Any ever welded stainless?

[StrayCat]

A buddy of mine has a vehicle with a stainless steel body that he wrecked about 10 years ago and for some reason has been holding on to. He offered to trade it to me for a few of my firearms. The car is in decent shape other than the front end being mashed up a bit, and for some god aweful reason had the car painted bright yellow. The trunk pan ,which is in the front, will need work, the grill will need replaced and the front fenders may be ok enough to smooth out without bondo, cause when the damage occured they folded wierd, they didnt "crunch" like most accidents i have seen.

IF i go through with this this is going to be a long term project, because it's going to involve alot of custom fab work to do what I had in mind to do with it, but i Know the rules with welding stainless differ fron regular old steel stock, something about cyinide gas fumes and so on.

But the car runs and drives, sort of, dry rotten tires and spongey brakes make for an interesting ride in a 5 speed car.

Just looking for some insight.

OH! and can you weld regular steel to stainless and have it hold reliably?

[tszuta]

Regular steel can be welded to stainless. We do it almost as a constant practice here at work. The joints formed take a considerable amount of beating. The joint are hitting together at a speed around 16 In/sec. These parts vary in thickness from 16 gauge to 7 gauge.

First, the Stainless should be of a composition not susceptible to sensitization otherwise its corrosion resistance properties will result impaired by welding.


Second, especially if the mild steel element is thick, it is customary to weld on top of it a layer of stainless (Type 309 or type 312) or of high nickel filler metal: this procedure is called buttering. The final welding thus occurs between two stainless surfaces.

Your best bet would be to try and weld stainless to stainless.

I myself have not heard of Cyanide gas stemming from welding stainless together. Galvanized is the metal to watch out for.

[R U INJRD]

Just make sure when you're done it can still hit 88 miles per hour, or you'll be stuck in 1955...

[Creepy Cruiser]

Just make sure when you're done it can still hit 88 miles per hour, or you'll be stuck in 1955...

That's exactly what I was thinking, lol.

[StrayCat]

Man. It sucks that there is absolutely no possible way to gather info on something so oddball without everyone knowing what your idea is.

Yeah it's an 81 DeLorean DMC-12. He bought the car about 10 years ago after I made a joke about it. He said he wanted something no one else around here had, so I was like " get a delorean, hahaha"......2 months later....he had a delorean......

My issue is that the parts are astronomical in price now. When he bought the car he got it for 3500.00. Now, if the car was in the same condition it was when he got it it would fetch 16-20k. I found a set of used front fenders, for 2800.00 for the fucking pair.

But the deal he wants to do he will get 3500.00 in firearms for the car and I can drive it home. But I still have the T-Bird to work on and finnish, and I am afraid I'm going to get into the situation where I get the car and cant afford to do anything with it because of the price of parts. My wife says I could just get a new one, cause they are making them again at 20 units per year and for 60 grand, I can get the loan for one and pay 307.00 a month for it, but I want a show piece, and I wont be cutting up and welding to a (essentially) brand new car. This isnt a new idea to me. I have toyed with the thought for years. But the car itself is the base, and this is the closest I have been able to come to obtaining it.


And if I got stuck in 1955, I would be one very, VERY, happy man.

[Vampirate_Maiden]

Once I saw you mention stainless steel, I had a feeling I knew what kind of car it was gonna be...But a yellow one? Ugh!

[Abnorml]

for some god aweful reason had the car painted bright yellow

I didn't notice this earlier. I didn't know you could paint stainless and the paint not flake off?

[tszuta]

Stainless can be painted as long as you are careful and take your time with the surface prep. Typically scuffing it up with a heavy grit sandpaper or sandblasting will suffice. Also powder coating works well with stainless.

Powder coating a car??? I don't know about that though.

[Creepy Cruiser]

A few of them actually came gold plated also.

Check out this one. And check out what's in the garage. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/DeLor...fCarsQ5fTrucks


And this one. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1981-...item2ea84994be

[StrayCat]

HAHA! Holy shit is that the Mach 5?!?!?!

He didn't sand it or scuff it up, he used some sort of epoxy primer then sprayed over it. It doesn't look good.

[Abnorml]

The reason I asked about painting. My uncle told me about going to the Auto Fair and seeing a DeLorean that was painted. He said for whatever reason he touched the paint and it flaked off. He said he walked away very quickly.