Finishing touches… To this step anyway…

Not as pretty as i’d have liked to weld it – but certainly strongly attached!

Buoyed by the confidence of some exploratory welding, I bit the bullet and got on with finishing off the welding that has been getting in the way of painting. The main step being to weld a plate across the offside end of the steering column frame. The ‘book’ design has the column frame (constructed of box section) placed squarely on top of one of the chassis rails. But to allow me to leave a return on the fibreglass side panel and scuttle panel I decided to trim the end of the box section off – and weld a plate in place to close of the tubing. With two inches of weld holding the end plate onto the box section I am confident that I haven’t compromised the strength at all…

The reworked steering column mount

The first effort was fairly messy so I ground all the weld away and had another go. The process of grinding out the first weld showed me how well the weld had actually gone – but I was much happier when it looked tidier…

 

I also finished off stitch welding the plates into the corners of the ‘boot floor’ and added a 3mm x 25mm strip to the open end for strength – with a full weld along the top.

A bit slow with the torch perhaps – so I ground the welds back a bit to tidy them up…

I am fairly sure I will leave the rear roll bar stays as per the ‘book’ spec – but if I decide to relocate them into the boot floor the plates will already be there.

 

Now I just need to find a weekend where I can dedicate a few hours without interruption and I should be able to get the POR15 applied…

The eagle eyed will have spotted that my last post mentioned 3 bits of welding left to do. The 3rd was to weld plates across the ends of the tube I cut to allow the gearbox to fit. I’ve decided to leave these open and, eventually, find some suitable plastic bungs to wedge in place. If the gearbox proves a tight fit I may need to trim them back further so it seemed sensible to leave them open for now…