SS100 “replica” Project Car

[digr]

Looking good!!!!!!!!!!!!

[CaddmannQ]

Thanks, Digr.

I did get both rails fabbed, but it’s raining and it’s shopping day, so maybe tomorrow I can get this tacked up and fab the gussets.

[CaddmannQ]

I tried for better photos but it is raining and the light is very dim today.

[CaddmannQ]

Well today is a special day in the boat yard and I’m having a special Shandy to celebrate.

I did a bunch of last-minute grinding and tuning and squaring up. Hours, truly. I cleaned up the pan edges and the flutes as nice as I could get them now.

It was 98°F in the boat yard when I finally put on my leather jacket and gauntlets. I fired up the Primeweld TIG225 and I got the crossmember assembly tacked on.

I attached it to the tunnel and pan in six places before I stopped. I did not want to weld anything up solid until I was sure it was square.


I stopped to check everything with the trammel and level: it came out beautifully. You can see that I took off the clamps and the crossmember and it’s really, finally attached to the tunnel.
Yippee!

I think there will just be a little more pan trimming for me and I can start installing the frame rails.

This is a real milestone in the project. I went from cleaning, fixing and making parts, to the actual assembly work.

BUT… is it square? Is it level? Oh yeah!

The crossmember wants 0.9 deg counterclockwise rotation.

The frame wants 1.2 deg counterclockwise, so she is square within 0.3 deg!

The tangent of 0.3 is 0.0052 and the crossmember is 13” tall, so it will lean forward about 1/16” at the top: A trifle.

So far, that is. It is still just tack welded.

I haven’t warped it all up yet. Still, this deserves another shandy.
Cheers!

[arizonian]

Cheers!!!

[CaddmannQ]

Right now the whole project doesn’t look much better than the last picture I took in March.

But I’ve done a lot more cleaning & painting inside the tunnel since then, and reinforced the end of the tunnel with additional metal.

I cut large chunks out where the pedal assembly was mounted and replaced that with new metal as well.

I’ve also installed an oversize fuel line and a new brake line and secured them all inside the tunnel.

Finally I have repaired and reinstalled the shift rod and coupler which was much easier to do with the car generally disassembled but should be possible now in any event.

Of course all those photographs are stuck over in the what did you do today thread.

These frame rails all sat around so long that they got a bit rusty, and I had to burnish them all again. I have painted the insides so that they don’t rust, but of course there will be some when I go to weld them together.

Any home my next job is to get these set back up on the jig and tack it all together (like I said back in April LOL.)

Unfortunately for me it decided to rain this morning.

[CaddmannQ]

I am welding again, and I took a rough count. So far I have made about 600 welds on this car. It is making a better welder out of me.

Part of that is learning to program the welder's internal computer. This will let me run everything manually with pedal or thumbswitch, but you can dial it in to do about 12 things automatically, then the program runs, with a click or two.

I built myself a big trammel, and with that and a digital level and string I managed to get this frame all squared up and level.

Yesterday I actually started tack welding it “all” together. I got it welded together enough that I took off all of the clamps and wires that were holding the set up.

Now it is just laying on the jig, and before I took the trammel apart I checked it one more time to see if it was still square, and I was very pleased at how everything worked out.

I am finishing up whatever tack welding I can get done in this position today. There will also be some ledger angles to be added for the floor pan edges. I have some little patches that go in the frame where I notched it about the crossmember.

All this must be done up as much as possible before I flip the frame to get the out-of-position welds.

Also, There are two major frame elements that I have not shown or discussed yet and remain to be constructed. This is the connection between my rearmost crossmember and the original Volkswagen torsion tube and crossmember weldment. There’s still lots of work before I flip this over to do the other side.

One of my favorite teachers in college told me that engineers in the future would have a hard time getting work if they could not program computers. I took that to heart, and made it more important than the engineering part; which worked out well, because lots of engineers needed computer help more than engineering help. Engineering and manufacturing have been drying up in California in most fields except perhaps medical and computer electronic. This has been going on since I moved here in 1975.

But my industrial technology teacher had a CNC bridgeport, yet never warned me that welders in the future would have to program their machines.

Anyhow I really love the programmable welder now that I am a little better acquainted with why does what it does. This is like a welder that turns on a little flashlight for you to give you a moment to position your arc finely before you start burning things. It ramps the power up and down quite neatly and gives you lots of post flow to cool off those hot tack welds.

[arizonian]

Need a pic or two of the welder included.

Looking VERY good.

[CaddmannQ]

Some pix of the welder. The Prime Weld TIG225 ACDCP (ac, dc, & pulse)
The cart is from Harbor Freight.

Things everybody loves about this welder:

Made in USA (from multinational parts)
The price is right. I think I paid $1200 w/tax, including torch, 12’ hose, regulator, pedal, trigger, 240v cord& plug, 120v pigtail, and 10’ stinger lead, 10’ ground lead & a cheapo ground clamp.
It is so very adjustable
No stupid membranes. No menus.
Real knobs & switches
Good regulator.
Really good pedal
It runs cool
You never will forget to turn it off.

Things everybody hates about this welder:

You need a spool gun to MIG. No wire feeder.
There’s no numbers on the dials. Just little arrows.
The display tells you the welding current and nothing more, unless you make an error. Like TIG but are switched to MMA. Then you get a code and you cannot adjust the amps until the error is corrected.
It has a big fan that never shuts off, but that insures you never will forget to turn it off.
Even with earplugs you’re gonna hear the welder running a little.

One thing I especially like about this welder. Manufacturer is only 3 hours from here so if I have problems I can just take it down to Southern California myself. Otherwise shipping is not too expensive but so far I’ve never had a single problem with this machine and I’ve had it almost 4 years.

[CaddmannQ]

Originally Posted by arizonian

Looking VERY good.

Thank you Bill. I’m giving it my best effort. Might be the last thing I ever build.

I am still going through various parts and pieces that I am going to use. I have some pressed metal steps from an RV, and they are in beautiful shape and the perfect size to box off my front frame rails plus give me a safe hemmed edge and a ledger for my floor pan. I couldn’t ask for much more and the paint is still OK that I won’t have to repaint the insides.

I did have to take off some like new grip tape. I parked them out in the hot sun for a couple hours and then it was quick work to peel it off with a sharp putty knife.

In these pictures I am mocking up the rear connection of the frame rails to the Volkswagen suspension housing and body perch. I have some really stout 1.5” sq x 3/16” wall tubing, and it is already factory bent. I also have these heavy stamped plates 2 inches wide and they have a nice joggle in them that will help me create alignment.

There’s a photograph that shows two of these plates but I actually have two sets in pairs of lefts and rights.