What Mig welder would you experienced welders recommend for welding aluminum tubing (intercooler piping). I've looked into a TIG welder, but it's too expensive and a MIG should be able to do what I need with the aluminum tubing.

 

if you're happy with welds that look like **** and bumps, knots, and pieces of wire hanging inside the pipes, go ahead and mig weld it.

However, I would highly reccomend that you not do it. Mig is difficult without a "push-pull" setup. What this means is that it has rollers in the gun that pull the wire, and rollers in the machine that push the wire. Without this, the soft aluminum wire will often jam up in the lead. It's especially worse any time you have any bends or curves in the lead.

Some people have minimal success with the smaller mig machines that dont have a push pull setup. If you're just going to do one set of pipes, and plan to grind the welds down, and the stuff I mentioned above is ok with you, mig it. However, if you plan to sell these, you will find that they won't sell well with mig welds. Even if you polish the welds down, the inside appearance will kill your reputation. Also, the time it takes to grind them down will eventually get to the point that you're better off to go TIG. Time is money.

 

Thanks Engloid. That's the straight up answer I wanted to hear.

 

No problem. Good luck.

 

I've used a mig welder for aluminum before and it came out alright...I used a lincoln sp-135 plus. you've got to move FAST with the aluminum and make sure you tail in to heat up the metal before you begin the actual bead....Im assuming the intercooler piping is pretty thin so if you dont really have any experience welding aluminum you might want to practice on some scrap first...good luck!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by koncept1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I've used a mig welder for aluminum before and it came out alright...</TD></TR></TABLE>

Of course that's relative to what you call "alright." What you may be ok with, he may not. When you say 'alright' it gives me the impression that it was functional, but wasn't anything you wanted to show off to your buddies?

 

nice pretty beads, functional, passed destruction test, and i-car approved and certified

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by koncept1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">nice pretty beads, functional, passed destruction test, and i-car approved and certified </TD></TR></TABLE>

Do you have pics? I've seen some pretty sweet alum beads layed with a pulser mig at a demonstration at the local miller dealer. 99.99% of mig al welds looks like bird **** though.

I dropped some stuff off to powdercoat the other day and there was some production welded stuff there that looked like they melted the AL with a torch and tried to stir it with a spoon. I love having a tig.

 

nah...sorry I dont have pics...last time I did aluminum welds was around this time last year and didnt document anything. If all the equipment survives this hurricane I'll see if I can get some scrap pieces done up. I do have a few scars from aluminum welding though....messed up my damn tattoo

 

LOL I think we all have some sort of burn scars somewhere. I have one from stabbing a hot filler end into my chest and one on my ankle from a huge *** BB dropping down my shoe. Battle wounds rule.

 

This is OT but I'll tell you how I mocked my IC pipes without having to buy a welder. This way you can "DIY" but leave the welding for a pro. This can save you from having to buy a 'cheap' tig or even wrose, an aluminum setup for mig!!

i'll start from the beginning (this (probalby) works with aluminum only.. because it is very light!)

Cut tubes with bandsaw
Sand with belt sander to perfect fit
debur/chamfer

"garbage in, garbage out" at this point.

then you just butt the two tubes together and TAPE THEM with wide good quality Masking Tape. I got my GF to tape it for me while i held the pipes in place If everything is tight it works extreemly well!!!

Then all you do is take an exacto knife (press very lightly not to score the aluminum) and cut out an area to tack the tubes together, I went to a fab shop. Then take off the masking tape, clean and do final weld!

This might sound ghetto to some people (how do the pro's do it?) . But it worked extreemly well for me. And my IC pipes were no walk through the park either!!

 

I was mocking up all of my stuff and taking it to be welded. Then I realized that 10 for this, 10 for that, and 40 for something else was starting to add up, so I went out and bought one for $150.

I just started welding and my welds look like ***, but at least I'm learning something that I can use in the future.

Not to mention it's a lot more convenient having your own welder than having to go find a welder that is open and willing to work past 12PM because it's too hot, ect, ect.