Premier Power Welder

Have you ever broken a shock mount or a tie-rod on the trail, or needed to re-solder your winch terminals? I'm sure many of you have.

Canada is a vast country with beautiful four-wheeling and exploring opportunities, but our sometimes-harsh environment can leave you stranded and broken in a heartbeat.

Enter the Premier Power Welder. If you were just thinking of these units as welders you are mistaken. The versatility of a mobile power source and the ability to weld and cut metal on the trail will turn your vehicle into a portable workshop with the right tools.

Just the other day we utilized the welder as a power source for use with a hand grinder and soldered a CB antenna back together. Need a light? Plug one in. Break a tie rod? Slip on a welding helmet and arc away.

Details...

The installation of the Premier is very simple. First, bolt in their direct replacement high-output alternator and direct the charging capacities through the welder to the battery. Once you attach the wiring harness from the Welder to the alternator, all you have to do is find a place for the control unit and hand throttle.

Sound simple? It is. The Premier Power Welder comes complete with Control Unit, your choice of alternator from 160 Amps to 200 amps, all wiring needed to install, 30 feet of welding cable, an extra regulator in case of emergency, and a clamp to charge batteries.

After a read through the instructions, it took about one hour to have the complete system ready to go. Most of the work involved the limited space available in the engine compartment of our CJ, hence the reasoning for installing the unit in the cab.

The in-cab installation serves two purposes. We can keep the unit dry and mud free and the hand throttle can be kept beside the unit in the dash so the operator can see the controller while increasing RPM to welding levels.

Once you have a Premier, you won't want to live without one. Basic welding principals apply but one note, as your vehicle is grounded, you will need to weld with the positive terminal to the welding "stick" and the negative clamp to your vehicle.

Taking time to get familiar with the unit is advisable before pressing it into service in a precarious position on the trail.

Premier now offers a complete line of accessories to go with your welder from heavy-duty batteries to a cover to keep the welder clean under the hood (buy one when buying your welder it's only $20.00).

Long term update

The welding system has been in our vehicle about a year now. A few bugs did develop that had us pulling our hair out.

We were having some charging problems that we had a hard time resolving. It turned out to be simply a loose fuse and the alternator belt needed tightening. As the pulley is very deep it is quite hard to get the belt tight and we went through a few belts until we found one that would sit nicely in the pulley. Remember, tighten the hell out of the belt. If you can turn the fins on the alternator by hand at all, it isn't tight enough.

The fuse holder problem is being addressed in future units. A new breaker system will replace the fuses so there will be no need to carry spares. It probably isn't a problem with all units but it was a little frustrating. As our unit is mounted in cab we were able to notice the problem easily. If the unit had been mounted under the hood we may have never noticed the problem.

That said, we have used the welder a few times now on the trail. We were able to create sound welds and running a grinder to clean up the welds works like a charm. Having this capacity on the trail has created an assurance to repair nearly any problem that may arise.