Milestone #1--a completed chassis

Well today was a big day for me. I spent another three hours at the shop. first item of business: welding and grinding down the faces of the firewall and the front bulkhead that the beam rails would be welded too.

next up i coped (or "fishmouthed") the ends of lower center rails that go through the firewall so they could be welded to the lower rear crossmember. this was a little tricky, and i got it wrong three times and and grind it down farther each time. i wasnt using the right tools, which would have helped.




once all of that was properly aligned, and the frame was aligned against a wall, i set the lower side rails (complete with unwelded crossmembers) on the ground against each subframe. the lower rails were tacked, then the crossmembers. next i positioned clams to hold the upper rails and dash crossmember up while i tacked it in place. all in all, after my three hours of work, this is what i have:

while it's still not 100% complete (i still need to add all the 1" pipe triangular bracing, and gusset plates), it is everything i could do with my initial shipment of metal. so everything that was once just a pallet of rough cut steel, is now a part of this chassis somewhere. next up is triangular bracing and suspension wishbones.

total fab time to date:
25 hours

-gecko