All welded up

15 gussets, 1 meter of tubing, half a bottle of CO2, lots of welding wire, lots of burns and a few hours hard work and the front of the chassis is completed. Its definitely over engineered, but as long as my welding holds together it will be more than sufficient! One thing i have learnt is than mig welding upside down is not easy and the weld looks shit (when done by me) and you get nicely burnt hands and wrists!

The wife has just phoned, or should that be moaned, to say i have 2 MORE packages and proceeded to tell me how much they cost and guessed at the total i have spent this month. More moaning followed by the phone being put down. Its fair to say she is a little pi$$ed off with me and the car at the moment. But on the bright side thats one less bit of grief of have to go through before i die! Now i wonder how she will react when i disappear down the garage again tonight to paint the chassis with my newly deliver POR-15 paint recommended by Mr Hoverd???  I really wish i had one of the understanding and dare i say it enthusiastic "RGB wags" which until i started racing didn't actually believed existed!!!

After painting i need to put it all back together, including dropping the radiator by 25mm to miss the bonnet, then sort out the reverse motor which has bent in the mounting meaning that reverse will not engage. I really do think the rule about reverse should be dropped, its a PITA and also makes checking my prop bolts very tricky! Anyway plan is to get this all done by the end of the weekend, wife and kids dependant!

Chop, cut, sparks, welds and burns

I actually have found time to get started on sorting out the front end! The season seems to have arrived very quickly i have lots and lots to do!!!

First off i needed to strip everything off that was being replaced, repaired or hampered doing it. All the body work was removed, hopefully it will not be going back on as i will have time to get the new body fitted and painted ready for the first race.

With everything removed from the front i could get a good look at the state of the chassis

You can see the paddock brazing work which doesn't look pretty, but it not only got the car back on it wheels and silverstone, it lasted until the end of the season, and looks as if would have lasted another season!

Due to time constraints i've decided that i am just going to replicate what is already there, but add some bracing. Ideally i would like to change the top pick ups aswell, but realistically i'm just not going to have time, so that will have to go on the jobs to do list. 

As the nearside pickups are still in one piece i will just brace these up, but the off side had to be cut out and started from scratch. 30 mins with the angle grinder and i was in no going back situation.

The undamaged near side. 

Extra 3mm plate gussets welded in place. I think i've over engineered it big time, but hopefully means that i won't have to worry about it, well until it gets pranged!!! Although it now looks that strong it may be the only thing left intact after an incident!

And here is the replacement part for the offside. Its only tagged together at the moment, but 20 minutes after the picture it was fully welded up and strong enough to support the titanic!!

I had no engineers blue, so some left over yellow paint from the body repairs last season did the job

Once this is on the chassis and the last couple of webs added i need to brace up the steering rack mount as this has already bent out of position.