Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Front guard : Part two

Before I could continue with the guards I had to tap out the existing holes with a larger metric diameter. So after tracking down and purchasing a 8mm tap the two existing holes were re-tapped. Once this was done the downward mount could be bolted on to test fit and find were it needed to be welded to the main mount.

Down mount bolted on and the tack welded while in place.


Mounts taken off and fully welded. I did both at the same time.


Finished base mount welded up and bolted on.


Spacers taped on to the tire to get the guard to sit at the correct ride height so I can start to figure out the rest of the mounting system.


So here is the master plan, 12mm rods coming out of the newly created main mount, that the steel strip and fiberglass guard will be mounted to. Below shows the first one.


The debate I'm having is do I need more than three. I don't think I do.



The next big issue I have to sort is how to best mount the guards to the 12mm rods, stay tuned.....

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Front guards : Part one

While waiting on the transmission tunnel to cure I started on the very last major fabrication piece, I hope ! the front guards. In New Zealand unless you have a fender exemption your hotrod needs to have guards. I dont have my fender exemption yet, so I need to run with guards. I have completed the rears and now needed to start on the front.

I got some fiber glass ones molded from the steel guards thatI have made, the rears are all steel. I wanted the fronts to be as light as possiable due to the vibrations that they would experience and light weight would help with not having to have a huge mounting system. Well that was the theory.

The shot below shows what the old guards were like and the new unmounted fiber glass guard.



So after sitting and pondering what I wanted to do, I came up with a plan. Of course I had to use what I had in the way of materials, so the trusty 25mm box section was used. I was going able to reuse the mounts that the old guards used. So I just had to come up with the mounting design. 

Same as the rear I wanted the guards to go on and come off easily, had to be a little differnet to what others had done.

So on with the show, I first cut 12 sections with angled ends, when pieced together they start to form a circle. The circle radius is close to the internal rim radius of the front tires.
 


Here's one welded up and the first mount also welded on. The mount was cut out of the old guard mounts. I have to reuse what I have.
 


Test fitting. 
 


Once happy with how this was heading as a design, I welded up both mounts.

Over the weekend I was able to get out and cut one of the front steel guards up. I wanted the steel strips so that they would match the rear in design elements.  It took for ever to cut the strips and went through 6 cutting blades.


The cut steel strip over the fiberglass guard.


I also took the chance to clean up the mounts. That was it for the weekend.
 

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Fiber-glassing : Trans tunnel part two

After completing the top side of the transmission tunnel and letting it cure for a couple of days it was time to tackle the bottom. First I had to remove the foam board. This was done with a chisel, then some time outside with a power sander to firstly get rid of the foam board and smooth the edges out.


 


Already for the bottom layer of glass. This additional layer should increase the glass layers to 6-7 and should make it super strong as well as helping with the structural strength of the cabin.


First layers of glassing done.


Once cured taken outside and trimmed and sanded, covered holes re-drilled and all the underside tidied up. Now I'm not sure if you are supposed to do this but once the clean up was done I did a covering of epoxy resin to smooth and seal everything up.



Final shot of the under side. Pretty darn happy with the result since this is my first time fiber-glassing on this scale.  Now I'm thinking of all the other "things" that need glassing.
 

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Fiberglassing

After a little break and gathering some much need dollar resources for the next phase of the build we are ready to start the fiber glassing. I went all out and got a 4litre and pumps. I didn't know how much I would need and was pretty sure that once I had it and played with it I would find other uses for it.



My first little project with the fiber-glassing was to make a firewall recess for the steering universal. I used some left over mashey from a kids project. It created teh perfect dome shape for this first attempt at fiber-glassing.  

I have never done fiber-glassing before so this was a trial by fire.
 

After a bit of playing around and learning as I went got a good 3-4 layers of glass over the dome. It was a good learning curve and I learned what worked best. The completed dome waiting to cure.

 
After leaving it for 12hr, not fully cured, and still soft enough to cut I cut the dome out.

 
I then tested fitted the steering subframe in and market where it fitted and cut the hole in the dome. I then marked out the size of the hole needing to be cut out, I forgot to photograph that part.

 
The dome all taped in ready for body filler and then fiber-glassing.

 
View from the firewall before and after body filler to smooth the joins.

 
 
The body filler sanded back and corner edges smoothed out ready for fiber-glassing.

 
First layers of glassing complete.

 
Shot of the "man" space with all the work in progress.

 

The next day I tackled the bigger job of the transmission tunnel. Earlier I had mocked up using foam board. I then also used body filler to smooth out the intersections to reduce the sharp corners to make it easier for glassing.

The plan was to fiberglass the topside with 3-4 layers, then sand out the back/bottom and glass that side.

After a couple hours of work the final top layer of glassing complete.



So that completed stage one of finishing the cabin.