Hello everyone
What kind of a welder machine is the best for welding 2cv panels since i have to restore my 1973 2cv

heloo Vasil

most of the 2cv was spotwelded together if you were to just replace full panels a spotwelder would be ideal.
You dont say where you are but here in the UK a second hand spot welder can be picked up for £200-£300. works right off the mains supply and you dont need much else.
BUT....
by far the most usefull and popular is the MIG welder cheap chineese welders can be had for under £200 and some folk seem to be able to make them work

good "hobby" MIG costs a fair bit more the more powerfull starting to need a good 16A supply so you cant just plug it in and go

with mig comes the consumables and PPe a small disposable gas bottles cost a fortune when you have a big project wire is relativley cheap, a good mask decent overalls and gloves all need to be found too.
gasless wire produces poorer quality welds,
MINIMUM setting is what tou need to look for 25-30A as a minimum setting gives you a chance of welding the thin metal used in 2cv

ark or stick (MMA) is a disaster on the thin metal and should be ruled out

tig is expensive and less forgiving when you are trying to weld old dirty metal upside down..aparently

gas ive never tried but is versatile and oldskool and those that can master it can work wonders

sean

Thx about the replay sean,i live in Macedonia.New mig welders are available for about 350 euros,most people use this mig welder with only CO2 gas,but i've hered that it's better to use CO2 and Argon gas mixed together to get a firmer and cooler weld.
What is your opinion about this..

I agree with Sean pretty much.

Arc is useless on a 2cv.

TIG is brilliant but expensive, and difficult for a novice to master.

Gas is pretty useless too unless you're a pro. (too much heat)

MIG is good and easy to learn. Don't buy a cheap set though, buy a good quality expensive one second hand if you can.

Spot welding is the way to do it, but you'll probably need a MIG set too for doing sills and similar.

Cheap MIG sets are virtually useless, and never, ever buy gasless. I've never seen a gasless welding set make a good weld. It will put you off welding forever.

You can mig weld with CO2 from your local pub, but we use a CO2/Argon mix (15% i think) in almost every place I've worked.

co2 is fine it produces a colder weld that sits on the metal the argon/co2/o2 mixes produce a hotter weld that flows better and are smoother but there is not much in it when all you are trying too do is not blow holes in the car.

co2 is often easily "borrowed" from pubs and fire extinguishers, here argon mix is controlled by one big company and is expensive to get hold of but once you have the rental agreement and paid for a proper regulator/valve it works out better than the small disposible bottles

co2 is fine get a mig with low amps and 0.6mm wire no point in spending money on a 200A welder capable of welding a submarine when all you need is to weld 0,6mm 2cv bulkhead

look here for "how to" guides, set up gas comparison and the forum is good. your english is better than most of the UK users so you wont have any problems
Sean

"great minds..."
or "fools seldom differ"

Russ, I've used gasless for 10 years now, still use it today nearly daily. In those 10 years not one welding has seperated. I'll give you that it looks shit but it works. Our Raid car are all welded with gasless and the corrugated Aussie tracks can pull a 2cv in pieces but they are still good.

Russell & Sean,
can I (almost) agree with both of you?
My only reservation is with how much use a spot welder can be when fitting repair panels into a 2CV bodyshell.
On an AKS400 I repaired a while back, the owner brought his spot welder with him and the locations it could be used on seemed to be few and far between...

Most of the welding I do is on metal 3mm thick and for that I use Energas Migweld 5,
which is 5% Co2 - 2% O2 - 93% Ar, with the welder running at around 175 amps.

For Citroen's tinwork, Co2 gas bottles from the pub next door work well with a smaller welder, usually set to its minimum output or one step up from the lowest.
It's also much easier to manoeuvre around a bodyshell than the larger welder plus full size gas bottle.
The smaller torch is definitely better when doing those tricky seam welds in areas such as at the ends of bonnet hinge repairs, even though the larger welder has a lower minimum output (20 amps).

ken

Talking of which, I need to go and earn some credits with the landlord, especially as a perishing pheasant decided to attack a 2CV I was road testing today.
The 2CV won, but the bonnet didn't look too pretty afterwards...

Viking

Maybe, but it looks shit and spits everywhere.

Like shagging a pikey, she might be a goer, but she looks rough as arseholes.

Edit: Also, In the eight years I've been in the industry, nowhere I've ever worked, or ever heard of, have ever used gasless mig, with the exception of a submerged arc process which is obviously, a submerged arc, and not gasless mig.

Sure just clean up after you