Hapich

I would suggest a Lincoln Electric Inveretc V-155-S Welder. With welders you get what you pay for. Don't go cheap. You will get a piece of crap that wont have a strong enough arc to penetrate the metal. Trust me. This is about $1200 and you can stick weld with it too. It comes with everything but the gas and filler metal. I always prefer Lincoln welders. They are good. I was a welder in an oil refinery for 12 years.

Graufuchs

go buy some fister D's....

I dont wanna see you hurt yourself putting the ground where Sneaky pete tells you to.....

FLY996

As long as they're not leaking I'd put them on and enjoy the sound...my guess is they will hold up for a long while...if they spring a leak then you could get them re-done...

philooo

Hapich, $1200 for the hardware is a little steep, even though I always dreamed to play around with welding since I am 10 years

Hapich, with that kind of hardware do you think I can play around and do something decent ? or I need to go to welding school for 6 month before being able to use that thing ?

In the meantime, I am mounting them right now and we'll see in a few weeks if they look dark as previously mentioned. BTW, I had never removed those sucker before, so I had left the wheels on to unscrew the 3x10mm bolts and it was a pain, I removed the wheels and then...bingo!..revelation you can reach them from inside the wheel well pretty easily.

I started the car without the muffler..not that bad

I did invert my "muffler holder" bold so that it will be easier to to a swap later on.

I am not finished as my wife came in a little early today

Will post pics and sound soon. I think I might send my other set of can to fister D to do the MkII mod, this way I'll have both mod available and I assume I can may be sell the can a little better if they are modded by the maestro.

scottiemac

I say use them. Muffler shops aren't known for their pretty welds but I've seem worse looking welds that don't leak. If they do leak it's not that big a deal to take them off and have them hit the spot that leaks (you'll see the soot). Have fun!

nick49

Welding is much more difficult than it appears. It takes months and months of practice to get it right. Some welders, after several years in the trade, still can't make it pretty. Its one thing to make a weld strong with good penetration, but it's another to make it strong and beautiful.

You need a good knowledge of metallurgy to know what fillers, wire, or rods to use when welding different alloys. The temperature, amps, filler speed and other things need to be just right for it to work. Too fast, no penetration, too slow and you'll burn thru, slightly inconsistant in your movements and the weld will show it.

Try it, you'll have a new appreciation for industrial arts.

philooo

Yeah I always thought welding was a really cool thing to do. I wish I could buy a cheaper machine to have a try at it... anybdoy here have any success with cheaper welding machine ? may be I should try mig before tig at least. Looks like mig is a bit easier.

fpb111

Like hapich said good TIG looks like an angled stack of dimes laying against each other.
Look at the factory weld it looks like a MIG weld, smooth continuous snake with the head overlapping the tail.
MIG is easier to learn then TIG.
MIG with stainless wire is fine for these mufflers. BTW my (professional?!?) welds did not look any better then yours, 3k miles no problems so far.

For some good visuals & tips check out this site There are MIG and TIG tips and videos
http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/...ding-tips.html

Pac996

Looks like stick welding not mig. If the guy isn't used to welding SS then besided the welding to get used to the sticks gas you more than usual rods. They will make you sick actually. Maybe he never did stainless before and found out about the getting sick The if it was sticks and the guy doesn't normally do SS he probably only had short sticks and left over even shorter sticks. What ever the case it is done.

Mark I

My $.02 - Looks like aside from being unpleasant to look at, the real problems are that it was done with mild steel (my guess flux core wire), inconsistent penetration and some obvious inclusions. An alternative to bring the project back into shape might be to deeeply reduce and clean up what's there (read 3 beers and 1 die grinder) followed by a skillfully applied pass of stainless with heliarc/TIG. OK, call me an optimist, but you weren't saving those three beers for anything special anyway. Good luck whatever you choose to do.

Eharrison

Put it on GOTO Meeting so I can watch it at work.

ivangene

for comparison - my "home jobs"
Lunch at a mexican joint and a 6 pack and I gave him $40 tip - friend of a friend

I really dont think yours will be an issue... I would plop them on and start enjoying the new sounds!

Hapich

You can get a cheaper set up if you just want to stick weld ,(SMAW) Shielded Metal Arc Welding, but thats is difficult for anything under 1/4" thick. You can build some outdoor furniture and a BBQ. There are some cheaper MIG machines for thin material, GMAW ( Gas Metal Arc Welding), but then you have to worry about the damn wire feeder and there is always some problem. Especially with a cheap one. If you want to build stuff in your garage from 1/16" to 1/2" thick, carbon steel to stainless, get a good machine that can do TIG, Tungsten Inert Gas or the proper name, GTAW ( Gas Tungsten Arc Welding) and stick. Trust me when I say MIG machines are unruly unless you know what your doing. Welding takes months / years to get good at. If you are going to go cheap you are going to be disappointed, especially if you start getting good at it.