I've had a welder for a few years now (Cheap and nasty Cosmo 130 with mods for the wirefeed) which was bought with the intention that one day it would be used to replace my crusty crossmember.

Over the years I have put a few patches on it but the time had finally come to replace it. Sadly I left it too late to get a nice SPI crossmember and ended up with a nasty Britpart one, the welding though incomplete was somewhat better that the one Les had to fit.

A couple of evenings were spent Henson-ising the new crossmember and generally turning the one inch bursts of weld into continuous ones.

I took last Friday off and arose with the sun ...

Wheels off, exhaust off, tow bar off, disconnect battery and alternator, (all of which had been previously loosened and put back in preparation), jack car up realise roof is hitting garage door, push car out jack up again and start cutting.

I wanted to replace as little as possible so my first cuts were just in front of the (towards the engine that is) chassis brackets that take the tow brackets. As expected the metal was good except for the area just underneath the bracket which had rusted through previously and been patched.

It was just about possible to cut all around with a 4.5" angle grinder with new thin cutting discs, just had to use a hacksaw for a tiny 0.24" cut at the top in the middle where the grinder wouldn't reach.

Cutting down the replacement extensions also meant much better access to weld the top of the chassis rail.

Whilst not a fantastic fit I was expecting worse, all the mounting tabs lined up.

Looking at the cuts ends I hadn't realised that the original LR chassis has a significant amount of internal bracing, not something the replacement crossmember has !!.

Started at about 6:00am and had it all welded and bolted buy 3:00pm with a break for lunch and chats with inquisitive neighbours (which lost me abouit 90mins!!). Chassis loom was soldered back together with heatshrink and tools away and all painted by 5:00pm.

Anyway the pics below show the job, this is the biggest welding I have ever done and was pleased with the results. I had an auto mask but it is practically impossible to hold your head upright under the body and still see the top welds, my neighbour pointed out that a hand held mask would have helped (shame I threw it away).

I'm not putting this up as a model example, but I hope that the pics might help others intending to do this job as much as the previous postings on this site have helped me.

Looks a nice job to me - well done


Les.

^^^

Wot he says

Just a thought

For that "Extra Safety n strength" option - on the outside legs (where the weld runs "top to Bottom")
cut a square piece of sheet - say 3mm ish square, then weld on so as to bridge across the entire area - say 3-4" square piece,
Weld on "Diamond stylee" (with the top and bottom points near the top to bottom weld), then weld around all 4 edges, this gives a huge increase strength wise.

Just a thought ?

Nige

Thanks Les + Nige ...

I had intended adding some strengthening plates at the time but I was covered in rust, grinding dust , burns from the torch and spatter so decided to pack up and paint, have a bath and enjoy the sun :-) but i will be coming back to this and add some plates then, still got to get new trailer sockets, reinstate trailer loom and waxoil (any tips ) . Primary target was to bite the bullet and make sure it was OK for MOT. Having spent a little more time with the MIG I am now much more confident at putting the plates on.

Initially I was dreading the welds across the top (and those on the bottom for that matter) but with the right power and feed it becomes much easier, as a beginner I find that it's easy to use too little power for fear of burning through and end up with blobby welds on the surface with no penetration, probably a result of practising on thin plate and my previous bulkhead corner repairs.

Nige is gonna get you
Mike