Turbo V8 Jeep hot rod scratch build - SC400/Soarer donor

[Beelzeboss]

I made a little more progress on the tube bender:





All it needs now is the long piece to mount the end of the hydraulic cylinder. Next I attached a small piece around the bonnet strut mount to seal up the firewall.



Next I started working on the manual pedals.



The box section was going to be the pedal mount but I later discovered it wouldn't fit, so I'm working on an alternate design.







I cut down the brake pedal to fit the same pedal pad as the clutch.



I'm 99% sure the clutch pedal is going to need a bend in it to move it away from the brake pedal, but I'll do that once the mount is in the car.

Then I started working on the windscreen frame - initial position:



The height was needed to give the required 50mm above helmet to top of roll bar clearance for a CAMS Schedule J cage, but I thought it looked silly so I've raised the rear roll bar 20mm in order to lower the windscreen by 60mm



Much better, but I did a mock up with the screen tilted further back (standard Willys is 15 degrees) and I think I'm going to go with this final position.



It means I'll have to cut the bends down slightly but it's not a huge modification in the scheme of things.

[Beelzeboss]

Minor update - the clutch pedal is in!



It still needs a bronze bush lathed up but it's in position and feels right from the drivers seat.

[horchoha]

Nice job, are you planning on putting a bump stop for the pedal to prevent the clutch MC from bottoming out?

[Beelzeboss]

Nice job, are you planning on putting a bump stop for the pedal to prevent the clutch MC from bottoming out?

Thanks mate, I've setup the clutch pedal so that it bottoms out on the firewall, then I was planning on adjusting the pushrod on the cylinder to ensure the MC doesn't bottom out at that point.

[Miatav8,MstrASE,A&P,F]

Add a tower to the bender to hang a one-piece shoe mandrel on a rod through an 8 foot straight pipe. Did you cast the quadrant or buy one? An interchangeable 1-3/4, 1-1/2, and 1-5/8 quadrant and mandrel would be great for building low cost mandrel bent headers at the cost of straight tubing. Doesn't have to be bronze or flexible for good results. Use grease on the shoe.

[Beelzeboss]

Add a tower to the bender to hang a one-piece shoe mandrel on a rod through an 8 foot straight pipe. Did you cast the quadrant or buy one? An interchangeable 1-3/4, 1-1/2, and 1-5/8 quadrant and mandrel would be great for building low cost mandrel bent headers at the cost of straight tubing. Doesn't have to be bronze or flexible for good results. Use grease on the shoe.

That's not a bad idea. I bought the quadrant cheap 2nd hand and tried to copy the design of the "affordable bender".

I did finish the bender apart from a couple of spacers.



I picked up my big 1045 steel disc for the custom flywheel



Then I continued work on the windscreen, working on the pivots.

[Beelzeboss]

This weekend I mocked up the windscreen at the new lay back angle.



Then I made up some bushes with a 10 degree cut on one side to match the scuttle taper.







Perfect!

I had a little more time so I swapped the MIG around to stainless wire and argon gas to do the final welding of the baffles in the fuel tank.





I wish I could find some pickling paste to clean up the welds but I'll have to make do with a wire brush. I used the MIG instead of the TIG just to save time, which I'm currently very short on.

[horchoha]

Nice work on the windshield frame. Thinking ahead here..... it has to be locked in place right?

And then when you want to fold it down there must be rubber bumpers on the hood for it to rest on right?

Always look forward to your updates

[Beelzeboss]

Nice work on the windshield frame. Thinking ahead here..... it has to be locked in place right?

And then when you want to fold it down there must be rubber bumpers on the hood for it to rest on right?

Always look forward to your updates

Thanks mate! You're absolutely right that it will need some sort of lock to hold it back in place, though I'm not 100% on whether that should be low down on the scuttle or potentially higher up to the front roll bar hoop... if I end up with a front roll bar hoop. Right again on the rubber bumpers for when it's folded down, though to be honest I'm not sure I'll even want to fold it down We'll see once the car is drivable!

Over the weekend I had a couple of hours to make a start on the rear floor panel. I often jump around from job-to-job on the car because I'm usually waiting on some small part or tool, or I'm bored of a certain task



This is one of my setups for cutting aluminium sheet, I loosely clamp the sheet in the DIY bender and use a jigsaw to cut along marked lines... not all that accurate, but it gets the job done with a little filing after.



Otherwise I'm cutting the parts on the ground, here's the finished rectangle for the panel i'm making.

Once I bent up the sides I tested the fit of the panel.



When I tried to make the next bends in the sheet to go over the forward-most bar, I realised that the side bends would need to be facing downwards to put the sheet into the bender



Trim the back corners and the panel is in! There's a little clearance forward of the bar so this panel will cover the top of panel in front.



I need to hammer some clearance into the panel for the rear seat. My current plan is to cut some 3/4" MDF to go on either side of the panel, then make cutouts in the MDF with a jigsaw where I want to hammer form the clearance. Hopefully this keeps the rest of the panel straight!

