Sunday, October 9, 2016

PS rear suspension finish up

Since I finished fabricating the rear suspension and everything fits, I took apart the passenger side this weekend and finalized things.

I welded patches over the holes that were for the shock mounts and painted the suspension cross bar:
I had this bar hanging from a tree to paint it.  My daughter decided that she wanted to climb the tree.  As soon as I was walking away from this after the first coat of paint, she pulled it down and threw it in the mud.  Who would have guessed there was a gene for being unwilling to tolerate my nonsense...

Painted the upper control arm:


Primed the bracket.  For the inside of the bracket, which will contact the frame rail, I painted it with galvanizing compound.  For the edges where I expect to weld I used weld through primer.  Everywhere else I used standard primer:

Although I used three large bolts to hold this in,  I didn't want any movement and wanted to give this assembly a little help, so I welded it also especially since this is one of those things that isn't allowed to break.  

I haven't used GMAW lately especially downhill or overhead, so I spent a few minutes on Weldingtipsandtricks.com before I got started. Jody Collier's videos are by far the best ones I have found online.  His arc shots really help me to see how things should look, and I especially appreciate that he explains why things are the way they are.
Weld close ups:


I think that spending the last year focused on tig welding has helped my mig welding.

Here it is with everything back in there:
















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