Midweekend (sort of?) Update on the Funks' H-prod 1G CRX

I posted a few of these pics to FB, but I'm happy with how it has turned out so far. I'll fill in some more details here, since I really don't like bothering to do that on FB.

During the past week, I got a few things done in preparation for this weekend's activities. Firstly, I made an extension cord for my Everlast 200DV so I could run it directly off a 220V breaker:

 Since it has been so dang cold out, I wanted to have the extra amperage available to weld the aluminum correctly without having to bother pre-heating it with the torch at work which isn't my favorite way to preheat aluminum.

Here's the welder set up and ready to go:

 I was lazy so I just slapped in a 2% lanthanated 3.32" tungsten to the #4 cup I had used for the pedal box repair the previous weekend:

 That cup was glowing red hot by the time I finished welding everything. LOL!

Here's the bumper support as it was tacked the last time I was at the Funks':

It took a few minutes to orient my brain in "aluminum TIG mode" but I turned out some really decent beads:

Here's one of the nicer beads and one of the not so nice beads, but hey, it's solidly on there:

So now we come to yesterday's work. I was running back and forth between working on the bumper support, consulting with Ed about seam welding the front subframe and giving Steph welding lessons. It was fun!

I got the support up on the workbench:

 And scribed lines that I thought looked good:

 Then cut off the corners:

 Then I cleaned up the edges and made cap plates:

 If the mounts had been located more towards the center of the car, I'm not sure I would have bothered to cap the ends, but, since the mounts are directly under the cutouts, it is best for strength to cap the ends. The being said, you don't need to bother putting in material as thick as what was cut off for the cap! As you can see here:

 I just used some thing (16g?) stuff that was laying around which is more than enough for the purpose. You can also see in the above pic that I chamferred the edges for maximum penetration in anticipation of grinding down the welds.

To make my life easier, I simply angled the support so the cut was flat and plopped the plate down on top for tacking and welding:

 Then got busy welding:

 A little while later:

 Done!

All this was done on a 110V circuit with the Everlast. It wasn't even an issue! I love this TIG box. 

 I know some of you are wondering why I bothered to grind down the welds:

This is a racecar. Ounces count. 

 Also, in the event of some bumper to bumper contact, not having raised ridges will allow for slippage, not snagging. Theoretically. heh

Here it is in place waiting for a bit more work before calling it done:

The next job I took on was reinforcing this aftermarket panhard rod mount:

 The last time I was up, I saw that and was pretty dissatisfied with it. I could tweak it by hand. That's not particularly confidence inspiring  for a mounting point of a long lever that is supposed to located the rear axle beam. Long means a lot of leverage. Leverage means that mount was going to be moving around tweaking the panhard rod placement making the back end not feel as consistent. I didn't like that at all!

Here's another view:

 Ed and I put our heads together to come up with some way of increasing the stiffness of the structure while not interfering with the panhard rod mount, the axle or any of the other suspension pieces that occupy the same area all in close proximity.

We decided to use three pieces of steel as reinforcement. The first is this piece of 3/4"x3/4"x1/8" angle on the INSIDE of the long, skinny piece:

 If you maximize the picture, you will notice that I clearanced the flat end at the top to provide a tight fit around the existing weld and that I angled the bottom end since there was no need for there to be a squared off end.

I welded the angle in place, then welded in a piece of 2"x1/4" flat bar onto the rear:

 Another angle:

The flatbar rested on the horizontal brace and was welded to the round tube, long, skinny piece and the horizontal brace. I forgot to get a pic of the piece of flat bar I welded onto the front in the same fashion as the rear piece.

With the additional bracing, the mount is EXTREMELY solid. You can shake the whole car instead of wiggling the mount. Both Ed and I are much more satisfied with the mount situation now.

And that is that. I hope you enjoyed this update and look forward to more from Today's work.

1G CRX Race Car Aluminum Rear Bumper Support Fabrication

I have no idea why, but the photos I took with my phone got saved in an odd spot, but I found them, so here we go!

This is the stock steel bumper support:

 It is pretty well made, solid and darn heavy.

The legs unbolt from the cross bar. I actually like the simplicity of how the stock parts fit together! It makes taking the stock stuff apart very easy.

Here is one of the legs and the new 1/4" thick aluminum baseplate next to each other:

 It was really easy to get the hole centers from the base plate and drill them to match.

The 2"x3" aluminum box tube fits into the rear bumper cover very well:

 As you might notice, the aluminum cross bar is shorter, further decreasing the weight of the bumper cover support! I have a few more tricks up my sleeve for lightening the whole assembly without loosing any of the strength and rigidity of the whole assembly.

Here I am in the process of laying out where to weld the extensions to the main cross bar and the baseplates.

The longest part of the project up to this point was to figure out how long to make the extensions and where to weld them. I had tacked them on then went to fit it to the rear of the car and somehow fudged the math up by two inches. I know now what I did wrong, but, well, it was pretty embarrassingly simple. Once I figured out where the supports were supposed to go, I re-tacked them and that was that for the day, as I had to skedaddle back home. I'll be boxing in and welding up the rest of the bumper support soon, as well as adding two upper supports for the top of the bumper cover, just like the stock cross beam has. Look forward to more updates in the new year! =) 

The Funk's H-prod 1G CRX: Fuel cell mounts and lightweight rear bumper support.

I moseyed on up to Massachusetts last weekend and got busy working on Ed and Steph's 1G CRX they are building up for running in H-Production. The main goals for the weekend were to get the fuel cell mounting figured out and move on to making lightweight aluminum bumper cover supports that could take a bit of abuse. Bump drafting is a thing. LOL!

 That diagonal bar caused us some interesting issues figuring out exactly where to mount the cell to still be able to get to it and fill it. Since this isn't a car where fast fueling is a necessity, we placed it as far back as practical while still allowing room for the mandatory bulkhead required to be between the driver and the cell itself.
You can also see where I took out the stock seat brace, which also left some patching to do:

After moving the cell in and out of the car twenty times, we got these angles tacked in place:

Since the floor is not very even going across, I added in these 1/4" spacer plates and welded everything together:

The front angle didn't need any spacer plates and was welded in, too:

The rear angle had one floor rib that came up too much to fit a 1/8" spacer, so we cut a piece of 1/8" bar stock and welded that in:

The floor was still wonky enough to allow the cell to rock quite a bit, so on the inner rear bracket, I welded in this bent piece of flat stock to provide a small but sturdy platform:

Since it is bad practice to rely solely on welds when they are in sheer, I cut a small piece of the same bar stock and welded it in place under the flat of the platform.

 The cell now fits in perfectly, with just enough wiggle room to not make it suck taking in and out, and allowing for some expansion that will come with temperature changes. What I don't seem to have photos of are the outer angle and inner plate welded in to locate the cell from side to side, but it is really just the same as the two you see above.

The cell will be secured via steel straps and threaded rod, much like a large battery tie down. The holes will be drilled through the front and rear angles, with another reinforcement plate sandwiching the floor pan from below, front and rear. This will be very secure and not very heavy. The previous mount for the fuel cell was very well made from heavy wall 1x1 square tube, but man was it heavy! This solution is lighter and easier to get the cell in and out of if needed.

Finishing up the welding was easier to do from the driver's side instead of reaching over the door bars while the car is up on large truck jack stands. I found the easiest way to get into the car as through the windshield:

 I've never entered and exited a car through the windshield before. LOL!

And . . . it seems I don't have any pics yet of the rear bumper support. I'll remedy that when I weld it up, soon.

This is a really fun project to work on, and I look forward to doing more with Ed and Steph as they get this car ready to kick some major butt this year!