The Roofus Special

[Flipper_1938]

Is that 14 gauge tubing (~.083 wall) ?

yes it is

 

[hotrod preacher]

loving the bender idea.... will be "borrowing" that

 

[Flipper_1938]

I finally got a chance to do something!

I had a general idea of how I wanted to do my trans mount, but had no idea of how the trans tunnel would tie in. Everything I visualized got real complicated.

I went to wally-world and picked up posterboard to play with.

It worked great to eliminate a couple of ideas that didn't work in real life.

I started off making fronts to the seat bases. The beefed up bead roller is fun to use (as uposed to frustrating).

I then traced the panels to see the "box" th trans mount had to fit in.

I mocked up a mount in posterboard. It worked good enough to transfer to steel.

 

[Flipper_1938]

Even though it is a short span between the seats, I felt the mount needed more beef.

I bent up a simple reinforcement to double the material and add gussets

 

[Flipper_1938]

now for the tunnel

I screwed around with the idea of a beefy safety loop, but nothing seemed to work. In the end I just made a simple tunnel.

First in posterboard

then in steel

Nothing is welded in. I am considering bead rolling the tunnel, but need to know where the seat back will be before I can finalize a design.

 

[Flipper_1938]

The plan is to have a bolt in piece that fills the void between the end of the tunnel and the tail of the trans.

 

[jfg455]

yea trans mount! My O.C.D. is finally staticfied....[cl

I like the bead rolled panels. Looks good.

 

[Flipper_1938]

I played with front end pieces too....trying to figure out what my upper control arms might look like. I did a comparison of front spindle relative to the bottom of the car and the current rear "ride height". ...the front is about 2.5 to 3 inches lower (spindle higher). It ought to be fun trying to make this crazy mismatch of parts sit right. It looks like it will be plenty low.

 

[Flipper_1938]

yea trans mount! My O.C.D. is finally staticfied....[cl

I like the bead rolled panels. Looks good.

Guess what.....motor mounts are coming soon!

 

[GJunktionMike]

That rolled panel under the seat came out nice, should also give you some of that extra support you were looking for.

 

[jfg455]

Guess what.....motor mounts are coming soon!

how did I miss those not being there! Now back to twitching....

 

[Flipper_1938]

how did I miss those not being there! Now back to twitching....

I can't decide if I will use 3 or 5 motor mounts.

 

[klink]

I can't decide if I will use 3 or 5 motor mounts.

How many do you have coming?

 

[Flipper_1938]

I put a vacation day request in for this Friday. I'm gonna work on it again this weekend.

The pieces are finally falling into place. Hopefully I will have motor mounts after this trip.

 

[Flipper_1938]

The 6'5" boy doesn't fit quite as well as my daughter did, but nobody can resist the chance to make racecar noises.

 

[Flipper_1938]

The goal for the weekend was motor mounts.

First I needed to figure out what the motor would attach to. Before I could do that, I needed to figure out exactly where the steering would be....

I started with a brace from the firewall cop car brace to the front crossmember.

then thought about going from that diagonal to the front framerail swoop

I buzzed in the diagonal and added a brace to that

The steering crosses from the outside (at the column) to the inside (at the rack). I neede to figure out where the middle shft is going to be.

I cut apart a Toyota four runner steering sector (partially to see how it was put together)

 

[Flipper_1938]

I made an adapter bushing to match up the splined section I needed to the crush section

The bushing started out as a 1.25" collar that I ground down to 1"

trial fit before welding

bzzzzzzz

I have steering!

still a lot of decisions to be made on how the whole underhood bracing will tie together.....

Started on the other side

not a whole lotta room next to the oil filter

I didn't get around to motor mounts...too much basketball watching.

 

[bell]

Hell yes! Looking GOOD!

 

[Snake Farm]

Story of my life......I set out to do something but first I have to do this, but before I can do this I have to do that, but I'm not quite ready for that because I haven't designed that other thing yet

Difference is I usually get frustrated and give up for the day but not Mr. Flipper, he just forges ahead Nice work as usual and hey, there's another happy kid Looks like you all had a good weekend [cl

[P[P

 

[Flipper_1938]

I'm not real sure if I'm happy with angling the front braces out to the outer frame rail like this:

I kinda think they need to go to a radiator hoop or something.