sweetride2go Posted November 14, 2007 Share Posted November 14, 2007 we used laquer thinner, lots of laquer thinner, and lots of sanding... oh man, sanding tube chassis suks... heres a pic of the chassis, the mini diagonals are just above the seat on the left, we didnt use many of them actually, more or less just on the "main" cage, lol... just after paint to btw, and i must hav spent prolly 16 hours sanding onthat stinkn thing... cheers =) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JIM73240Z Posted November 14, 2007 Share Posted November 14, 2007 its taken jon 2+yrs to do the cage. i say it will be 6 mo & 9 days for him paint it:lol: jimbo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted November 14, 2007 Author Share Posted November 14, 2007 its taken jon 2+yrs to do the cage. i say it will be 6 mo & 9 days for him paint it:lol: Damn, I can't find the middle finger emoticon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JIM73240Z Posted November 14, 2007 Share Posted November 14, 2007 ha ha jimbo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkgts1 Posted November 15, 2007 Share Posted November 15, 2007 Excelent job to all of you, your cages look great. I have some quick questions, what thickness plates are you using to reinforce the tubing to the sheet metal, 1/8"? And are you welding everything up with a MIG welder? Thanks, Justin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted November 15, 2007 Author Share Posted November 15, 2007 12 ga sheet in my case which is .103" thick. SCCA rules say you can use .080, but I couldn't find that thickness anywhere. Everything was welded with a Millermatic 135 mig. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted November 15, 2007 Share Posted November 15, 2007 i say it will be 6 mo & 9 days for him paint it Hah! A cage can be done, start to finish, in less then a week (in the real world outside of Jon's garage ). There's no car on the planet that gets pained in less then a week, even at One Day... So if we extrapolate out the space time continium in Jon's garage with us out here, it looks like Jon's paint job will take at least 8 years to complete... ...look harder for the finger emoticon Jon... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjhines Posted November 15, 2007 Share Posted November 15, 2007 I used 14g(.085?) and some 16g(.065?) for gussets. I used 1/8"(.120) weld plates. I have personally reached a turning point in my build. The chassis is painted and ready to assemble. The exterior paint is not done, but everything is prepped so I can mask off the interior and spray the outside when the car is complete. Don't get too caught up in the details. I had an intervention from a friend to help me get on to the next phase, paint. Paint prep on something like that is a bitch. I also got too caught up in the paint prep. I had another intervention from the same friend to get actual PAINT on the car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted November 15, 2007 Author Share Posted November 15, 2007 Hah! A cage can be done, start to finish, in less then a week (in the real world outside of Jon's garage ). There's no car on the planet that gets pained in less then a week, even at One Day... So if we extrapolate out the space time continium in Jon's garage with us out here, it looks like Jon's paint job will take at least 8 years to complete... It will not be painted next week. I think you guys might be surprised at how quickly it gets done though. Besides, it's not like all I was doing in the last two years was figuring out the cage... Oh, and guys... use your imagination: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted November 16, 2007 Author Share Posted November 16, 2007 Some finishing touches. Gusset/patch for the door jamb: The interior patch was welded to the bar inside the jamb: Jack point with 1.5 x .095 tube and .060 plates inside and outside of rocker. This will get a cap on the tube in the inside too. Patched holes in fenders: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thehelix112 Posted November 16, 2007 Share Posted November 16, 2007 Looking good Jon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LLave Posted November 16, 2007 Share Posted November 16, 2007 How did you pick the location of the jack points? Is it an issue of front to real balance? And ahh... how do they work? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted November 16, 2007 Author Share Posted November 16, 2007 How did you pick the location of the jack points? Is it an issue of front to real balance? And ahh... how do they work? I'll have to make a tool to stick in the hole (basically another tube with a little box on the end), but the idea is that you can jack up a seriously low car without having to struggle to get the jack underneath the car or use ramps. Used to be that I had to lift on the fenders and have someone else push the jack under the front crossmember, and in the rear the jack would BARELY slide under the diff. I actually have a creased fender from trying to get the jack under the front at an autox. I didn't do any front to rear balance checking, but I expect this to lift the whole side of the car, at which point I can change ride height or a tire or do what I need to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EMWHYR0HEN Posted November 16, 2007 Share Posted November 16, 2007 Keep it up Jon. I noticed your welds are getting nicer and nicer every time, especially considering how it's such a PITA to weld on the cars old, thin, contaminated metal. I wouldn't worry about the position of your jacking point. I experimented at a track day jacking everywhere along the bottom of the rocker, and