lasater

The next thing to do is make a metal angle template. I'll be starting on the hoop at the "B" pillar first. It really helps to have 2 cars, one with an interior and one without. The template is just 1 1/4" scraps of sheet metal, pop riveted together. Now that I have this complete I can transfer this design to the cardboard I'll be using to bend the tubing.

black Tara

bump!

lasater

The way I bend tubing is with a template and a 90 degree test part. I find that it makes more sense to me this way. There are lots of other ways to do it with mathematical formulas but I'm too dumb for that. My bender is marked at the beginning of the actual bend so I just use that, The first picture shows the bend mark on the shoe, corresponding to the tubing.

The next photo shows the full scale Costco free cardboard template that was transferred from the scrap sheet metal bend template. Now I simply mark the distance from where I want the bend to start, begin from the center of the piece of tubing, and match up the bend with my home made angle finder. (2 metal rulers bolted together)

The next photo shows really just how few tools you need to bend tubing. of course this doesn't include the JD2 bender ($300) and the dies ($300)

The final photo shows the first bend (at the top of the roof) It's not much, but ya gotta start somewhere. I'll continue tomorrow.

lasater

The "B" pillar is bent. Once I fit it in the car I'll begin on the pieces that go down to the dash.

Oldblue

Nice work, nice project!

Allen S

Hi Mr Lasater , great meeting you. Susan and I enjoyed checking out your ride....that things a beast! We made it home yesterday...drove route 66,grand canyon,then to vegas for a couple of days(won't be back there,,,unless for sema) then took the back highways home.
Put over 3000 miles on my ride with not a hickup, and got great milage too. Can't wait to see your car finished..hopefully a ride in it some day. Keep up the awsome work! Al.

lasater

I have the battery mounted to the floor in its permanent location. The battery cables are in and secured to the body. Work continues on the harness. Slow but steady progress. The air compressor for the AirLift front struts mounts directly across from the battery.

lasater

The next step is to bend the rear side tubes. I'm sort of basing this roll cage on the PTeazers Nascar HHR cage. There are only so many ways to do it and I like what they did with the exception of all the BBQ and tailgate stuff. The sides have some weird angles and there is a right and left side with opposite directions.

I put the "B" pillar template back in position held up with framing squares, paint stirring sticks and duct tape. I then took more scrap sheet metal and pop rivets and made this template. Tomorrow I start bending tube again.

Grizzly old man

In my youth I ended up being part owner in a stock car. I had a bunch of cars in my yard. Back then you could by a used car from folks for $50.00 or less.

I'd get them, take them home, fix them some and resell them.

Since I had a lot of cars {mostly Fords} and some friends had a '64 Ford Galaxy stock car. When they needed a different engine they came to me to see about getting one, one thing led to another and I became part owner in their car.

Anyway back then your stock car just had to be a stock car. You had to remove some things like all the glass except the windshield, the interior {to keep down fires}except for the drivers seat {almost everyone just ran with the stock bench seat} and relocate the fuel tank to the inside of the trunk.

Everyone who could get one used a 'pony keg'. You couldn't just buy a pony keg you had to steal them from the distributer.

Once I became a partial owner I insisted we install a roll cage. We used 2" galvanized 'well pipe'. Some of the other owners said our car was no longer stock because stock cars did not have a roll cage in them, but the officials decided that it was 'safety equipment' and made a ruling that everyone had to have one.

With the addition of the roll cage we turned up a bucket seat from a Thunder bird and installed it so we could add some additional bracing to the roll cage.

Your roll cage looks a little light to me.

black Tara

Grizzly what your looking at is just a template. that's not his final roll bar. read his post.