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How did you weld this? TIG, MIG like TIG or overlapping spot welds?
Mig with a lot of torch movement in an extended cursive 'o' pattern. The runs on stuff like this are pretty short because of all the position changes. You can see the start/stop points in the heat effected zones. The average bead length is only about 2 inches before I have to change positions. Heat is on the upper end for the thickness and wire speed reduced to slow things down. I usually have to add a half a number of wire speed for anything inverted.
Everything is cleaned with a scotchbrite disc and then whiped down with solvent prior to welding. I usually hit everything with a stainless hand brush and the end of a file for any little splatter bb's. The steel I use for brackets is cold finish and seeMs to weld very nice.
You are saying that the circled area was done in an "O" Pattern?
View attachment 1403177
The top section no. I just couldn't find a good position to be in. I should have just taken off the tire. I could only get about 3 torch movements before I had to reposition. The bottom was continuious but downhill so I could see where I was going since I was laying on my back welding overhead. I hate that.
Cheers.
1 - the lower the bed rail, the easier it is to see over it when you're backing up
2 - is that your bed cap or will the metal form the sides and bottom of the box as well?
3 - I think fuel fillers in bed caps are cool, but keeping them scratch-free is a challenge as is tying it into fuel tank (but what I've done the tank fill was inside the frame rail so there was zero access to it when the bed was installed.... point is, mock it completely up first.
enough of me - back to lurking.
You mentioned the rear bumper being lower than where the frame rail currently is. Just wondering why?
For departure angle, I would want higher.
I was going to point out a comment made by @cjmoon as I am contiplating the bed options on my ute project. Anyway his point was that the hump down on the frame after the rear spring mounts is not needed, and you could fab up the frame going straight back from that point.
And another totally unrelated question. 10 years on Mud with 369 posts? Some pretty heavy hitting posts too!
can you fit a small fuel tank in front of the rear axle under the bed