fatstigs racecar shed

Sympathies - we've all been there - good luck getting it sorted 👍

Yess guys, you are right, should be happy I came out ok. But I felt pretty bad for my mate Jon ,who ones the car. @chris thanks for your offer.

Nice progress chaps 

Your bolting the car to the mill bed reminds me of exactly how we used to jig accident damaged cars - only we used a purpose built frame fastened to a 4 post car lift - All built by a specialist vehicle jig manufacture 'Car Bench' - the car was then fastened down to the frame with model specific brackets - additional brackets were then available to align the chassis members & panels with critical mounting points to them such has suspension legs / subframes etc - the frame also held a large dozer (air over hydraulic pulling arm) to which you could attach chains which you would clamp back to damaged panels and then pull in order to realign door pillars / chassis legs etc 

 

wishbone's was next on the list



The wishbone’s are made from sheet steel folded into a box shape, which makes them light and stiff.

So it was best to copy that design the best I could.



I made a jig from the undamaged side of the car and just flipped the jig to make the left side.

Again I made a double set, so 2 new lefts and 2 new rights upper rear and the same on the front .

So in the end we got a complete set of wishbone’s all round as spare.





The rear jig.



The original was built entirely out of sheet steel, but I found it impossible to get a nice radius bend with the tools I have available so best to keep it within my capabilities.



So the wishbone’s are made out of thin wall chromoly tube covered with thin steel sheet




Made a cardboard template, so I could make a drawing of it and cut it out with the plasma table



Trial fit





Fully welded and ready to be polished.



The front upper wishbone where simpeler to made, being narrow,

so these are exactly the same as the original one’s .








In the jig ready to be fully welded



Made a little press tool to give the bracket the right shape







All done and ready polished and  nikkelplated


Somewhere around this time I bought a CNC mill ( one can never have to many tools ), witch came in very handy to mill out the bearing pockets ( they where a little distorted from the welding heat )








With all the wishbone’s finished, It was time to make the rear wishbone stay. It is a tubular frame which mounts to the gearbox . Again I first made a jig from the undamaged side and then mirrored it for the other site.




All the mounting bushes were made on the lathe.





tube’s are made from chrome moly tubes, so they are light and strong.






After completion of these cages I mountend them on the car and made them red hot with a torch, so that all the welding tension could escape .
Ready for final polish and nickel plating( al tube’s were polished in the lathe prior to welding ).





Time to do a dry build before plating and painting.




With most of the big things done it was time to start looking at the exhaust. The exhaust fitted on the car wasn’t the original one, 2 of the pipe’s had some big dents in it , so we decided to make a completely new exhaust manifold. but this time inside the body, as per original.



As I have made a couple of exhausts in a trial and error kind of way, I was keen on doing it a smarter way this time. So I bought a 3d printer and had it print exhaust modeling blocks ( free to download on grabcad )for days. With these modeling blocks it is very easy to make and adjust the manifold as you go. After you finalize the design you can easily copy it to mandrel bends by using a band saw and a saw jig.





After an hour of modeling .






slowly transferring it to stainless steel .




exhaust manifold ready for final welding with backing gas.




 

Top work as always. 😊

Thanks,  looking back, maybe it was better to scrap the car.  But as it belongs to my best friend I realy feel that I should get it back so that he can drive it

Hi, many thanks.  Not sure if there is a market, but I can always put the word out.

Excellent - I wonder if you would like to loan my Range Rover and damage it - I'd be quite happy with you returning it fully restored