I prefer to use a spool gun for aluminum. The short distance eliminates the
issues with the soft material fouling the liner. I just got a Millermatic
211. This welder can work off 110 or 220 and supports a spool gun. The auto
set feature is a nice touch.  So far it has been a he improvement over my
old Century. The Hobarts at Northern tool are also great units at more
reasonable pricing. I bought the Miller due to the Inverter technology.

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Alistair Bell
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2015 5:47 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Rear Trailing Arm Replacement Fun!

Neil,

Over the Xmas holidays I worked on a spare set of trailing arms. I cut the
pinch weld and welded in 1/8" thick plates to reinforce the area where the
pinch seam was. This was to create more space between tire and trailing arm.
I tig welded that with no problems. At the same time I decided to weld down
the plate that the spring pad sits on. My thought was to seal up a rust
prone area. That welding didn't go as smoothly. Even though I cleaned up the
area well, there was some sort of material between the plate and the arm
which bubbled and popped out during welding. I must have gone through at
least half of a new tungsten, very frustrating. A mig gun would have been
the ticket there, but our mig is set up and reserved for aluminum and I'd be
in big trouble if I swapped in steel wire :).

This was a Xmas present for a friend. He had them powder coated (black) and
I just saw them the other day after paint. For an old set of arms they
turned out pretty nice.

Alistair

> On Jan 18, 2015, at 11:40 AM, Neil N <musomuso@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> Thanks Dennis. Nice pics.
>
> From my POV as a relatively inexperienced weldor (MIG only so far), if
> the rust hasn't progressed too far, I'm sure the metal gauge on the
> arm provides a "forgiving" surface to weld to.
>
>> On 1/18/15, Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Here is a link to some repair pictures.
>> I have seen the springs fall out. Usually they get caught on the shock.
>>
>> https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=9B02084A888884A6!29541&authkey=
>> !ANs6xPswP6x7Xyk&ithint=folder%2cjpg
>
> --
> Neil n
>
> Blog: Vanagons, Westfalia, general <http://tubaneil.blogspot.ca>
>
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>
> 1981 Westfalia "Jaco" Images, technical
> <http://tubaneil.googlepages.com/>
>
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