Looks good man! I'd say those welds look good, especially for not having done 'em in a while.

 

Do the safety chain hooks go through the square tube? If not, I would be worried that they would snap right off in the event they had to actually "catch" the trailer during a failure.

 

Yeah, they go the whole way through the tube. I used a big drill bit to bevel the holes slightly, and then ground a notch in the hooks so Id get some good penetration through it all.

Only thing Im stuck on is the mounting hardware. This requires 4 nuts, and 2 bolts. I have the nuts, but no bolts... the studs hanging down are a metric course thread, I figured the bolts would be the same but no. Any ideas?

 

Get some nut strips for inside the unibody rail and put the bolts through the bottom.

 

It's a grand cherokee... can't do nutstrips 'cause they have a weird insert for the bumper that goes into the frame rail.

 

Whoops, missed the part about it being a grand cherokee.

 

Yeah, I figured

 

Feel free to hate on my weld or give advice. Just an old 90A HF flux core welder with .035 Lincoln wire. Was making a bracket to strap my Jerry can to the bed of the MJ.

 

For being flux core, I am surprised there isnt more splatter everywhere. Every time I have used flux wire, it splattered everywhere! For what you are doing with the bracket, I think it will be perfectly fine with those welds!

 

LMAO!!!! Quit trollin' Lee! That ground clamp, the lack of spatter, and the color of that bead say that's NOT a HF flux welder.

 

Finally bolted my hitch up with no clearance issues. Still need those lousy bolts, and maybe some black paint. Looks like it will work.

Pretty slick bumper in that video! If I ever build bumpers for this Ill have to remember that.

Thanks fellas.

Ignore my sorry looking tailgate... lol

 

It is HF, and I stand corrected, it's the 180A/240V unit. (Ooops!!) I cut that damn Honda jumper cable end off a while ago. Lol. Found that a good ground and quality wire made a BIG difference

 

Good job, man!

Ah... yeah I run my 90 w/ lincoln multi-pass flux wire. Makes a difference in and of itself. I haven't changed the ground clamp but I really really need to. I know there are a couple other mods I can do to it like adding a couple of capacitors and a bridge rectifier to get it to weld DCEN like it's supposed to, but with all the work involved, I may as well just buy a new welder.... I want a better one anyway.

 

Running quality wire and having a good ground are paramount. HF machines get a bad rap, but understandably so, they're cheaply made. Good grounds, decent wire, it makes a huge difference, especially with FC wire. If you upgrade this stuff on a HF machine, you'll be much better off.

I still use my HF machine, but only for around-the-house type stuff. It is a 220 unit set up for flux core only. I use my Miller 211 for any mig stuff, and have an old school Lincoln tombstone for any arc jobs.

 

I've never stick welded before, but got the opportunity to try it out with an acquaintances machine. I kind of like it. Most were done with 6013 rod at 145A if I remember correctly. The weave looking one and the super wide (around an inch, done with 7018 I think?) were just me screwing around. The one weld by itself shows my improvement I think, I was going too fast, but slowed down and it got better in my opinion. These are obviously not my worst welds.

Stick weld pros, critique me if you want. I like to learn. are these good? bad? average? I have no feelings so let me have it. I was told the weave weld is only good if there is a "regular" pass underneath it. Agree?

toofast slow down


wide weld just for fun





stick weave just for fun