Jim, I believe most of the Nascar shops use MIG welding on most of
their chassis and cage work ...... it is perfect for that .
I was thinking along dragster chassis lines ...... you know :
Woody Gilmore ( still fabricating at a shop right at Sears Point Raceway
when I was there several years ago ) ...... Kent Fuller, who John Linville
stumbled across when on a visit to a relative in Northern California, and
Dave Uyehara, etc ..... the well known builders for the 1320 ......
All of the 60s and 70s cars I have owned appeared to have MIG
welded frames, which is most suitable, but some of the welding was OK,
some pretty bad, and some of it slightly worse than TERRIBLE !
I can understand why this production welding can be so slip shod
as I worked in the Chrysler assembly plant in East Los Angeles back in
' 56 and ' 57, and saw how the main thrust every day was for production,
production, and MORE production, and NOT quality workmanship in
what was rolling out the door ..... it was amazing how much rework was
required at the end of the line checkpoint, and, we were told, at the
dealerships they ended up at . This type of operation stood out in stark
contrast to what I saw in 1959, on a weekend tour of the Porsche plant in
their Zuffenhausen facility( Stuttgart area ) ..... the engine assembly area
appeared to be absolutely spotless, as was the entire plant . It was
quite apparent the goal there was not how many units could be pushed
out the door every day, and always MORE than the previous day .
As to the stock car frames, way back(sixties), when the modifieds
were required to have STOCK ( ie, production ) main rails, not square
steel tubing, all those frames needed to be almost totally rewelded, and
most the guys I knew used stick welding then ....... with very good
results . Nowadays MIG is fast and efficient for this type of chassis
fabrication, and can make strong welds that look good, too .......
if the welder has some pride in his work, as well as some experience .
The majority of drag cars now seem to be done with the tungsten
inert gas process, and the results usually speak for themselves .....
Bruce ..... surprised you got SNOW .....
but irked you didn' t have to shovel any of it ! ha ha ha
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