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Good advice. I made it work for now, but if I ever have to do this repair again I'll explore better ways to weld the thin plate. The P.O. simply wrapped the area in even thinner plate metal and applied a ton of caulking and bondo to seal it all in.
I blew quite a few holes as well, but kept at it and never held the trigger down for more than a split second. Any longer and it would blow thru easily.
My wire was .030". Not ideal, but it was what I had. I made it work. It just wasn't pretty, but after grinding, filler and paint, It'll look fine.
I've installed a 250w block heater and a 250w oil pan heater as well as a trickle charger. All pretty standard winterization steps for cars up here. I've got a gear reduction starter, not sure if that's what FJ60s use or not. Only one battery and a ground straight from the battery terminal to the block.
Timing is set at stock settings, but I recently tuned the carb mixture and idle screws and brought the idle down so I should probably re-set the timing again. I was planning to set it at 10 or just visible in the window and see how that worked.
I have the factory exhaust manifold on mine. The P.O. welded the top portion of the exhaust manifold shut. No heat riser. The manifolds are bolted straight to each other with a couple washers for spacing and mostly air in-between.
How did you bolt it on? Once I weld the sill plate in place there will be no way to undo my bolts. I'm still not sure how to make the bolts accessible in the future. Unless I drill holes in the sill plate much like I've drilled the holes in the new 2"x2" sill. But then those holes will be wide open to the elements and all sorts of junk will fall into the sill.
My FJ40 cranks with no issues. It's the starting that's my current issue. Seems that it doesn't want to fire up below 0. Even with all of my heaters plugged in. But I'm still working on the vehicle and honestly haven't run it much at all. Still figuring stuff out. Thanks for the reference by the way. Guys who knows these older rigs are fewer and farther between every year.
If you are using a MIG-- use the hard wire .023" (stainless if possible)--no flux core--use 75/25 argon/co2 gas--works way better--unless you are an accomplished welder--I am not, but this comb works good for me--I am not a fan of having to sand/grind off all the splatter the flux-core stuff produces--.30 is way too large to weld the thin sheet metal of a 40-needs too much heat and too much feed-I replaced both front fenders/hood/rocker pnls/rear clips using this--seems to have turned out well--you have done a great job here--well done!--I would offer that the Rustic green is a good color--I would keep it--please keep the updates coming
Hey Aussie, could it be a fuel problem? Are you getting fuel to the carb? Bad fuel? Seems like most of my vehicles and toys that have ever had issue in the cold here (especially plugged in) ended up being a fuel problem (ice). Maybe try some heet to liven things up.
My welder is a Miller 250 which is a fairly large unit. Miller set it up to run 030 and 035 with the corresponding drive drive wheels and liner and only uses the large diameter wire spools. When I started the Hump project I made the panels with 22 ga sheetmetal. I knew I needed to try and run 023-025 from experimenting with 030, so I purchase 023 drive wheels and tips. I found the wire would birdnest between the drive wheels and where the wire enters the whip. I think there was too much resistance in the whip to push the 025 wire, because the liner is for 030/035 wire. I tried to straighten the whip as much as possible, but still had the same problems. I had no interest in changing the liner, so I remade the panels in 16ga which was more work but, in the end it made for a better repair. IMO 22ga is just too thin. I cut all the rusted out and but welded my panels. I'm not a body guy.
You are now
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I agree, I used 18 ga. for most of my repairs, matches the original material. I used 16 ga. for the tub corners at the sill horns just for good measure.
