Nate's 2002 TJ, Not so simple anymore by gst95dsm

3 minute(s) of a 391 minute read

Poison Spyder Rear Cage

My rear spreader bars came in today. Nicely cut and notched, fit was literally perfect. I find that amazing and unlikely given the how much each Jeep seems to be different.  

I got everything tacked up and fitted easily enough. Now if you've ever read my thread before you know I've been welding for about two weeks now and this is my first "real" welding I've done on the Jeep. I've been practicing my *** off though and felt pretty good going into this. Well I got a WAKE UP call! Overhead welding or upside down welding just was not working out for me at all. I tried slower, faster, closer, further, shorter, longer..... just nothing really worked. It was like I had never pulled a MIG trigger before! Well needless to say the welds looked like absolute crap,

I WAS able to do it though, just a lot of starting and stopping, a lot of build up, and a lot of ugliness! So out came the grinder to clean up my mess, and my hopes of having some pretty little beads to show off that I did myself were lost! The only areas I was able to actually get a nice puddle going and a nice fluid motion were on the top halfs and around the sides. I think I need to learn to just lay off the trigger when things aren't going well, I kept in it to see if some more heat would get things moving along, but it was just making a mess. The only that worked was grinding everything back smooth and just using a sort of "thin" sheet metal method, basically just starting and stopping instead of "running" a bead. Well..... Im learning! On to some photos......

My little nightmares....



Tacked up...





One of the only I didn't have to grind on at all....



Getting ready for primer....



Got some paint on it tonight, Cage is finally all black, I knew it would happen sooner or later... looks pretty cool all painted, and hey my crap welds look a little better painted also....







Thanks for looking and PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you have any tips for overhead welding, share them!