Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Rear Fenders fabrication finished

Last piece of the rear fender puzzle completed. The riveted detail panel. I knew from the onset that I would need to do something to breakup such a large area of sheet metal. I had always envisioned that I would rivet a panel on. And with the need to widen them it worked out to be a great solution.

Now that I have the finished product, Pretty happy. A few little bits to tidy up before paint. As with everything on the RattyT its about function, so I'm not going to be tiding up all the extra weld or gaps .... that is part of the look ..!!



 

Monday, May 21, 2012

Rear fenders part 3

The right hand side fender mounts are now complete. All that remains on the rear fender mounts is some cleaning up (Grinding). Next will be doing the detailing on the panels that are going to be used to cover the widening.



 

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Rear Fenders continued

So after much pondering I decided to use the box section for the top mount and mount that off the roll cage stays.  Next was to get it all mocked up again and start work on the top mounts.





Mockup number 201...
 


Checking that everything was level before proceeding.
 


I used the box section and made a lug to weld to the end and the mounting bolt welded to that. A lot of hack-sawing. Then I welded the bolt onto the plate, then welded that to the end of the mounting tube. It will be plenty strong enough as most of the weight is carried by the bottom mount.


 Already to measure up and drill the hole for mounting.


 All done


Side view... not the prettiest, but functional and most importantly legal.

 

The gap will be filled with a strip of lighter sheet metal, and I plan to do some detailing to help with the looks of the fenders.


Time for start the other mounts and weld the end caps on the top mounts.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Rear Fenders

Well, have been putting in some energy into the RattyT, I am able to find time in the evenings and limited time on the weekend. Weekends are 1-2hr tops, I save that time for loud tasks like grinding / cutting. Everything else that is done during the evening and all done by had, to reduce noise and not wake kids. Getting pretty darn handy with a hacksaw!!!



The joys of an attached garage. So the next big thing I need to do is the fenders.
Not that I want too as I want to run fender-less, but to get certification I need fenders. And since I'm currently not a hotrod club member I cant get a fender exemption, I need to be a club member for at least a year.

Once I get the old girl on the road Ill join a club then.

So onto the fenders, after a lot of thought and consideration I finally decided to mount the rear fenders to the chassis. I know that I cant get them as close as I would like but wanted to have them easily removable and there wasn't any good mount points off the diff for the weight of the fenders.





I had purchased a while back some mild steel fenders off Trademe. They were cheap and were the right radius. They were full half's, if not a little over, however they were not wide enough, but I have a plan.





So after a lot of mucking about and figuring out how I was going to mount them I finally was able to start.  I had to make sure that they were going to high enough not to rub when the suspension was fully loaded, I only have about 60-70mm travel before the bumbstops hit, so I worked with that.



First job was to after all the mocking up drill a hole through the body so that I will be able to bolt the mount through the floor and to the chassis.




Next up was to widen the fenders and cut them to length. I got them all marked put ready for cutting on the weekend. 



Fortunately the weather was kind and I was able to get out and start cutting the fenders up. A lot of noisy grinding later and the fenders were all cut.... only made two mistakes ... but fixable ones.. phew!!



The pieces cut and showing the gap. 



 All cut ready for welding up
 
 


So the next free evening was spent welding the fenders back together. It didn't take too long. Was pretty happy with the welds too, considering its been a while since using the MIG.


Next task was to make the mounts, I tried different tubing that I had and finally chose the box section. Not super pretty but very functional.  And I have a heap of it. I had to keep reminding myself that this was only until i get my fender exemption.



The mount mocked up, I wanted to have the spacers as a detail. I will get proper tubing later on, but for now a few spare nuts will do.
 


That was it for now. 
Spent a lot of time trying to figure out how and where to do the top mounts. Still a work in progress.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Rear Bumpstops

So the next item on my to do list was the rear bump stops. Since the shock were old and don't have built in ones the Certifer wanted bump stops. After looking around I got some off Trademe.




Next I had to decide on what I was going to make the mounts from. The trusty 25x50 box section was selected. I cut some cardboard out to make the templates required before cutting the steel.



So after making a template / guide on the axle to mark the amount of travel I wanted before the stop was hit, I then started playing around with mount locations and angles
 


I think this will be perfect ......


Transfer of the template to the box section, ready for lost of hacksaw work....


Hack sawing away.... I found this to be the fastest and easiest way for mounts like this, then hand filing.
 


Mount one cut out
 


Ok test fit .... Shit.... due to the location of the newly fabbed Pan hard bar there wasn't enough space to fit the mount..... even after I checked it with the cardboard template. Well it fitted the gap OK but I did allow for the 25mm thickness so I would not be able to blot the pan-hard bar in..... 
 


So after fiddling and thinking... and a little swearing the decision was to mount at an angle off the corner of the Z frame. This also allowed easier access to do the vertical welds required. I hate welding vertically.
 


 First welding job was the bottom plate to mount the stops to.


Test fit, Looking good.


Both bottom plates all welded on.
 
Mounts with the top wedges cut to allow mounting to the chassis.


Tacked onto the frame to check alignment and position before full welds.



Both mounts fully welded in, Pretty darn happy with how it looks. 


 Next steps will be getting the last items on my Certifer checklist done. This requires getting some engineering work done that I cant do,  But shouldn't take to long.