Very nice, Russ!

Today I spent some time chasing away the rust monster that had settled down for some serious snacking on the car's offside (it's a left hooker) just behind the cabin. I'd cut out the patch of rotten floor some time ago, but the rust was taking hold in the adjacent area, so I figured I'd sort it out now so that the new bit of floor wasn't compromised.

Overlapped a good patch on the vertical bit, and made a new top for the transverse section, which is otherwise solid.





It now feels really strong in that area. Much more solid than before.

Then I put a new drip channel on the back.



Will finish dressing the welds next time.

The practice is paying off - much tidier!

Yep. It's all in the dressing. Gawd bless those flap wheels!

Also, I'm now becoming an expert in collecting discarded white goods. This van now contains sheet from a microwave oven and a dishwasher, and I've just acquired an old washing machine too. Perfect guage for an A-series!

I'd also say you need to ensure that all the metal you're welding to is perfectly clean, knotted wire wheels for the grinder (which are savage and bastorial to use) are worth using, are you using gasless wire? Learning to weld will be a million times easier using gas and normal wire, likewise, using an auto dark helmet will make learning and seeing what you're doing much easier. If you can see what you're doing and everything is perfectly clean you're starting from a point where you can then adjust your welder or technique to get a good result. My guess, looking at your welds, is that the wire speed is too high or you're not getting good penetration (titter) because something's still got paint/grease/dogshit/fanny batter on it. The trade off is that once you can get good penetration you're only welding .6mm thick steel which will be a piece of cake to blow holes in. It's deffo an improvement though, you're certainly getting there. I despise welding cars because they are horrible dirty awkward things and unless you've had the whole thing shotblasted and you've got it on a spit it's always going to be a wanky job to do. I can do the most awesome welding* on lovely new clean metal sections and stock but when I'm doing a car I pretty much always get one or two bits that look rough and make me feel useless and want to give up and go and do something gay like tap dancing or needlework instead.**

*As you'd expect from a fucking legend like me.

**Use of outdated stereotypes acknowledged and apologised for.

A lot of my messy welding has been due to the fact that I don't clean off the paint religiously before I start welding - I'm too impatient. I've been getting more fastidious lately, but I still find all that prep work to be real pain in the bum. And I agree: welding cars is bloody awkward. Especially the underneath bit.

Think I'm going to make me a rotisserie type jig thing, so I can work on the van's underside. Anyone on here ever made one, or got designs for one?

You just convert this:::




to this:.....




Just take a back axle from a 2cv and you've got the hardest thing, made well you can even brake it in every position......

Nice!

How and where do you attach it to the bodyshell?

First of all this isn.t mine and it looks as if there is a complete chassis underneath welded to the front and back post....

It must be nice to be able to roll it back and forth to work on both sides of the same piece, but is it really vital? With a bit of planning you could do all the top pieces, then get some mates around to tip the shell onto it's side or roof so you can do underneath