So, the design process of the body mount pedestals has begun, and let me tell you, it’s been much more difficult, time consuming, and frustrating than I thought it would be.
Spent almost 3 full nights designing this first version…
…then promptly decided it was probably overly complicated. If something seems more complicated than it really needs to be, it probably is. KISS principle, Keep It Simple Stupid. I’m no engineer by any stretch of the imagination, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the basics. My whole initial design theory was to try and make them as modified inverse pyramids. Since these are critical load bearing and strengthening supports, they almost need to be designed as such. An upside down pyramid would be the strongest way to support the floor, crossmember, and weight. This also meant that while vertical bends to clear obstacles would be acceptable, horizontal bends would be out of the question. (Potential bending and failure points).
Unfortunately, due to physical limitations and the positioning of the exhaust tube, a true pyramid shape was not going to be possible.
So after the first design bombed, it was tear it all out and start over again on version 2.0. In keeping with the KISS principle, I decided on a much smaller and compact footprint. Run the vertical sections straight down instead of flared out like a pyramid, and see where that took me. I knew that the final version would be somewhat triangular in shape, simply due to necessity. The exhaust tubes bisect the mount areas on an angle, so the trick was to catch enough of the mount base to provide support.
So after an extremely late night up till 2:30 in the morning last night, this is what I came up with. I think it’s going to prove to be a viable solution.
In place with all the obstacles, you can see what I had to contend with. Not impossible, just fairly difficult.
It looks like part of it is hitting the pipe in the last picture, but it actually isn’t. It’s just a weird camera angle. I’ll probably end up bobbing the notched end around the exhaust pipe down to a flat straight piece for strength and simplicity reasons, but again, I feel this is the best and most viable solution to a complicated area.
Creating these cardboard templates was extremely effective in generating good, large sheets of cardboard into little tiny scraps. I know my generic plain white cardboard isn’t as high tech and fancy as
motorheadmike ‘s frozen pizza cardboard templates, but it’ll have to suffice. 😜
Today's project is to carefully cut the template off and apart into its individual sections, then start transferring them onto sheetmetal to reproduce them in metal.
Here we go!
