Just a short progress report.
This week I sent in my second build report to the engineer/inspector, and overall he seemed happy. (His goal is to ensure that the car is acceptable when physical inspection time comes.) We had a good follow-up discussion about tying the windshield frame into the frame rails, which he too recommended. He noted that even with my doubler plates the main field of the floor would need to be 1/8 in. thick itself to avoid punch through - bracketing to the frame rails is much more weight efficient!
Today I mocked up the longitudinal bars between the windshield and the roll bar, using exhaust tubing. I was concerned that there might be a 'head knocking' problem, but there proved to be lots of clearance (see photo). There is a slight bend in the link tube so that part of the tube is horizontal, more for esthetics than anything else.
I then proceeded to cut and bend my precious remaining DOM, which was
only just long enough to get two pieces. You can see the two pieces, with their 5 degree bends lying on the transmission tunnel. Unfortunately, you may also see that I had a Team Slotus moment and bent one tube on the short side of the die mark (the green tape) and the other on the long side.
I may be able to avoid buying a whole length of DOM though. The friend who loaned me the bender had a 'moment' in his rally Subie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L-BGXV_ ... r_embeddedand will be bending up a new radiator support frame out of 1 1/2 DOM. I hope that he might be able to use my 'mistake' and that I might get a piece of his DOM.
I am in no hurry at the moment. I'm fed up with hacking and filing tubing notches and have ordered a tubing notcher from Aircraft Spruce. Delivery is a couple of weeks, which aligns with time lost due to a couple of regattas at which I will be judging, not to forget that I have to uncover the septic tank for the quadrennial visit of the honey wagon.
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Warren
Isuzu Pickup/SR20DE, +401 COLD frame
Build Log:
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=11601