The Fake Jaguar Thread

[Kevin B]

I did have to invert my big clamp to get things on center. It’s still wrong in this pic.
View attachment 282237
But now I finally have the frame flipped back right-side-up.
View attachment 282238
View attachment 282239
I’ve never seen it in this position before, with the frame rails and firewall crossmember attached.

This is indeed a project milestone.

That helps to picture what is going on.

 

[Ulu]

Today I spent most of my efforts cutting up the rest of the jig, and cleaning up all the scraps, grinder dust, paint, dirt etc.

Then I ignored the next grinding and welding tasks, to take stock, take measurements, and design some seat support frames.

I have a couple fabrication defects I want to correct, before I continue with the main welding, and I wasn’t feeling like that today either.

 

[Ulu]

OK, this is one of those fabrication defects.

This should line up like so:

..but I forgot to trim the left floor pan.

I’m going to cut this loose and straighten it up.

 

[Ulu]

These are the seat rails, and they are adjustable, but there’s no lock on one side.

This relies on the seat frame itself to absorb a lot of force, and is a prime cause of seat frame breakage. I suffered this in more than one bucket seat car.

But this is only of academic interest as I am going to toss out this unnecessary weight.

This car is so small that nobody over 5’-0” will be wanting to move the seat forward! (They will want to move the pedals back if under 5’-6” or so.)

I’m just going to mount the seats all the way back and solid to the car.

But I might mount them with slots to allow for a small amount of assembly adjustment.

Originally the car came with four of these seat risers. Unfortunately (and I don’t know how soon or if ever the original builder realized this) they sent him four right seat brackets and no left brackets.

When I got the car the driver seat was mounted all crooked in the chassis because of the mistake.

How I temporarily corrected it is like this.

One of the brackets I cut and welded to make it opposite hand.

One of the brackets I heated up with a torch, and hammered it backwards over an anvil.

All four of them will go in the junk as I am not mounting the seats directly to the floor. There will be some sub framing similar to what I’ve showed in the photograph above.

 

[Ulu]

Here is the passenger seat arrangement showing the correct risers.

But these mount the seat directly to the tin floor and that is no Bueno.

 

[Ulu]

Dramatic photograph of chassis sitting at 45°. You can see that for safety I’ve got 13 legs and a chain under this thing.

The shiny new floor patch never got trimmed properly and it forced this plate out of alignment at the joint I have indicated. (In this photograph I have already trimmed the patch.)

Fortunately I had only tack welded this leg in two places, so I cut those two welds loose and knocked the plate back into position.

They were in a place where it was very difficult to use any kind of grinder so I used an electric drill and a hacksaw blade and then a hammer and chisel.

Anyhow I cut that all apart with the frame sitting flat, and then I rolled the frame up to 45° to eliminate the vertical welding.

 

[Ulu]

I got that bracket welded back tight.

I rolled the frame back and forth today, to get all the floor ledger welds. I put on 50 welds there, plus another dozen on the pan patches and frame closures.

 

[Kevin B]

We must be getting close to the trial body mount.

 

[Ulu]

I wish, but there is still much welding to do.

Today I got more of the floor welding done, and I got the frame rails tied in better at the rear corners.

But I ran out of argon again.

I did get more welding done, but nothing spectacular.

 

[Ulu]

There’s my safety stand.

I got about 40% of the top seams done tonight, plus several small welds, front and rear.

 

[Ulu]

I got all of the frame rails fully seamed, top and bottom now.

I did this with dozens of skip welds, so there are lots of stops and starts.

I also got the rest of the floor ledgers welded to the crossmember.

Before I roll it again, I need to weld on the tunnel, and partially weld the tunnel to the crossmember.

The floor still needs work in the corners.

 

[Ulu]

I got most of the tunnel welding done, but not before I ran out of argon and had to go back to the welding shop.

I also got the welding done on the rear pan corners.

I’m flipping the frame back-and-forth so that I don’t do too much welding on either side at once. I’m trying very hard to keep this thing straight.

I need to do some more cleaning so I can get the floor pan welded down to the tunnel better. That’s gonna be a tedious pain; trying not to burn up the thin floor pan and still get it hot enough to stick to the tunnel.

There’s one more short pass on the tunnel to crossmember, but I did not get that finished because I had some interference with one of my little cover plate screws on the crossmember.

It ended up landing right on the edge of the tunnel rather than inside of it slightly, and so I had to make some room.

I cut a small slit on either side of the screw in the tunnel. I’ve bent a little section of the tunnel out to allow for the screw, and I welded it all back together again. Now there is a small hump right there.

There’s a small amount of welding to do on the rear frame closures as well.

I still have to finish welding the front frame closures and the big square frame gussets up front. Also the ends of the crossmember to the frame rails, before I proceed with anything else.

