I know it's bad but is it salvageable?

If you are worried about it find an ultrasonic tester in your area and get a good view of what is going on in there. From there you can see what is going on and make your decision from there. 

I know nothing about proper cage design, but that pass side look wonky. if the car were to flip and rest on the drivers side, would there be enough room to easily get out of the passengers side window opening with that extra vertical brace? 

kevinatfms said:

Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) said:

The design isn't horrible. The passenger door bar is a little funky and if it was mine I'd add a bottom bar on the passenger side as well. Other than that and finishing the welds at the roof, I'd drive it. 

 

Id want at least one solid bar going from main hoop to the a-pillar downtube. That center stack of tubes that tie into each other just looks like a massive failure point.

Ideally, the X should have been made with straight bars. It appears that the bar running from the hoop to the a-pillar down-tube is one piece with a bend. The other three tubes look to intersect it at the bend. That is a screwy way to put it together but I could live with it. The lack of a bottom bar would need to be corrected. The way that side is built now leaves a pretty large area another car could intrude. Fill that hole and I'm good with it.

That cage makes me feel so much better about my welds.

personally, I take more offense to the passenger door bar config than I do the welds... But I'd agree, send it to an old timer and have them sacrifice a joint to see about proper/improper penetration, and go from there.  Just because a weld is ugly doesn't mean that it's bad.  

That passenger door monstrosity is the perfect joint to cut up to have a look. 
 

How about some pics of the spreader plates to see how well they are done? 

That mess of a passengers door bar would be an excellent spot to cut to bits to check weld penetration.

Sonic said:

That passenger door monstrosity is the perfect joint to cut up to have a look. 

That's a great idea. Then weld in a proper set of bars.  

Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) said:

Sonic said:

That passenger door monstrosity is the perfect joint to cut up to have a look. 

That's a great idea. Then weld in a proper set of bars.  

For what little it's worth, I endorse this plan.

Someone watched the "Mig like Tig" video when they did that cage. Thing is, they did not use enough heat. I weld sheet metal that way, but not tried it with roll bar tube; why would you?

While I am not a fan of what I see, it might be good enough. You want to go racing or live forever? 

If I wanted to repair it, I would fire up the Tig and reflow the welds. Easy enough to do since you wont be adding filler. Use the pulse setting to get a nice look.

Pete

Those are not good welds...

Those are almost sure to be substandard welds without out penetration required to join those two tubes together. Look how the edges of the filler doesn't bite into the base material and sits on top of it. Most are definitely a string of MIG Tacks (they even have the dimple in the center typical of a tack) and don't show any evidence that "the welder" who did that was pushing the puddle in a long continuous weld. Another good guess is little too much wire and alot too little heat (low amps).

Few pics for example.

Top is Tacks, you can see the dimple. Bottom bunches of passes w/ MIG. Its new metal to old so there's alittle porosity there but those are still solid welds. Not TiG stack dimes but structurally sound.

That is not what you have in those pic's above.

You could possibly use a TiG to smooth that out but you want somebody who knows how to do it (not like the previous welder). And would running another concentrated heat cycle from TiG make it brittle? I'll ask my welder and see what he says. Hint: If your not a good welder and you want to build cars you really need to find one.

Warning: Welding Porn - my welder (ASME 6G Certs MiG & TiG:  Carbon, Stainless & Bi-Metal).

And my Tip of the Day: You don't cut off the Roof. You get a Hole Saw Kit and make 2-3" hole right over the weld. Use next size of hole saw make patch, Quick and easy, hard to tell of its done right.