The door had a compound curve and a body line involved with another karate chop dent/crease. This did not have any access either. Just a small peek hole. Dent was again right on a hard to pull crease. I could not bring the removed dented section back to acceptable shape. The only patch available for 60-66 is a door skin. $180 shipped. I bought a donor "fender extension" locally for $12. Exact shape and thickness. Blew thru several times. No backing. You can watch all the videos you want and I've practiced a lot. You will blow thru. But you do learn to fix them. .047-.052 thick material is very hard to weld over and over. I settled on .025 wire with gas. Set on very high and fast. Lots of ideas about the settings and wire diameter. You can't use the chart. You may have voltage fluctuation in a neighborhood, extension cord length, welding cable sleeve wear, tip wear, wire quality, wind, how the metal shape and surrounding area takes the heat, whether backing or no backing, humidity, ground clamp effectiveness, metal cleanliness, your dexterity that day.......you just have to play with the flux capacitor speed and gigawatts supplied plutonium nuclear reactor knobs. Listen for GHUZZZZZZD..... GHUZZZZZZD SCHIZZLE SCHAZZZLE SPARKPOP kind of thing. For 1.06 seconds...and if it welded the thing or not is good too.
There was also a hole in the door (below my upper patch) with a bad patch. It was brazed, You can't MIG on a braze. Had to drill it out bigger. I just loved that. Anyway, no access AGAIN. I made a round patch bigger than the hole. Drilled a 1/16 hole in the middle of it. Fished a wire from outside to an opening far, far away inside the door. Put wire in the patch piece hole, bend it over and pulled the patch back into door and up tight. Plug welded while pulling out on the backer/plug/heat sink wire. Then broke wire off. Fill with weld, grind and filler and sand.
Whenever you are patching, try to cut out the section and have radius corners. Like drill four holes then cut. Like as big as you can stand. Then cut out the patch with matching radius. This eliminates weld bunching/globulation/overheat at square corners. You will do your spot-stack welds more "linear". Curvilinear.
These are not tips from an expert. Just my struggle to survive. It is fun and rewarding mostly.
Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it. - William Penn