Like four crossmember gussets and the forward floor pan, which I have to fabricate soon. And the seat rail supports.

 

[Ulu]

Yesterday & today, I did more welding on front & rear frame closures, and the mid-crossmember & its little gussets.

I haven’t addressed the big crossmember gussets yet.

I also welded the (black) angle crossmembers to the frame, all around, where they penetrate the frame rails.

It needs reinforcement plates (fish plates) at those 4 penetrations, plus at the “kink” between them.

My lovely wife says we only have two and one half to three days before it starts raining, I hate electric welding outdoors in damp weather.

I’ve heard stories . . .

I am hoping to get enough welding finished that I can put the wheels on this and roll it back in the garage before the rain.

Then my lovely wife will growl at me, when I park her car out in the rain.

Right now I must take her for groceries, or we will be eating canned soup and Jiffy corn muffins.

 

[Ulu]

2 bottles of argon later, I have the tunnel done, all the front closures, gussets, plug welds, and such are complete.

The mid-crossmember is welded in. It has 3 little gussets. Needs a fourth.

26 of 34 welds on the small angle iron crossmembers are done.

A few welds remain to do on the rear closures.

Then the main frame elements will all be welded

 

[Ulu]

Of course I forgot that the bottom of the floor ledgers were all only tack-welded.

I laid down another 50 skip welds on the frame.

They came out great, but there are some corner welds that need repair.

Today it started raining. It hasn’t rained hardly at all for 6 months. This one was modest, and dropped to a misty trickle after about an hour.

I left Scary Larry out in the front garden, and he got a bath.

I put him on the porch to dry out.

Larry is all welded steel with an aluminum head. All his padding is wadded plastic bags taped inside plastic bags.

He will dry out quickly.

 

[Ulu]

Whenever I keep something that other people would throw, out my wife always askes me the same question. “What are you going to do with that?”

Then she reminds me for the next seven years when garbage pick up day is, so I can toss it out.

OK maybe not seven years but this has been kicking around since our washing machine died a few years ago.

Not having any kind of a box brake, I used the old time method of clamping it to a table with a piece of square tubing and smacking it with a mallet

After lots of fussing and fitting I put a flange on all four sides, made corner notches, and made joggles to clear the big gussets on my frame.

Now it almost fits. But it’s not ready to weld in yet. This floor will need reinforcements, and some get attached to the frame first.

 

[Ulu]

So before the floor goes on, a few things want to go in, like the battery supports.

The setup:

The rails in place.

I wasn’t thinking when I put these in, that there would be so much weld draw on the frame. There was. I don’t think it shows in the photo but it is noticeable.

I think I will take this opportunity to brace the frame a bit more.

 

[Ulu]

Well I got sidetracked, and suddenly one thing leads to another.

I needed to cut those rails, but I didn’t want to get the tunnel full of crap. So, I decided to put the tunnel covers on.

At that time I realized that I should put the clutch cable in first. Then I realized I hadn’t test-fit the pedal assembly, after welding in the new tunnel side where it fits.

It did fit, with a little grinding and hammering, and some smacks from a slide hammer.

But then I put the throttle cable on and it rubs the tunnel.

So I bent the tunnel a bit and took the pedal assembly apart to bend the throttle lever a bit, so now it all clears.

Of course, taking the pedal assembly apart meant I had to stop and clean it up. It had lumpy paint over grime, and corrosion, so another sidetrack.

Finally, I did get the tunnel covers on, but it was too late to continue, so the battery box rails never did get cut.

 

[Ulu]

I did cut those battery box rails and the frame did spring apart but only about 3/16” and I was expecting it to spread over 3/8”.

Well at this point it is what it is and that’s where it’s going to stay. Meanwhile I had to get the rear brake line out of my way so I mocked up the master cylinder and bent the brake line to fit. Now I get to do the fuel line.

Since the laws in California have changed, finding the racing fuel tank of my dreams at Amazon is hopeless. They won’t deliver it to California.

Anyhow I did find some fuel tanks that they would deliver but not in the shape that I need. I was hoping to get a dragster style tank in this size and shape: A 5 gallon cylinder. This harbor freight tank is pressure tank and it is very heavy by comparison.

But it might end up being what I make my gas tank from.

I did get the pedal assembly mostly cleaned up, and mounted with cables, spring, etc. Everything clears and operates smoothly enough.

But the arrow in my pic shows where I stuffed a shim in the pedal stop to make things line up.

I need to made some real pedal stops.

Also the brake pushrod needs to be 2 inches longer.

 

[Ulu]

I started to bend the front brake lines (before I install any more obstructions) and realized that I didn’t have any brackets worth using.

So I cleaned up these 50 year old old crusty brackets,

cut up some scrap parts, and I re-made them.

Now I have to locate the brackets.