[Beelzeboss]

Yesterday over lunch I had a chance to test out my homemade tube bender by making the main roll hoop.











Unfortunately when I was doing my calculations for the distances to bend from, I accidentally put 999 in the calculator instead of 919 (I was in a rush ). This means the roll hoop is 1320 outside to outside, rather than the 1240 I wanted. This shows just how accurate the bender and method is... if you don't stuff up using the calculator.

To fix this I've bent the legs ever so slightly past 90 degrees to make the width 1280 at the bottom of the hoop, which I'll be able to make work by notching a couple of pieces of the RHS in the body frame. Hopefully the angle is slight enough that it won't be obvious in the finished car. On the plus side, the slightly wider cage will provide better protection in a roll over

[Beelzeboss]

I took a couple of days off work this week to make some proper progress on the car. First up was to install the roll bar.



I used a few pieces of timber to get the required height above helmet according to the CAMS manual, then I cut the legs to length and made the diagonal brace.



Next up I made and attached the windscreen mounts, but unfortunately didn't take a picture.

The handbrake is a system that's been worrying me for some time, but I figured I'd just jump right in and see what I could figure out.



These small brackets are to hold the cables in position. I welded two of them to the body frame.



Then the other two were bent around a 10mm bar (in left hand and right hand versions) to hold onto the brake cables.





The single middle cable which goes from the lever to the splitter had to be shortened significantly, so I cut off the original end, drilled it out similarly to how I did the throttle cable, and soldered it onto the shorter cable.



Then I mocked up the mechanism above the frame to check that it worked.



The soldered end promptly pulled off, so I resoldered it much more successfully and continued on.

I relocated the brake handle so the cable was in the middle of the chassis, then installed a crush tube through the frame.



Two more crush tubes for the left and right cables put the splitter mechanism under the body frame.



Finally I added a couple of small tabs to hold the cables from touching the subframe and suspension arms.



And it's done! The handbrake works perfectly and none of the cables touch anything, though I'd like to put some plastic liners in those crush tubes to protect them.

[Beelzeboss]

I had 30 mins free over the weekend and managed to put a couple more bends in the rear floor panel so it now clears the rear seat frame

[Beelzeboss]

Some more after work progress on the roll bar backstays. First I notched the tubes



Then tack welded the rear backstay mounts onto the bumper



I marked the hole in the backstays through the brackets and drilled them out for the crush tube



Looks like it fits with the rear seat



Within the CAMS 30-60 degree requirement



And finally notched out the floor panel to clear



That's the roll bar basically done for the moment, I'm still on the fence as to whether to do a front roll hoop and join them together to make a full cage.

[Beelzeboss]

I had a couple of days off this week to work on the hot rod, so I picked up a new sheet of 1.6 5052 aluminium and got to work with the jigsaw and bender.



First up was this floor panel in the rear of the car.



Then I started on the rear interior panels which, after a single bend on the homemade brake, needed some more complex bends to be made on an old bit of railway track I found under our house.





It came out pretty well after some trimming to clear various things.





I made the other side the same way



Next was the windscreen panel.



I traced the glass with a sharpie, then to get the 6mm offset I needed for the rubber seal I put a small piece of rubber tube over the end of the sharpie.





Perfect!



Once I had it cut out I bead rolled a step around the edge of the glass, but unfortunately at one point the sheet sagged down and put a little dent in it.



With a little hammer and dolly I'm sure I'll be able to get that out.



Looking pretty good! Tomorrow morning on the way to work I'm picking up the stainless pipe needed to make the turbo exhaust manifolds, so I'll be able to make a start on that when I next have some free time.

[Beelzeboss]

Turbo manifold bits! This whole build I've been planning on making a pair of fancy tubular turbo manifolds for the car, but today I started fabricating and it quickly became apparent that I didn't have enough 40NB pipe to make them. I also don't think I have the time available to make some complex manifolds, so I decided to pivot to making simple log manifolds. From my research the log manifolds should be perfectly adequate for a power level far above anything I'm actually planning for the car, so the choice of log vs. tubular is almost entirely down to looks... something to upgrade later, if necessary, I think.

Anyway, I started by making the divided T4 2-1 merge piece.





The above template was for when I was planning on making a 4-1 merge from 40NB, but I used the same type of template to cut out the 50NB 2-1 pieces.





Please excuse the average TIG welding, it's been years since I did any serious practice with it.



Next up I smashed down the end of some 50NB to fit the 40NB elbow of cylinder 1







I still have to cut 2 more little stubs to have enough for both sides, but this gives the basic design of the manifold. I was originally going to use all the 40NB 90 degree elbows as the stubs going into the log, but when they're cut down to such a short length they have almost no curve to them, so I'll shelve the rest of the 90's for a future project.

When I get another chance to work on the manifolds I'll cut the stubs to length, cut the holes into the logs and weld it all together. I have a pretty simple plan for the rest of the piping to get the turbo where I want it, so hopefully that part won't be too difficult, and then it's just a matter of figuring out where the external wastegate should go. Fun stuff!