basically anywhere on the rocker will lift both wheels off the ground. Post a picture of you jacking tool too i'm curious, I like the idea. Oh and what setting do you hvae your welder on when welding new sheet to the cars sheet? i'm either too cold, or burn through. I think I have the same welder as you... 2006 Miller 135 wirefeed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted November 16, 2007 Author Share Posted November 16, 2007 Keep it up Jon.I noticed your welds are getting nicer and nicer every time, especially considering how it's such a PITA to weld on the cars old, thin, contaminated metal. Yeah, you can sort of tell which projects I started first. Oh and what setting do you hvae your welder on when welding new sheet to the cars sheet? i'm either too cold, or burn through. I think I have the same welder as you... 2006 Miller 135 wirefeed? I think mine is a 2005. When I'm doing bodywork like patching the fenders I use 3 on the voltage and about 20 or 25 on the wire speed. When I'm doing the .060 plate to the rockers, or the welding to the strut towers or anything else to the slightly thicker metal on the frame rails or suspension bits I do 6 on the voltage and 50 on the wirespeed. The trick is to start your bead on the thick stuff and then pull the puddle into the Datsun metal. On the roll bar tubing I've been doing 9.75 (when I turned it to 10 it didn't like it at all) on the voltage and somewhere in the 6 range for wire speed. I was going with a slower wire speed but I found it difficult to get a consistently smooth bead. Turning the wire speed up really helped. EDIT-thought of another project that I need to complete too. I need a seat back brace. I've got some 1 x .5 x .065 rectangle tubing, so I think I'm going to use that, but I'll need some slightly larger tube to weld to the shoulder bar. The seat is adjustable so there will be a series of holes with a lynch pin type of arrangement for the seat back brace. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
z-ya Posted November 18, 2007 Share Posted November 18, 2007 Jon, Your progress looks great. When you get it all done, I want to see some seriously quick time trial / autocross times . I hope you've been driving something else during the build to continue to improve your driving skills. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted November 18, 2007 Author Share Posted November 18, 2007 I hope you've been driving something else during the build to continue tto improve your drving skills. Thanks for the compliment Pete. No, I haven't been driving anything else. In fact, I sold my Toyota P/U (my only other stick shift vehicle) about a year ago, so I'll be super rusty with a big badass car to try and figure out. Needless to say its going to be at least a full season of autox before I try any big track stuff... Got the seat back brace pretty well finished. Just need to cut the excess off the back of the tube and paint it, although I don't think I'm going to paint the tube itself, as that would last about one seat adjustment. I had to make the tube that got welded to the shoulder bar, I think I made it a little on the tight side. Oh well, it works. I've never used a seat brace before. Is that tube attached to the shoulder bar securely enough? I was thinking I could weld in some little gussets if the two 1" long beads weren't enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
z-ya Posted November 18, 2007 Share Posted November 18, 2007 How thick is the plate that bolts to the seat? You want to be sure that it is thick enough to prevent the adjustment bar from coming through the seat in a rear collision (ouch!). Not sure how thick it should actually be. How thick is the plate on other race cars? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted November 18, 2007 Author Share Posted November 18, 2007 The plate is .060". The seat itself is thicker than 1/8", I think it is .134". I certainly don't want to be impaled by my seat brace, but I could find no specs on what is acceptable or preferred for this particular part, so I'm at a bit of a loss. I could fairly easily double up the plate to 1/8" if that was deemed necessary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted October 22, 2008 Author Share Posted October 22, 2008 OK, last little bit on the cage. I had been mulling a couple things, FIA bar from the base of the A pillar tube to the top of the A pillar tube, but without the bend, and also a tube from the base of the A pillar to the strut tower. I finally decided against the FIA bar because my cage already ties the door bar into the A pillar above the bend, so I think that bar is less useful in my case than it would be in a newer more high waisted car that has the bend in the A pillar tube above the door bars. I did decide to do the A pillar to strut tower bar. I wanted to do this before but chickened out because it wasn't a very accessible area. Now as my suspension mods are nearly done I took another look and figured if I didn't do it now it would probably never get done. Welding the patches to the firewall was a serious pain in the ass and welding the tube to the bottom of the A pillar tube required cutting out a hole in the door jamb area and welding it back in. Really a PITA job and I wish I had done it before I painted the jambs and the engine compartment. Live and learn... The engine compartment is painted black with Zero Rust, but there is quite a bit of white overspray on it. I'm going to go over the whole thing with Rustoleum just so that it's all a uniform color, it looks pretty crappy right now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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