Gotta keep on rolling along...this was the weekends progress. Some steps not shown to protect the innocent. So I took the cardboard templates and made these caps and tacked them in place.
2016-11-27_03-49-01 by
Craig Coburn, on Flickr
Oops, before that sucker got tacked, I had to TIG up the join. Lost of up hand and all out of position welding. The diff is, at the end of all this 1/16" out of perfectly square over about 16". That'll be just fine.
2016-11-27_03-24-11 by
Craig Coburn, on Flickr
Right in the middle of the diff...you'll note that I've been missing something. That something is a sway bar. The idea is to borrow parts from the NASCAR parts bin to have the ability to tune this car. So to start (years ago now) I cut 6" out of the stock bar and welded that sucker back together. So then I installed it temporarily to see what the deal is with the arms being all not so straight.
2016-11-27_11-40-41 by
Craig Coburn, on Flickr
NASCAR rear bars normally sport straight arms due to the live rear axles that Billy-Bob likes so much. So I can't buy twisted arms, as they usually just bend the straight ones to fit.
So I sorted out how to mock this junk up - that took half the day - yes, killed half a day DEAD on this task.
You can see the down and then up sweep in the arm is meant to clear the rear mount of the UCA.
2016-11-27_11-41-26 by
Craig Coburn, on Flickr
Cut some tube to hold the front (actually ended up using the tube to reference the hole centre in the bar using the endlink) - you get the idea.
2016-11-27_11-40-22 by
Craig Coburn, on Flickr
Then added in the 26" splined NASCAR bar - and mocked up the height and depth to match a bracket that I just ordered.
2016-11-27_02-24-20 by
Craig Coburn, on Flickr
Clamped that sucker down and started to work on the arms using the points that I measured from the stocker.
2016-11-27_02-24-39 by
Craig Coburn, on Flickr
It wasn't pretty - but I made a wooden template so I can draft up a CAD model of this and get the steel waterjet cut.
I kind of like this picture...it shows the truth of what I do in the garage better than most. Coffee, notebook, calculator and doodles.
2016-11-27_02-23-51 by
Craig Coburn, on Flickr
So incase you're wondering why I don't just origami the steel bar that I have, here's my thinking (accepting all comments) - If I have to bend the bar on the flat to get the 24 degrees out that I need...no big deal. I've got a torch and a 10 T press (Chinese tons - which are like 1/3 to 1/2 of regular tons) but that can happen. Bending it on edge would be structurally not so great and steel is cheap. So I need 15 degrees of bend up and 24 degrees of bend out so my plan is to reuse the spline portion of the bar alone and weld that onto the bar. The bars really don't need to be 1/2" thick - that just adds weight. So I may just get them done in 3/16 then cap them to make "I" beams. Then add in the splined section and something to allow for adjustment out front (a few holes on 1.25" spacing). This should be lots.