The Fake Jaguar Thread

[Kevin B]

Will the cross member you fabricated stiffen the car back up?

 

[Ulu]

Oh yes. It’s a load transfer beam. That tunnel will end at the cross member. The weekened part of it will be removed.

 

[Ulu]

I have decided the end of the tunnel needs a big 12ga (0.104” thick) flange, welded all around to the tunnel.

This will spread concentrated forces from the tunnel more effectively into the thinner crossmember.

I was planning to sleeve the tunnel through the crossmember, and make tabs on the tunnel, bend them up, and weld each tab to the crossmember.

There’s not enough of the tunnel left. I had to remove lots of damaged tunnel. In addition, what remains is patched together right there. It will still get more internal patching and reinforcement, right at the cut end, but a thick flange will tie the top and bottom of the tunnel together even better.

This means I must cut the tunnel before I install the crossmember. Instead of twisting and bracing the tunnel, I must set the frame on temporary rails, not relying on the tunnel at all for alignments.

 

[Kevin B]

Do you think the car will weigh more or less when you are done? I'm sure any change either way will be negligible.

 

[Ulu]

It will weigh a little more.

It weighed 1286 lbs empty, with oil but no gasoline, and one battery. When I drove it it had 60 lbs of gas and two batteries.

 

[Son of Kradus]

its coming along great man!. at 1286 lbs thats not a heavy car at all, must only just be nudging 600kg's,
impressed by the effort here!

 

[Ulu]

its coming along great man!. at 1286 lbs thats not a heavy car at all, must only just be nudging 600kg's,
impressed by the effort here!

Thank you, and I hope it won’t be too much heavier by the time I am finished; but his car was always lacking in structure, and structure weighs.

I got the bottom of the pan cleaned up and I put some paint on the necessary areas and let it cure overnight.

Then today I put the cross frame back in place and located it with four little bolts.

This will get welded and I’ll be touching up all of that paint in the near future. But I had to get some paint underneath the layers of metal before I weld.

You can see in this photograph how the floorboard on the passenger side has stretched and sagged. I am going to try and make the match a little better. But I have to get the basic frame tacked up before I go any further.

Finally I am at a situation where I can start fitting on the new rails.

 

[Ulu]

First real test fitting of the rails.

I’ve got some fancy notching to do, because the cross frame is going to go through the frame rails.

If I do not want to cut up the cross frame, I have to lap the rails together around the existing cross frame and then splice them together with some plates.

 

[Ulu]

I put the frame up on legs, then took the trunnion and hoist off. Now I have open access to work on the bottom. There’s a bucket of steel scraps hanging off of a pipe on the frame head, this is to take the twist out of the frame.

I got it easily level within 0.1 Degrees.

I marked the center lines and put a string down the middle of the frame.

The twist is gone, but the frame is warped off to the passenger’s side 1/2”. See how far the string missed the centerline? It should hit the black dot.

I have to start making relief cuts in the tunnel so I can bring it straight. Hopefully I can add some minor crown to the frame at the same time. The frame was cambered down in the middle (sagged!) originally requiring big shims to mount the body.

 

[Ulu]

Still setting up a fixture to jig the frame.

 

[Ulu]

Yesterday I went and bought eight more clamps so I could finish setting this up.

Everything is being leveled electronicaly.

It’s ready to start welding the jig together today. When I’m done I’ll have to cut it all up again.

 

[Ulu]

I had a drawer full of clamps when I started yet even with 8 new ones, I still want one more…

Once I weld the jig together I can I reclaim all my clamps.

With all the shadows and background it is tough to get a good picture of what’s going on here.

 

[Kevin B]

This is bound to be in tighter tolerances than when it was built in Germany.

 

[Ulu]

Perhaps, perhaps not… But that doesn’t mean the engineering will be as good as Dr. Porsche.

I made about 50 small welds on the jig and removed about 30 clamps.

The jig is about half welded.

 

[Kevin B]

Ferdinand, the wizard of the black forest. Making world beaters using less cylinders. (Well there were those 12 cylinder Can-Am Porsche cars that were so dominate they lead to the demise of the series.)

 

[Ulu]

I finished welding up the jig tonight, and I got the chassis welded right down to the jig. Now it’s finally time to cut this car in half.

I have to do a little more cleanup on the parts that I welded before I can get them to fit up perfectly, but it’s getting pretty close.

 

[ifitsfreeitsforme]

I keep checking in to see if it's running yet. haha.

 

[Ulu]

I keep checking in to see if it's running yet. haha.

It was running fine when I tore it apart. That was never the problem.
It was crooked and flexy.

 

[Ulu]

So the jig is as done as it can get at this juncture. I must do some fitting and trimming first.

Here is where I need to trim and slice.

I didn’t cut too close, but now it needs to be spot on this time.

Here is what will drop:

Super crusty OE metal, long hid behind steel patches snd lots of ugly welding.

Lots of sharp edges and spikes left from merciless grinder wielding. Tomorrow this becomes scrap metal.

 

[Ulu]

I left enough clearance for welding, but clearance for the sawzall was a little tight when I got to the bottom.

I cut from the left, then I cut from the right, then I tried to cut through both sides at the same time.

Finally I got to the point where I did not want to break the blade so I cut the last little bit with a grinder. Then you just remove the four bolts.

And it is gone…

Now I have to connect this:

With that.