You could always leave the back seat area clear and call it a “Business Coupe”, like in the old days! 😁
As always, nice progress and workmanship, Donovan!
BUILD THREAD “The Juggernaut”
- Thread starter Rktpwrd
- Start date
As always, nice progress and workmanship, Donovan!
I'm guessing a clean looking back seat delete then? Looks like that whole area is going to sit a bit higher. Those pie cuts remind me of the Japanese making exhaust systems out of a jillion pie cuts.
Yes, back seat delete has always been the intent. As I once said a long time ago, this ain’t no taxi cab! If I feel like dragging more than one passenger around with me, then I’ll take Olds Cool. Nope, this one is going to be a purpose built performance car for two.
The entire rear floor area will sit slightly higher than stock, but really only an inch and a half or so below the driveshaft hump not including the tail pipe kick ups of course. Once I get the floor crossmember finished and mocked up into place, I’ll post up some pictures and it’ll be a lot easier to visualize.
The pie cuts are really the only way to put a nice radiused bend into the channel shape without a massive 50 ton (or better) press. I could’ve cheated slightly and used the metal brake to put sharp bends into it, but you’re still making relief cuts and welding them back up anyways. And it wouldn’t look natural IMO once it was done anyways, so I elected to go this route instead.
You must be smelling ground steel at all times of the day.
What type of grinder and wheel are you using to get at the inside of the bends? They look preformed, DANG - that’s superior craftsmanship.
It goes without saying, but I’ll say it again, beautiful work D!!!!!
Edit - you prof reed? Is t rely nesecari?
What type of grinder and wheel are you using to get at the inside of the bends? They look preformed, DANG - that’s superior craftsmanship.
It goes without saying, but I’ll say it again, beautiful work D!!!!!
Edit - you prof reed? Is t rely nesecari?
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I’m not smelling it 24/7 Jim, but there’s definitely a ton of leftover metal scraps and grindings to constantly clean up. I bet when I’m fully immersed in the fabrication, I’m sweeping up and vacuuming the mess off my fabrication bench 2-3 times a week. Kind of insane.
For those inside corners, I use the edge of a Walter 1/16”x3” diameter cutoff wheel on an air die grinder. It definitely takes practice, patience and a steady hand.
Thanks for the compliments!
Well shortly after my last update, the rear floor crossmember decided to kick my everlovin’ @ss. I’m not kidding, this crossmember project has been straight from the deepest darkest bowels of hell.
After mocking up the long welded piece to the short one, to my dismay I found I had gotten a critical measurement wrong somewhere and the center part wasn’t dropping down as far as I had intended. It looked ok initially, but was deceiving because the long section was actually running downhill and it didn’t become apparent until I had the other side in place.
You can see in this picture that the center hump doesn’t line up with the floor sheetmetal, it’s up too high:
So that meant cutting it up and sectioning in pieces to the kickups to make it drop down lower. And of course because we’re dealing with angles, the longer the kickups, the shorter the straight sections have to be too.
All wasn’t entirely lost though, I was at least able to keep and reuse the curved/bend sections I had put so much time and effort into. Still 3 cuts and 3 seams to weld up per side tho.
Finally got all that redone and sorted out and figured I was home free. Just mock up the two halves and mark where the excess could be trimmed from the short side right?
Haha. This thing had other ideas.
I mark and cut it to length, get the two halves clamped to my fixture in preparation for welding them together, and wait a minute, something doesn’t look right. If you look closely at the right side of the crossmember in this picture, you’ll see that the kickup is lower than the other side, the angles had changed on me somehow. Most likely pulled out of shape from welding heat.
Out came the sliding T-bevel, and I started checking angles. The driver’s side was better than the passenger’s, I was able to confirm what the actual angle was supposed to be in three spots. So I locked down the T-bevel at that angle and started comparing it to the other bends. Passenger’s side was WAAAY off. Dismayed but with no choice, I resigned myself to the fact that relief cuts would have to be made in the offending corners and welded back up again.
Faaack.
Still managed to get the outer faces looking half-assed ok though.
Good to go now right?
Haha. Not yet sucker.
