question about welding a billet grill

Edited: 11/22/2008 12:23:20 AM by framescr8pintoy

so i had this full phantom for my toyota. well the damn thing didnt fit very well. go figure. the tabs that were on it didnt even line up with any holes nor did they reach far enough to attach to the core support. so i made some new tabs for it. took it to work to have one of the guys in the shop who does the tig welding do it for me. well to make it short. he went to weld the new tab on and as soon as he started he said that it warped instantly. is there a certain way to weld to billet aluminum? if so what do you do differently than regular aluminum? i dont know how to tig or id try myself but i have to rely on them. the heat made the second bar down warp. i cant get it straight by hand it just flops the opposite direction. i was thinking if i drilled out the top bar that needs the tabs welded on and clamp the f#%! out of it to a table to keep it from warping while welding the tabs on to it and then for the second bar to make a little cut and straighten it back again then have him make a small tack weld. any suggestions? id hate to say its totally f#*(ed but im sure theres got to be away to fix it.

what about rivoting on the tabs with a nice looking rivot? worst case, if it is trashed it could be cut down and used on something else. thats weird that the 2nd bar got warped, since it wasnt welded to.

I had mine come apart and had to weld it and the same thing happened. What you can do it try and seperate it from the vertical bar were it warped and push it out the end of the grill and grind it off. Follow me?

Also you can put a spacer inbetween the bars before you weld it to help minimize the warpage.

I used a spool gun to weld mine and had no problems but it is a lot quicker then a tig so less time with heat on it.

i kind of have the same thing i did my front end convrsion and had to use an old sqaure body billet grill and we made it fit but my issue for one is welding it up because we cut relief slits in the back side aupports to bend it and we need to weld them back up and i was hessitant of doing it, and also anyone know what the best way to bend these grills is because the square body grills ar flat and we got the center at the right angle of bnd but the center of both sides are still straighti need to curve the sids of the grill and i havent found a roller big enough to do the job mainly smaller stuff