Clipping along at 100 feet of welding wire per hour.

Here are some more welding shots for ya.  This is the front driver’s side strut tower fairly well cleaned up.

 Notice the sparse factory welds at the arrows.

These are the times I wish clicking on the photo did not make them bigger for you!!   Well anyway this is after welding....

Yes my welds still stink but it is really hard to get all the seam sealer out so the welds bubble like crazy. I think I had my wire feed a bit too high too. Well that is the excuse I am going with anyway!

This is the underside of the same shock tower all welded (or is that buggered?) up. 

This is the same fender area seen from above. I did not weld that upper brace solid because of the large gap between the pieces and there were no welds in there at all from the factory. Crumple zone maybe?

Oh and yes that blanket caught fire several times...J

I still have the entire passenger side to do and some under the car yet but should finish up on Saturday Lord willing.

It is not hard work but certianally it is A LOT of work.   I would say I have about 7 hours in it so far and easily another 3 to go before I am done.  So far I have used 2000 feet of welding wire and will easily top 3000 feet before I am done.  The good news is wire is cheap and it's only about 3 1/2lbs of weight!

In other news the Motive gears came Thursday and I got them in.  They set up much better but I am still not happy at all with the pattern.  The problem is the opposite of the Ford gears and even with no shim in the pinion I am still too deep in the gear. 

 

The drive side is a little low but what's worse is how the pattern cuts off sharply down deep in the tooth.  The pinion too deep but I can't take any more shims out or reduce the back lash any more.  If this was a GM 7.5 like I am used to working with I think this would be noisy but on the larger Ford 8.8 I'm not so sure.  I know the bigger gears are more forgiving but you know I've had a bad experience with this.  Actually several bad experiences!

Well, I'll be poindering this situation as I weld over the weekend but no worries, "I rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!"  (Philippians 4:4)