Subframe Reinforced

After many hours of fettling and weld practice, I've managed to weld the reinforcing bars into my front subframe. The motor will hang between these bars and they also provide strength at the front of the frame for cells or other equipment.

My 175A welder took a bit of tweeking to make good welds in 3mm steel. The biggest change that made the most difference was switching from 0.6mm to 0.8mm wire. I think this could also have been achieved by turning up the wire feed on the 0.6mm wire. MIG is a little counter-intuitive, if you weld isn't penetrating and the wire is building up in a large bead on top of the work, you'd think that you have to turn down the wire speed and weld slower so the heat has more time to penetrate. Actually you want to do the opposite, as the faster you push the wire into the work, the smaller the arc, the greater the current and the deeper the penetration. Of course wire speed isn't the only parameter which affects the current.