How to fix another chassis shops screw up???

I feel like I've been put in a situation that there can come no good outcomes. Had a fellow racer call me and he asked me to weld some bars in his funny car cage so it would look right. So I say bring it on over and we'll take a look to see what it needs. Wednesday he drops it off. The original builder didn't put in the bars at the request of the owner because he wanted to drive the car on the street and didn't want to obstruct his view. Now the owner asked for a 12 point cage that would certify to 8.50 but wanted the FC cage for added safety and wanted to be able to upgrade to 25.5 later on.

This to me was a mistake, I tell everyone I quote a job to they can have one or the other, not both. It's gonna cost more to have something upgraded later on down the road, save your pennies and get it done right the first time. Now after looking the car over there are major concerns over the quality of the work as well. ALL of the welds at the headliner area are not completely welded all the way around and no gussets in these areas either. In the back where the cage drops through the package tray and goes to the 6X6 plates it's been MIG welded to the plate about half way around on both sides. This is a 4130 cage mind you!!! The seat tabs and where they tied the cage to the body under the dash have all been MIG welded as well.

The owner is a friend that I've raced with for years. I originally quoted this job to him a year ago and he decided to go elsewhere because I was too high. With what he got I would have been $800 more than what he paid for this crap. I'm gonna put his bars in so atleast at a glance everything looks good but where do I go from here. Most of the work is ok but all the bad things more than diminish the good. A picky inspector will never pass this car and with it being in between certs I really don't know if it will pass at all.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. I enjoy doing this stuff on the side for fun but crap like this makes me angry. Why in the hell would someone put out crappy work like this??? I looked up the original builder online at there web site and searched the bullet and everyone seems to like there stuff. Did this guy just get a bad deal or what? I understand he got what he asked for with the cage being inbetween certs but I would never do that to someone and always make them choose one or the other. However he did not ask for some of the work to be just total crap!!!

pics?

richter69 wrote:pics?

I'll take some and get em up tonight.

Like the old saying goes "You can pay me now or pay me later" Lots of people learn the hard way about getting what you pay for.

JMO... Don't touch it. If something goes wrong it will have your name on it because you worked on it last... Send it back to the other guys and be honest with your friend as to why you won't touch it.

D. Sea wrote:JMO... Don't touch it. If something goes wrong it will have your name on it because you worked on it last... Send it back to the other guys and be honest with your friend as to why you won't touch it.

X 2 and I would show the car owner ALL the problems you found with it.

Here's the mess!!!

QtrWarrior wrote:

D. Sea wrote:JMO... Don't touch it. If something goes wrong it will have your name on it because you worked on it last... Send it back to the other guys and be honest with your friend as to why you won't touch it.

X 2 and I would show the car owner ALL the problems you found with it.

I totally agree guys. I talked with the owner today and suggested he talk with the original builder and ask for ALL of his money back. I'm guessing but I'm sure that won't happen. The builder seems reputable but I've never seen his work in person until now, and holy crap WOW!!! This kid paid $2200 for the work and in my opinion will pay a lot more to get it fixed. My suggestion to him was to ask for his money back then pay me to cut this crap out and start over. This isn't too bad but it's gonna be almost impossible to update this cage to 25.5 which ultimately is what the owner needs for his ultimate goals.

Thats not even good mig welds. The vertical weld looks as if it were started from the top and went down. - big no-no on industrial structural stuff


Im a po-dunk shade tree welder and can do better than that and even I know to tig cromo stuff.



Good luck with whatever the outcome. Its just as cheap to do it correctly once as it is to do it incorrectly twice.

The fact that a Mig welder was used on 'moly tubing by the previous shop is the deal killer. Only accept the job & proceed with the work IF the owner knows of the problems AND accepts responsibility if it won't pass tech. And even then, friend or not, he needs to sign something stating he was made aware of the problems by you & told you to continue anyway.

Now as for the Mig welds, it's really hard for anyone to accurately judge them just by how they look. In the past I have seen perfect/beautiful Mig welds that were actually junk & actually had little or no penetration, and some damn ugly Migs that actually would hold up to anything thrown at them. Only real way for the average guy to be 100% sure any Mig weld is good is destructive testing (cut a cross section of the joint & look at the heat/weld penetration).


But if we just go by what the welds look like............

The 1st pic. True the weld bead isn't the best looking puddle, especially the start (closest to the interior/trim edge). But that's kinda expected with a big Mig gas cup & starting so close to a interior surface. It forces you to start the Mig weld with the gun/wire at a very undesirable angle. The biggest problem I see is that the guy might have actually fit that particular joint a little too tight (on the inside corner) for Mig welding possibly reducing heat/weld penetration.


The 2nd pic. If this pic is actually a vertical weld (going by the pic orientation) it's really not a bad looking weld for a Mig unit. It looks like a normal stagger puddle (start-fill-move, stop-fill-move, stop-fill-move, etc) used when filling a weld joint with a bigger/looser fitted joint (used to help increase Mig heat/weld penetration).


The 3rd pic. The Mig part of the puddle around the tube just looks like another normal Mig stagger puddle, but not having near enough penetration (joint probably fit too tight for Mig). The flip side is the Tig side of the weld puddle looks to have way too much penetration and looks to be under cut (joint fit too loose for Tig/machine set too high/filler rod too small/puddle advance speed too slow).