Question about Welding the cage (Page 1 of 3)

If your good enough with the stick, sure. But it can be pretty hard to get 360 degree welds the some area due to proximity with the body of the car.

That brings me to my next couple of questions.

1: We've been given a vehicle that runs and drives for free by someone who said, and I quote: "As long as I can come watch and laugh at you, you can have it."  What kind of proof would the judges need to prove that this was a 0$ car?

2: The vehicle in question is a 98 Blazer.  I'm trying to figure out if I can just cut the whole roof off and weld up a full cage around the driver, then just drop it into the car with some plates at the feet, and weld those in.

What say you, mighty crapcanners?

I would say its technically possible to cut off the roof and install the cage that way, ceartinly makes doing the 360 welds at the roof a lot easier!

The plates for the floor have to be well positioned and properly load bearing on a good quality section of floor!  Check the roll cage requriements in the tech section re door bars, diagonals, seat back support etc.

Support the car in teh centre during roof removal as it will temporary lose a lot of strength before the cage is there to replace it!

Mark

It is definitely possible to AC stick weld a solid cage...I've built many that way. Guys like Petty raced 175MPH at Daytona under stick-welded cages 45-50 years ago. Your idea of prefabbing the cage and dropping it in makes it work, since you can reorient the cage as you weld to a avoid working overhead. Joint preparation is very important as is your selection of rod and current. You'll have to think about the slag, basically removing all of it between passes. Slag inclusions are crack-forming flaws. Weld up scrap pieces and cut/beat them apart as a test. Find out the exact grade of steel you're buying and tell the guys at your local welding shop. They can give you an electrode recommendation. On-line works too for advice on sticks. I used to use E7011 and E6013, but maybe there are more modern rods now. It's slower than MIG, but done right on mild steel, every bit as strong. Look at pics of good cages on the board and ask lots of questions....lots of guys involved in this sport are pros who have built dozens of cages...

Write up an official bill of sale and have it notarized by a third party.  That is about as official as it can get.

A '98 Blazer?  A bill of sale will be fine - it's going to end up on it's roof anyway so don't put too much thought into it.

You have no worries getting through judging with a Blazer, even one as "new" as that.  Just do what you need to do to make it safe and relatively reliable, and put a good theme on it.

To help keep it rubber-side down, I'd consider cutting the roof and just leaving it off, at least most of it.  Put a piece of sheet metal over the driver's head to keep him from being overly annoyed when it rains.

Reducing the weight will make it ride even higher than it already does.  Cut a coil out of each spring.  If it still doesn't look right, cut a little more.  You don't want to "slam" it, but if you can reduce 6-8" of suspension travel to 3-4" and stiffen things up in the process, it would be a good thing.  That plus a new set of shocks should get you pretty close to track-worthy.  Hefty swaybars (beef up the stockers if you have to) should take care of the rest.

We've had a very stock-looking Jeep Cherokee compete and not end up on its roof.  This can be done.

"Right now, we're planning on swapping out the crapassed 4.3 with something a little more...carbureted, since I don't fancy replacing an ECU in the pits.  I've had a junkyard 305 suggested as a replacement.  Any thoughts?"

See Judge Phil's comments (many!) on the reliability of SBCs.
See if you can juice the 4.3 a bit, should be some upgrades available...

I've worked on the 4.3's while I was making ends meet in college.  It was usually either the injectors went to hell in pairs, or the ECU failed.  I had six of them go through my hands, and they made me want to tear my hair out.  This one's had a pretty good frontal impact, so I'm already gonna be pushing my budget to get it fixed up.

I just don't have a good history with them, that's all.  If it's between the stock engine, or getting laps, I'll just fight with the stock engine and pray for the best.

Actually, can you put a carb on a 4.3 with a homemade intake?  Assuming you strip out everything computer related, of course.

Then I'll plan to pick up some junkyard stuff and keep it on hand.  Unless I get lucky and run across a working carb and manifold from one of those.  But okay, thanks for the crit and advice, guys.  I do appreciate it, and I'm glad to see that Lemons aren't the type to throw someone new out because they don't exactly know their ass from a hole in the ground quite yet.

I'll bet you can get an old babbit-beater dirt cheap and almost bolt it in place of the 4.3.