Bending Again… Attempt Two!

 

I’m trying to push this project on a little with limited funds currently due to life, but hey ho I’m always looking for a bargain or a nice cost saving alternative without compromising quality. So to totally contradict that statement slightly I’m spending some more money on some steel tube to redo the front support frame. The first one I did I was a tad overzealous with the gauge of the steel tube and it just wasn’t working well. 

I picked up a 3 meter length of 2.5mm 1 inch tube and I spent some time mimicking the bends of the previous attempt. This time I started with the near side section, slowly bending each bit using the tube bender. This was working nicely and the smaller diameter tube was working just as well as the previous attempt. However this time I wanted the offside section to follow the contour of the body tub so that involved starting to bend one half up first to follow the radius of the cockpit body.

This was a little time consuming but after lots ant lots of little adjustments here and there it was pretty good really and fitted well. You can see here how it now follows the full shape of the body and will give me more space when the dash is fitted to fit the gauges, without them voiding on the frame. Next I moved on to some lower fixing brackets that will be bolted onto the outer chassis rails, these were made from offcuts of 2mm steel and welded onto each lower leg of the new brace support. I’m also going to fit a tube section from the top middle to the front bulkhead which will add even further strength to the whole setup. 

The centre support section was simply made using an off cut of the tube cut to length and welded into place on the frame and a plate section the other end which is aligned and drilled for the bulkhead fixings. All of this might seem fairly trivial and straightforward, but it takes a huge amount of time fitting, removing, trimming, measuring, welding etc… etc… however when all sorted and finished it will all be hidden from sight behind the dashboard with only me really knowing how much work was involved getting it right. 

I am however this time around 100 times happier then my last attempt, and this will be more than sufficient to support the steering column, when I weld in the horizontal brace also. This will have to wait until some further mock ups of the steering column and extension shafts have been done as these will dictate the height and position of the brace bar. I’m going to remove all this again soon to prepaid it to be painted, as I want everything uniform and looking professional. 

Another bonus is that I can now play around with my dashboard setup and positioning of the gauges before I commit and get a sheet of steel to actually make the dash itself. It will be good to get the steering column in now and I think this is going to be a tad tricky in regards to the rack position and getting the steering column sections aligned nicely without creating tight spots from lock to lock…. But this is all next on my to do list!