25 replies to this topic

[wot179]

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I recently notched the rails on my Chevy pickup,and while the tray was apart getting new wood,I decided to build some new wheeltubs,coz the old ones were crap.

Spent yesterday and this morning messing about,heres some shots so far.
More later.

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[Heath]

Look sensational. Did you make that wooden dolly (I don't know what you'd call it) specifically for the job?

[wot179]

Yep.Its called a buck.Cut the sheet carefully and accurately,put the fold on the bottom edge,clamped it tightly over the buck with another piece of timber,then knocked it up with a big orange deadblow hammer.
Its 1.6 coldrolled(bright) steel,so it took some tappin.
Then a little tidy up with a steel dolly and panel hammer.
More tonight.

[Heath]

Awesome, but wouldn't it have been much easier to work with hot rolled material?

[wot179]

Awesome, but wouldn't it have been much easier to work with hot rolled material?

Definitely not,Heath.
Hot rolled has that filthy black scale all over it,and tends to be pretty hard.Cold rolled is what car panels are made of(or used to be)and is softer,and easier to work.
What made it tough to tap up was it is 1.6mm thick.This means it will be easier to TIG up,and will distort less.It also gives you a little more lattitude when sanding it up in regards to losing metal thickness.
It is also a lot stiffer,with such large flat areas,it should resist "oilcanning".
It should be a little more resistant to stone damage as well.

But most importantly,we had it in the rack at work,and it cost nothing.......

[wot179]

Looking very good, cant wait to see the end result.
Noticed you have a nice collection of manifolds there plus I hope you make the most out of those Radial T/A's, cant get them anymore AFAIK.

Thanks for the wrap,Mello.

Theres a pic of all the manifolds in a thread here somewhere.(Theres 35 different ones at the moment!)

The TA's are brand new,they were fitted to the pickup about a year ago(a bit over) just before it was shipped over.
They must still be available in the states,try contacting some importers.

[Heath]

Cheers for the info. I've worked with black and bright steel before but not thin sheetmetal; I just assumed that bright was harder because it was cold rolled. My bad

Points about the thickness make perfect sense

[Bart]

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I recently notched the rails on my Chevy pickup,and while the tray was apart getting new wood,I decided to build some new wheeltubs,coz the old ones were crap.

Spent yesterday and this morning messing about,heres some shots so far.
More later.

How about a little technical write up in the fabrication section?

[wot179]

Got to give it to you Craig , your a bundle of surprises love the pickup . Are you going to turn it into a RAT ???!!!

Its good to keep people guessin,Bruce.hehehe

No rattier than it is,mate.The paint is a bit average,its what I would class as a typical american paintjob.
A real good thirty footer if you know what I mean.
Ive just gotta stop messing around with it ,put some miles on it and have some fun.
Its been registered two months now and it hasn't been further than around the block.
I really want to go drag racing again,and I need to start the next project.Got almost all the bits,just gotta find the time.

I'll try and get the tubs finished this weekend.
If I remember,I'll take some more detailed shots of the other side when I assemble it.

Cheers,Craig.

[wot179]

OK
Ive decided to do it properly.
I should have taken more photos before I started but forgot.



This is pretty much what I had to start with
There were some pretty crap boards in there to start with
and a fuelcell held in with occy straps.
Bloody Americans.

Anyhow,I pulled the back to bits and decided it need to be lower.A buddy had some old Formula HQ Springs lying about,So I bolted them in with a set of extreme duty Konis.
It sat pretty good.


The only problem was the diff sat 5mm from the rails.

So I did this




Plenty of space now.

I removed all the tray supports,repaired,sandblated and painted them.
Bolted them back in,cut and stained a bit of ply,made some stainless trims for around the edge and got up to here.



This is where I started to take heaps of photos.(sample at top of thread)
Look out.

[wot179]

I wanted nice smooth tubs.
The ones you can get with a hammered pittsburg lockseam have their place,but I wanted something more.

I started out by making this timber buck




Its just 2 bits of ply glued together and cut out with a bandsaw.
I sanded a radius on the edge with a 7inch sander,and that was my pattern

Then I used the pattern to mark out the tin for the sides.I pretty much guessed about 15mm larger than the pattern using a texta taped to a block of wood to space it out from the buck.

Then I did this



Sorry I didnt get a shot in between.
I clamped the tin firmly on top of the buck ,underneath another bit of ply to stop it from moving.
Then I dressed it over gradually with a big plastic deadblow hammer.
It was a little stubborn on the curve,but it came up OK.



In this shot you can see a return fold that I put on with a folder before I started hammering.You can also see the slightly uneven edge where I dressed up the radiused edge
I tidied this edge up using a panel hammer and a dolly I made with a lump of steel and a grinder



I needed to even the edge up before I started tacking it together,so I made up a little scratch gauge and marked it like this.



Then I touched it up using the flat face of a 3mm cutting wheel.
This works great.Be gentle if using this method,Do not use the edge of the wheel.

[wot179]

This is one of the top sections I formed earlier



An edge was folded up at 45 degrees before I put the ends through the rollers.
The rollers flattened them out,but gives a nice straight line to follow later



I started tacking the top to the sides using the trusty mig



Taking care with alignment now saves headaches later.
I started in the middle and worked out.

[wot179]

Then I had to dolly over the return edge that secures the tubs to the bed.



First I clamped it down tight so it wouldnt move.



This is the hammer and dolly I used.





Gradually tapped it up



Till it got to this.

[wot179]

I now had to tap over the straight section





I used some old RHS I had lying around and some clamps to help keep it all straight and minimise hammer marks.



Then it was time for the old hammer and dolly to finish it up.
(The welding magnet is only there so I could take a photo)

[wot179]

I had to do the same thing on the ends






And tigged it all up.



Then touched it up with a sander.




And thats where Im up to.

Gotta fix the HT wagon now,so I probably wont touch it for a couple of weeks.
I know its not a Torana,but hopefully some of you mad fabricators can steal some of the methods I've used on your own projects.
More later.


And dont forget your safety boots.

[wot179]

[quote name='Bomber Watson' date='Jun 20 2009, 05:59 PM' post='411829']
Looks very nice mate.

How do you cold shrink the corners that neat???

Every time i try it either straitens out the bend on that half of the radius or wrinkles up into a massive mess....

Cheers.

Using cold rolled(bright) steel helps heaps.Zinc coated material is not the go for this application,its just too hard.
I bang on about it a bit in another thread somewhere(squarepants?)
Just take it gradually too.
Also,when you use a hammer,dont hit straight down at the surface.
Kind of sweep the face of the hammer across the material in the direction you want it to go.
The metal then gets pulled where you want it to go,rather than just hammering big dents into it.
Tighter radiuses are harder to do.

[rodomo]

Between you and lx8vd77, can you knock me up one of these?
Either one, I'm not fussy.

[rodomo]

Body on that is fibreglass Rodo, send me a blank cheque and i'll send you a glass body.

Cheers.

Ha ha! I knew that Bomber, steel would be fine, like I said, I'm not fussy.