Remember that I had now already trimmed the short section to what I thought was correct, but after adjusting the angles and mocking it back up, the overall length had changed. And not in my favour, no no, that would be too easy. I was now SHORT by a half inch. Oh goody, more cutting and welding. Here it is somewhere in the middle of the process:
But tonight, finally, FINALLY, I have good news. It’s done, it’s correct, and it fits as intended. Still on the fixture…
…I took the opportunity to fine tune the hump arc with the hammer and dolly. Looks pretty uniform now and should work just fine:
After cutting out a little more of the stock crossmember for clearance, I finally got the satisfaction I’ve been wanting for near on a month now. It’s in and it fits!!
The center hump now lines up with the floor sheetmetal like what was planned, it shouldn’t take much to get this part lined up, welded in and done:
That will have to wait tho, as I now have a crap load of other things to get done first. The pass-through patch pieces that are going to be the outside lower quarter panels have to be finished welded in on both sides, the inner pass-through pipe on the driver’s side has to be welded to the inner wall, and then I have to start building the body mount pedestals that will attach to the floor crossmember.
So yeah, still a sh*t-ton of work to go, but at least I’m finally done with the infernal floor crossmember!!!
D.
After mocking up the long welded piece to the short one, to my dismay I found I had gotten a critical measurement wrong somewhere and the center part wasn’t dropping down as far as I had intended. It looked ok initially, but was deceiving because the long section was actually running downhill and it didn’t become apparent until I had the other side in place.
You can see in this picture that the center hump doesn’t line up with the floor sheetmetal, it’s up too high:
So that meant cutting it up and sectioning in pieces to the kickups to make it drop down lower. And of course because we’re dealing with angles, the longer the kickups, the shorter the straight sections have to be too.
All wasn’t entirely lost though, I was at least able to keep and reuse the curved/bend sections I had put so much time and effort into. Still 3 cuts and 3 seams to weld up per side tho.
Finally got all that redone and sorted out and figured I was home free. Just mock up the two halves and mark where the excess could be trimmed from the short side right?
Haha. This thing had other ideas.
I mark and cut it to length, get the two halves clamped to my fixture in preparation for welding them together, and wait a minute, something doesn’t look right. If you look closely at the right side of the crossmember in this picture, you’ll see that the kickup is lower than the other side, the angles had changed on me somehow. Most likely pulled out of shape from welding heat.
Out came the sliding T-bevel, and I started checking angles. The driver’s side was better than the passenger’s, I was able to confirm what the actual angle was supposed to be in three spots. So I locked down the T-bevel at that angle and started comparing it to the other bends. Passenger’s side was WAAAY off. Dismayed but with no choice, I resigned myself to the fact that relief cuts would have to be made in the offending corners and welded back up again.
Faaack.
Still managed to get the outer faces looking half-assed ok though.
Good to go now right?
Haha. Not yet sucker.
Remember that I had now already trimmed the short section to what I thought was correct, but after adjusting the angles and mocking it back up, the overall length had changed. And not in my favour, no no, that would be too easy. I was now SHORT by a half inch. Oh goody, more cutting and welding. Here it is somewhere in the middle of the process:
But tonight, finally, FINALLY, I have good news. It’s done, it’s correct, and it fits as intended. Still on the fixture…
…I took the opportunity to fine tune the hump arc with the hammer and dolly. Looks pretty uniform now and should work just fine:
After cutting out a little more of the stock crossmember for clearance, I finally got the satisfaction I’ve been wanting for near on a month now. It’s in and it fits!!
The center hump now lines up with the floor sheetmetal like what was planned, it shouldn’t take much to get this part lined up, welded in and done:
That will have to wait tho, as I now have a crap load of other things to get done first. The pass-through patch pieces that are going to be the outside lower quarter panels have to be finished welded in on both sides, the inner pass-through pipe on the driver’s side has to be welded to the inner wall, and then I have to start building the body mount pedestals that will attach to the floor crossmember.
So yeah, still a sh*t-ton of work to go, but at least I’m finally done with the infernal floor crossmember!!!
D.
Looks great, just the amount of work in the tunnel and side exit exhaust. So an Olds two seater eh, your version of the Olds F88, very cool.
I think it's safe to say that this work is so far beyond the average guys skill level... but so interesting watching the process. Excellent job D at showing us how far down the ladder we remain 😀 😉
At this point I don't even know that I am qualified to properly hold the ladder
