Re: Hug your cage builder
jimeditorial wrote:...in the late 70's when I built my first stuff, we arc welded the cages..
Having done a little SMAW myself, I can't imagine having to get into some of the tight areas using that method when building a cage. It was like I needed to be an octopus even with the MIG to get all the joints 360 welded!
I'd usually cut the roof off for full frame cars, and for unibodies, I'd cut holes in the floor at the four primary mounting points and let the tubes fall through to the floor. After welding the halo, I'd lift the cage up, slip in the plates and weld to them. And yes, in some places it was tough to see what you were doing...on unibodies I bolted and welded the plates to the pan. It wasn't even a DC welder....an old Lincoln "cathedral" AC225. On old guy taught me to bake the rods in an oven, store them airtight and warm the joints before welding. E7011 or E7013 I think. Never had a failure, and I sure tried!
30 years of racing and still not Brambilla.....