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Lumphammer wrote:I have a rotisserie but I won't be using it to do the sills. At the moment my car is on axle stands which are these fairly standard ones from toolstation:
https://www.toolstation.com/axle-stand/p83498
They get the car high enough on their own to do the arches and you can get under there with enough room to do all maintinence. I hapilly got the gearbox out and in of the blue car / removed literally everything at this height. I just measured the silver car and the bottom lip of the sill is currently 380mm from the floor, there might be 2 notches left in the axle stands too. These axle stands look very similar to the one's you're currently using.
When i do my sills i'll jack it up a bit more and sit the axle stands on a couple of dense concrete blocks or bricks which will give about 8" more lift and make welding / grinding a bit less awkward. If you're supporting the car on the reinforcement areas each end of the frame rails there's a lot less stress on the middle body and sills which will hopefully reduce flex when large parts of the sills are removed.
I've seen some people do the sills with the car on a rotisserie but it needs to be totally stripped to reduce weight and even then the one's i've seen brace up the car as it's prone to flexing a lot more when it's supported from the ends of the chassis like it is on most rotisseries.
I'm keeping mine rolling until I have to strip everything to paint the underbody (which is my choice not a necessity). Keeping it rolling lets me have it in a position in the garage where I've got more space and when i come to do the other side i can drive it out, turn it round etc. If you can keep it mostly intact you'll avoid the misery of filling your whole garage and some of the house with car parts, it's incredible how much "stuff" there is in even a small car like an MX5.
For welding I have a Clarke 110EN Turbo, which is a very basic gas MIG and it's doing alright. New I think they're about ÂŁ250 now but I saw one come up secondhand a few days ago for ÂŁ100 - you don't need any more power until you get above 2mm metal thickness which there isn't in an MX5. So far I've been using pure CO2 and in all honesty it's been working alright. It's good you have a garage, welding outside is utterly miserable and even the slightest wind will make your welds cr*p. I think MIG is fairly easy to learn, I had no experience of doing thin metal other than fixing a cement mixer drum
Those wire wheels on the grinder can be lethal
All very good points,
I do have plenty of concrete (breeze) blocks that I could use to save a few pounds, and gain a few inches
will have a go at the weekend.My mx is fully stripped excluding the engine and I have stacks in the attic and roof of the garage, brokers how much space stuff takes up!!
I do have a welder I bought it new last year, its a Clarke 180 mig, so 180amp which I fear even on the lowest may be a bit to powerful but was recommended to me! I've got 0.6 and 0.8 wire, I'll prob go 0.6 until I get confident or stick with it, not sure, and I'm running pure argon.. I did use it to repair my rusty ride on mower deck, luckily I have a grinder lol!! (It is juddering on the wire feed at the mo so need to sort that)
