Welding Info

Last update: December 16, 2004

©By: John T. Blair (WA4OHZ)
1133 Chatmoss Dr., Va. Beach, Va. 23464; (757) 495-8229

If you've been looking through any of the articles, you'll notice that I'll take any good information from anywhere. The following was taken from one of the Saab mailing lists I'm on. (For those that don't know about my collection of cars, in addition to the Morgan, I'm restoring my '75 Bricklin. Waiting in the wings are my '77 Spitfire which needs some TLC, and my '71 Saab Sonett III. I also have 2 Sonett III parts cars. Hopefully I can make one out of the 2 and still have parts to spare them.)

VSAAB -- The Vintage SAAB Mailing List
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 11:02:46 -0400
From: "Goldberger,Stephen"
Subject: Re: Welding info

An excellent site for welding information for anyone with a welder in the garage and a car which needs some repairs should view it. (ED. It's in Swedish on the left and in English on the right.) It deals mainly with small repairs to existing panels, or in the extreme, covering an existing with widespread rust damage with a repair part without removing the underlying panel. These are good techniques for repair of localized damage and can be done, often, without major disassembly to the vehicle. The cases shown often cover repairs or reinforcements to frame-like members. They are discouraging a seam weld attachment here to prevent a line of brittleness along a load path caused by the heat of the weld. This is certainly a valid concern.

Similarly, one should also know what grade of steel is being welded to. If "high strength" steel was used (not an issue for our beloved "2 digit Saabs") then post-weld heat treatment may be called for. Many years ago I was part of a design team which needed to modify a truck frame - the manufacturer specified NO welding to the frame, which was made of high-strength steel. The required than any modifications be performed using rivets.

Also, the "spot welds" shown in the site are done with an arc welder, either mig or tig. One can also perform electric discharge spot welding using a similar technique as the original assembly. This procedure is fast, requires little training or skill, but does require access to both sides of the panel.

For "frame off restorations", large panels are often cut out and replaced with newly fabricated parts. The natural location for installing the new panel are at bends or original joint lines. This is not the same as a localized repair.

Stephen Goldberger, Editor and Publisher
NINES, the magazine of the SAAB Club of North America

Return to the Index of Tech. articles