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Triumph TR3 - Sheet metal thickness

I'm about to attack some rusty panels on my early TR3, and wonder what thickness the sheet metal should be. I have new floorboards, but also have to replace the bottoms of the toe boards (lower bulhead, whatever...). Can anyone tell me the thickness of the metal in this area? Can I assume it's 18 gauge?

I also have to replace sheet metal on the sills, lower fenders, and under the gas tank. What thickness should these areas be?

Thanks,
Chet
Chet Harter

I can't remember what the gauge was but all my TR3A repair panels are 0.034 to 0.036" thick. I just went to measure some of the left-over bits with my micrometer.

Don Elliott, Original Owner, 1958 TR3A

http://www.triumphest2006.com/images/clubcars/30donelliott'str3.jpg
Don Elliott

That converts to 20 gauge steel. I was about to buy some 18 gauge stock. I'm sure the thinner 20 gauge will be easier to work. Thanks!
Chet Harter

I built new toe board bottoms from ./036" mildsteel. and they worked fine, but I think the original may have been .038"
Al Christopher
A. R. Christopher

I MIG welded all my repair pieces using butt welds. That is, "edge to edge" so there was no overlap. It's harder to do, but in 15 years with TRA and VTR judging my TR3A at national concours events, I've never had anyone say the they could see the difference in the thickness.
Don Elliott

Don;

I'm diving feet first into MIG welding for the first time. I'm practicing on some scrap pieces and am experiencing a lot of blow through. When you butt weld, are you leaving any gap between pieces or are they touching? Also, do you happen to know the gauge or thickness of the welding wire you're using with your MIG? I'm also going to try the flattened copper pipe method to see how that works. Any experience with that method?

Thanks,
Chet
Chet Harter

Chet, I have taken some pictures while restoring my Tr3a 1958.

See here

http://s83.photobucket.com/albums/j307/wbetzel/Triumph%20Tr3a/Body/

Hope this helps.

Wim.
Wim Betzel

Wim;

Would love to see your pictures, but the link isn't working for me.

Chet
Chet Harter

Chet,
You can try this link
http://s83.photobucket.com/albums/j307/wbetzel/

go to TR3a - body.

Otherwise you can copy en past the first link into your browser.

Good luck, Wim.
Wim Betzel

Wim;

Great pictures! I'll be referring to them on occasion as I work on mine.

Thanks,
Chet
Chet Harter

I would sart with a wire thickness of .025" for the lighter sheet metal of the floorboards and firewall.
Al Christopher
A. R. Christopher

I feel like an idiot writing this post and asking this question:

A spool of wire came with my welder (and I'm totally new to welding). It also has a set of tips for different size wire. When I set up the welder with the supplied wire, I choose a tip that fit the wire (the wire wasn't labeled with it's size).

Since I want to learn to weld sheet metal, I started experimenting on scrap metal with varying results. I came to the conclusion that .023 wire was probably what I should be using. I checked the tip that I was using on my welder and it is stamped .030.

I bought a roll of .023 and loaded the welder with it. The wire will not fit through the tip labeled .023. As it turns out, the new wire seems to be identical to the old wire, and very nicely fits in the .030 tip.

Can any of you tell me what I'm missing? If it's something obvious, please tell me and then consider this to my contribution to the humor portion of the program.

Thanks,
Chet
Chet Harter

The 0.023" wire fits nicely through the 0.030" hole in the tip. It will work OK. If the wire is too tight in the tip, it will hang up and stop feeding, causing all kind of bad looking welds. It had to feed neatly and with no jerkiness or interference.
Don Elliott

I have had consistent success with tips that "match" the wire size, so just assumed they are supposed to. I have match in quotes because I am finding the tips I get lately are 0.024", while the wire is called 0.023". I've had no binding problems. The only thing I have found is that sometimes when putting new wire in, I need to trim the end pretty carefully, and sometimes even file it a bit, as the end is a bit deformed initially.
Never tried 0.023" wire in an 0.030" tip so can't comment on that though.
Jim
J. S. Wallace

usually the tip size should be just larger than the wire size. one caveat: a lot of the tip sizes are things like 0.6, 0.9, these are in millimeters, so you have to do a little arithmetic to choose the right tip.
Al Christopher
A. R. Christopher

This thread was discussed between 06/01/2007 and 31/01/2007

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