I am slowly welding up and smoothing the raw rough look of the 69 subframe. I am shocked at just how really rough this piece is. I have two areas were the factory welding rod is still stuck to the frame and broken off like a catfish whisker!

The problem is there seems no way to really weld and smooth it down with metal only. I will have to at some point apply some plastic filler...which rules out powder coating the frame.

Any of you tackle this?

You might want to search for a AWS D1.1 certified welder and have him/her come and take a look at it. They would have the 'talent' to lay a bead requiring no smoothing, especially the elderly ones, they have been at it for awhile.

I know it'll cost money, but, could be money well spent and less time involved. There are plenty of civilian shipyards in NE Fla to start the search.

I also attempted to smooth my subframe. Found lots of factory welds that were sick looking. Being the frame is overlapped (one side higher than the other) it will take alot of plastic filler to level things out. I ended up not doing this but wish I had. In a phew years I plan to take it back off and use some plastic filler to smooth them out and base/clear it. I agree, a nice looking weld bead would be just fine, less work to grind them down and smooth them too.

I wouldnt recommend doing that much welding to the frame,if your gonna weld all the seams on the frame you will be putting a lot of heat into it and run a good chance of warping it,I'm a certified welder D1.1 among others,its just my recommendation that you clean up whats there and maybe reweld some of it but dont weld all the seams solid.
Good luck,
Greg

I fully welded the seams on two subframes and the second one turned out a lot nicer than the first. The first one I rushed thinking the frame would not tweak with me continously welding the seam but I found out later when I put it back in the rear rails had spread out about 1" and the transmission crossmember would not bolt in. I had to take a bar clamp and bend the frame in to allow the bolt holes to line up. The second one I took my time welding it up and also bolted in the crossmember and did not have any problems.
I did a lot of welding on mine along with using a hammer to get things straight again like underneath the oil pan where a floor jack normally pushes that area in and then adding filler and did a lot of block sanding to get it to look nice.
I also used a grinder and a die grinder with a cutoff wheel to try and make the overlap of the two frame halfs look better. This is a drawing of what I did for the overlapping seam. Sorry no pictures yet.

Frame Welding (http://community.webshots.com/scripts/editPhotos.fcgi?action=showMyPhoto&albumID=91804442&photoID=131152994&security=MtPwPv)

Depending on how abused the frame is will determine how much time you need or want to spend on it but I personally hate looking at real nice engine bays only to see the welding balls still stuck to it, poor factory welds and just think how hard it must be to keep that rough surface clean.

Jim

Good points here by everybody.

I played with it today.

I have a good friend that is a certified welder.

I have decided to do a bit of both.

On the upper side I will weld the large gaps, plug holes and fill with plastic for a one piece smoothed look.

On the bottom I will get my buddy to help lay a sweet tight weld along the seam.

We will do it in pieces so as to avoid creating so much heat to warp the unit.

I am considering welding nuts to the inside of the rear lower A arm holes. That way I can fill the large round holes in the front with a plate, weld, fill, and grind smooth.

I already filled that stupid cup between the main X member and front member with a flat plate and cut off the excess from the front of that. That along looks 100% better.

I will then blast, prime, and shoot in base clear the same color as the car. The A arms will be powder coat black.