Mk1 VW LT 35 Tipper Truck 'Lucky Lloyd'

Cheers 👍🏻.

The fact your favourite is the Astro Van will make my mate Rod very happy indeed!

Something about raising the dead?

I just thought I'd do a quick post on a recent purchase of mine. 

Now....I've had this Machine Mart welder for for the best part of 25 years. In that time it's been a very reliable machine. Up until about 2 years ago when it started to become random with its power settings every now and then.

Here it is....








I'd set it exactly to where I know it works best on thin steel and it would either not penetrate and ball up, or blow a hole straight through. Then, the wire speed would seem to change on its own. Again, I'd have it set exactly where I've always had it, but it would be too fast...or painfully slow for the what ever power setting it was on ( or decided to be on ). Over the last 2 years I've replaced the gas solenoid, the liner, the swan neck and have stripped and checked the wire feed gearbox. None of this made any lasting difference. It also started eating through tips and shroud's at an unusually rapid rate.



Back in 2020, I purchased a plasma cutter from R-Tech welding. I read many reviews on it ( and others ) before deciding to pay, what I thought at the time, was well over the odds for that size and performance of machine. Don't get me wrong, I'd never used or owned a plasma cutter before the R-Tech machine, so I had nothing to compare it to. But, so far I've been very pleased with it's performance....sort of. I thought about getting the R-Tech welder at the same time....but I am not a rich man and funds would not stretch that far. So I just carried on and persevered with what I had.

Anyway, over the last few months, my old welder has been getting worse and worse. The wire feed has been pulsing from slow to fast constantly and it's been a total nightmare on thin steel.
Now, I'd been hankering after the R-Tech mig 180 since buying the plasma cutter. I happened to be reading through another thread here on Retro Rides one evening ( vulgalour ) and he mentioned that he'd just acquired the very R-Tech welder that I had my eye on. It was a sign!.....buy an an R-Tech welder and be done with it.......so I did. 

Shortly after this arrived in the workshop....( at work )






As excited as I was about getting to use it, I first wanted to to make up a trolley for it and the plasma the sit on.
So a quick search through my collection of 'random bits of metal things' turned up two pieces of shelving, some office table legs, castors off of an old works display, tubing that a friend had recently dropped round because someone was throwing it out and some racing Kart wheels. 


I put it all in a big bowl and mixed it all together...... and this happened......


















Then a coat of paint, some pinstripes, left over mongoose stickers, some cut up car matts and the wheels.....















Add one R-Tech plasma cutter and a mig 180.....and it was Pimm's o'clock!








After all of that, I finally got to use the new welder........IT'S AMAZING!!!!.....seriously, I should of bought one years ago!

Dan.

I have the baby brother to your Clarke and I reckon it's a great beginners machine. I'm only just getting to the point where I want finer control over it.
I'm starting to lust after a better welder and the R Tech would be it.

You, my dear chap, have just made me want one even more. Couldn't you have told me it was rubbish?

James

Had a 151TE too, was great but sometimes felt I wanted a half setting,

We got a RTech 180 and as you say, really nice… I have struggled to set it up a couple of times (mainly I suspect because I’m not very good) but the internet usually gets me back on course

My trolley definitely isn’t as good

Enjoy it! And keep it locked away carefully it is really nice!

Thom

Seems like there could be discounts available

forum.retro-rides.org/thread/221766/welding-taster-sessions-rr-weekender

You're welcome - I just wanted to be part of the bad influence mob...

Right …..onwards with the mountain of updates that I need to get through.



Now, earlier on when I was posting how I assembled the front half of the chassis, I mentioned how I was unhappy with the way I went about it. Hindsight is as they say, a wonderful thing. The way I wanted to approach the rear half was to put as much of the gubbins on the outside as possible, such as the jacking point outrigger, tank mounts and spring hanger etc, before welding in the inner chassis and then welding the whole lot into place. The purpose of this was so that any burn marks to the inside of the outer chassis from the welding process can be repainted before the inner goes in. Meaning that there will be less exposed metal to start rusting in future. So…..this was the result.



This is the outer and inner together. They had been welded together at this point as once the shock absorber mounting point had been welded in you couldn't get the inner back out again.










Next was to cut the rear chassis to its correct length and mark out the tabs….









Then very carefully line up the jacking point outrigger…
















Next was the big heavy spring hanger. This is again where the homemade jig came into its own. Everything lined up perfectly…..











Then remove the whole thing as one….











Weld it all together…..














Now…….this is where I lost a fair few photos due to technical issues with my external hard drive. So I don’t have the pictures to show, but everything was painted and giving a huge amount of Bilt Hamber cavity wax along with Rust Busters wax oil.

It was then all welded into place and given a few coats of Rust Buster epoxy primer…

























Hurray…..it's finished!!!.......just the other flipping side to do!.....



More updates on that soon.


Thanks,

Dan.