spike

I'm not an expert welder but I just learned on my own about 2 months ago and started welding.. I am having a serious problem welding the 5 bolt flange that bolts up to the turbo .. it is a 1/2" steel exhaust housing flange that blocks off the wastegate hole so you can run external gate. I got it from roadrace actually.. the problem is that I can't get a good weld between that and the 2 1/2" mandrel bend exhaust pipe.. It holds on no prob.. but has tons and tons of leaks around it.. I put muffler weld putty .. that stuff you get from pep boys all over it and it seems fine now.. but for future reference.. would getting the argon gas or whatever gas that is to make a tig weld help? I have a lincoln electric welder.. A-D settings and wire speed.. like 350 from home depot.. any ideas?

Tinker219

turn up the heat, and put the wire feed on 3...it worked great for me....
its all about the "bead". without the "bead", there is no such thing as a clean weld...
ps...if you start melting through the exhaust tubing, then turn the heat down one click...

spike

by turn up the heat.. you mean put it on D? I had it on D with a wire feed of like 2.5.. it seemed like a good bead until we pressure tested it and it liked like a sob!

Phoenix GSR

how did you pressure test it?

spike

don't laugh! we pressure test ever IC pipe and exhaust pipe.. we get the leaf blower out and stuff a rag in the other end.. then turn the leaf blower on the highest setting and use a spong to put soapy water around the weld.. if it bubbles there's a leak.. may seem like a bit of a rig.. but let me tell you.. it works great!

Phoenix GSR

hah!! cool idea.. I will have to try it!

spike

yeah dude!.. it's the only way we can check for leaks.. my buddy's dad actually came up with it.. the other thing is.. when we do exhaust and IC piping.. we only use JC Whitney.. we used to use summit's mandrel bends.. but they are really thin and it's really easy to blow through that stuff.. JC has some thick ****!

Wes V

Spade;

That is a great idea on "pressure testing"!

Don't feel bad about the welding. It takes a professional years to learn how to weld good. I've been a "hobby" welder for years (both gas and MIG) and still have varying results.

What I'd recommend is to just bite the bullet and have a shop re-weld it. Grind down the original welds to the minimum before bringing it to them. While they re-weld it, talk to them as much as you can in order to learn.

Another solution would be to have somebody braze over the weld (using a gas torch). This tends to be rather ugly, but is easier to seal all the small pin holes.

Wes.

spike

yeah dude.. that's what we were gonna do is braze it.. unfortunately we ran out of acetyline as soon as we were going to start to braze it.. so that's where pep boys and the muffler putty came into play .. hehe.. it seems to work great.. we just globbed the **** outta it. So is there any sort of trick to welding thick metal to exhaust piping? we even heated the 1/2" stock to be red hot to make it melt easier.. i would have sworn i had great bead on it and it was perfect sealed till we tested it.

mos

Try to get most of the heat into the flange by adjusting your angle with the torch. You don't need that much heat going into the thin pipe. Also adjust the distance of the flame to the pipe if you see that it is too hot. It's not easy welding thin pipe to thick flanges.

paulzy

iTrader: (1)

are you using fluxcored gasless wire? That'll do it to yah. Use argon/co2 and MIG wire, you won't have to worry about beads anymore...

spike

I don't have the tank of argon/co2 gas.. i thought MIG was without argon and TIG was with it, no? Why wouldn't I have to worry about a bead then? Tell me more I'm interested!

dustin

You're using the cheap-o flux core welder. I think it's called the WeldPak or something like that. You can't weld 1/2" steel with it. You can only do thin piping and sheetmetal. It just can't generate enough current -- especially with mig.

Flux core means that the "shielding gas" is actually flux inside of the wire. When it heats up it burns and makes some sort of gas junk that is supposed to keep the weld from oxidizing. They DO sell a MIG conversion kit for it, where you can run Co2 or Argon as the shielding gas.

Take it to someone with a TIG welder, it will come out a lot nicer

dustin

TIG =

spike

well my welder actually does have a tube going in for gas.. I just thought the only difference was that the argon/co2 gas makes it a stronger weld.. didn't think it would make it any easier.. is it worth picking up the gas??

dustin

What kind of wire are you using? Without the gas you HAVE to use flux core.

The gas just makes the welds prettier. It's somewhat easier too.

spike

we have flux core wire.. we just get soo much splatter and it always leaks.. that is a beautiful tig weld.. so tig is mig with gas correct? so it's worth it to pick up some gas eh? and get tig wire.

dustin

No

MIG = what you have (gasless "MIG") + the gas.

TIG is completely different. The torch only supplies current through a tungsten electrode, you have to add filler rod manually with your other hand... and you control amperage on the fly with a foot control (they have torch amperage controls too).. Tig torch looks like this:

dustin

The weld should not leak. The problem is that you are trying to weld 1/2" steel with a welder that can only weld about 1/8" steel max.

spike

well sometimes even when I am welding two pieces of exhaust piping together it either melts and gets a hole in it.. or it doesn't completely bond together forming pin holes.. anything I can do about that? Is my MIG weld going to be close to as clean as that weld is? or will it still splatter slag everywhere?

dustin

If you are in fact using flux core wire... then it sounds like you just need more practice.

spike

So you wouldn't advise on getting the argon gas? Where exactly is the hotest part of the spark? I really have had no training on this and just went at it . I found it best to angle the wire at a 45 degree angle or so at the part I just welded.. so I am almost coming at the part I am trying to weld. Also the settings on the welder are very very touchy for example a .2 change in the wire feed will change whether I burn through or not. Will Argon gas help when I weld 1/2" thick at all? thanks master welder

dustin

MIG doesn't look anything like tig. TIG has that 'stack of dimes' look... and good MIG just looks like a seamless smooth weld...


This is a MIG weld:

dustin

Hehe i'm not much of a welder anyways I've just taught myself whatever I know by fooling around. It helps to start with good equipment

You aren't going to be able to get a good weld on 1/2" steel with that welder of yours no matter how hard you try. I bet on the box of the welder somewhere it only recommends you go up to 1/8" steel max.

spike

damn.. that's a nice weld too! Mine almost never look like that.. I usually get holes in IC piping because I have to stop and turn the pipe like 3 times and starting and stopping is a real pain.. what should I do if I find i'm burning through on thin pipe? turn down the power or turn up the feed?