and you'd still have adjust ability.
This is just my opinion and I'm sure that others may have another.
Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 10:43 pm
by RideQuality
Thanks for the quick reply. I may just think about Mig welding for added support. I was thinkin of tryin to smooth them and fill em with a body filler.
As far as the cage nuts go, I think your thinking I am refering to the ones that hold the fenders. I am actually reffering to the ones that hold the inner fender splash shields.
Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 11:16 pm
by KKC
If you MIG weld them and grind them down and then use some body filler, you'll have a much improved looking engine compartment.
And yes, I thought you were talking about the cage nuts for the fenders. My opinion is that the same circumstances would apply to the splash sheild and that by welding on nuts would eliminate any adjust ability.
Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2010 11:21 pm
by jidi
Saw a 62 at a Goodguys show in Des Moines a few years ago where the builder must have taken considerable time smoothing both inner aprons, firewall, and rad support. Kind of looked like it was formed all in one piece when it was done. What a HUGE difference it made!
Like KKC said, a MIG will be your best friend-just make sure you don't weld too much in one area at a time. You don't want too much heat in one area-skip around a lot to let the metal cool a bit.
Jim