June 18, 2009 - The crossmember tapers right where the new rail butts up against it, so a bit of pie-cutting, enthusiastic hammering and welding gave me a rail with a matching shape.
Shown here between steps 2 and 3 of course.
Now, when it comes to mounting the rail to the car I'm going to deviate from the Fast Cars setup used on Dan's car. As far as I can tell, they used a c-channel for the rail and stitch-welded it to the floor. The big radius on my tube makes that pretty much impossible, never mind the hassles of welding thin sheet metal to 1/4" steel while lying under the car. So I'm going to drill through the floorboard and use rosette welds. I'll have an easier time getting a good weld and the extra metal in my tube will make the final result stronger. Both ends will be welded up as well, one to the crossmember and the other to the factory spring mounts.
I was about to start doing this when I realized that I should paint the inside of my tube first. It'll be a lot easier now than when it's on the car. I'll put a drain hole in it as well. Not that the 1/4" steel will rust through before the rest of the car collapses into iron oxide from simple humidity, but still...
tags: rear axle, frame |
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