Intercooler Build
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paul,

it looks like the issue you had with welding in the pipe was that the work peice got too hot,

for somthing like that i would start with a cold work peice, and set the down slope (crater amps) fairly long (2-3 sec) you can then pulse the trigger to vary the current so the whole thing dosent get to hot.

when you come to welding them to the core you will need to point the arc kernal at the intercooler core more to heat that more and "wave it across" to the end tank to avoid blowing a hole in the end tank.

I certainly had trouble getting the tube surface to melt so I could start feeding in the filler.

I think that the problem was partly due to the very shiney surface of the tube reflecting some of the heat, slowing me down so as everything else got too hot.

I'll sand down the tube on the next one.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

ah!! did you not clean the tube?

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

a buff with a stainless wire brush makes a massive difference,

Everyone who has "hobby" welded alloy (with AC TIG) will have their own best ways of doing it.... for a first attempt at 2mm that is better than my first attempts 10 years ago with 3mm....

And I now stick to 3mm wherever possible because I hate the thin stuff....

Do some more practice bits and experiment a bit more with the welder settings - every welder is different.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

This is really making me want a tig now! I must convince myself i dont need one....yet...

Maybe once the cage and seats etc are in and i can move onto making brackets, and manifolds etc, i may invest...


My garage needs to be bigger!!!!

Hard to tell from the pics, but is that a steel welding bench top you are working on? I have a big piece (e.g. about 4ft sq) of 3/8" boiler plate as my welding bench top, I found a lot with alu welding that all the heat I was putting in was quickly conducting out into the massive heatsink aka bench top! I tried packing it off my bench with a bit of something non conductive, MDF I think, then earthed up locally to the job, made it much easier for me anyway, esp with bigger stuff that takes a bit more getting hot in the first place anyhow.

PS as you have found getting into inside corners is also pretty tricky, as the arc tends to bounce about making it hard to get into the corner so to speak. I usually move the tungsten out of the gas cup a bit to help get in there.

So is it good or bad that the entire workpiece gets roasting hot ?

9.85 @ 145mph
202mph standing mile
speed didn't kill me, but taxation probably will

Obviously depends what it is, but I find keeping some heat in the thing in general means less needed in the specific area you are welding, meaning its quicker to get a decent weld pool established. However I'm self taught so that may be sh1te, but seems to work for me?

in my experience , it depends what your welding.

obvously if yor welding somthing big you want as little heat to escape as poss so you can actually get it ho enough to weld,

but on smaller sheet stuff i find it can be usefull for the heat to flow out of the work peice to somthing else otherwise you can end up blowing the thing apart.

you may want to give some thought to using 3mm plate rather than 2mm, i know its a bit late now, but before you weld it to the cooler its worth thinking about.

Will prob be fine if your only using low boost, but ive seen quite a few probs with intercoolers splitting open when only using 2mm plate with decent boost. never had any such probs with 3mm.....

other than that it looks very good!!

And on the 7th day........... God created turbochargers!

Stuck with 2mm plate for now.

I'm getting better:



But I'm inclined to buy some known plate and maybe some better filler rods and start again.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

Very good for first practice on 2mm.

You need to look at the other side of the weld to determine whether the current was right, profile of the plates was right etc, but if you can do that already, I'd stick with it.

Personal opinion.... the grade of the filler wire is more important than the base plate material..... I'm using 4043A (I think you can ignore the A) as the coded welders at work recommended it for general fabrication, home use, as it melts at a slightly lower temperature than the base material.... (at least I think that's the reason they gave but it works for me......)

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

I think that the plate is the problem.

It's brushed one side, which makes me think that it is grade 1050, so my 5356 filler wire is wrong.

Some 5251 plate would be better with either 5356 or 4043 filler wire.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."