FIRST FABRICATION

I was ready to put Alphie on the rotisserie until I saw this.

Page Eight:  Finally Fabricating!

I decided to spit Alphie like a roasting pig on my Homemade-Harbor-Freight-Engine-Stand-Rotisserie.  I modified the engine stands and got the rotisserie ready to mount an Alpine (that blog post is coming, soon).  But, when I looked into where to affix rotisserie to car, I found the front bumper mounts at the tips of the frame rails were No Bueno!  Rusty with stripped threads and someone had welded nuts to the ends to mount the front bumper, like I said, No Bueno!  FABRICATION BABY!  I’ve been waiting for this!

Shiny New Frame Rail Tips

My new fabrication bench, complete with sheet metal brake, lots-o-new metal fab trinkets and such kit, gets its first test!

I need to make one of these.  (From the Organ Donor)

Step One:  Trot out to the Organ Donor and rip off the passenger-side frame rail tip - by hand, no tools needed!  Yep, it is that rusty.  The avulsed (vocab word of the day) rail tip gives me something to measure without climbing under Alphie hundreds of times.  It also shows me how the Rootes folks put it together. 

I’m admitting here, without shame or apology, that I’m completely metric when I’m fabricating.  I can tell you exactly what half of 950mm is.  Don’t forget, I am an English teacher by trade.  I have no idea what half of 1 7/8” is.  No hate!

Step Two:  Destroy several file folders!  I saw this trick somewhere; make templates from file folders.  File folders are cheap, and I have tons of them laying around. 

Generically, the steps are 1) measure the dingus (many times), 2) transfer the measurements to a file folder, 3) cut the file folder to the shape, 4) trace the file folder template onto sheet metal, 5) cut the sheet metal to shape, 6) bend it, 7) weld it and 8) BAM! A new dingus!  (There are many other fiddly tasks, along with some screwing up, but those are the basic steps.)

The frame is made of boxed sheet metal (14 or 16 gauge depending), so I made two file folder templates: one for the inner frame and one for the outer frame.  Check out the pics of the file folder templates and the cut sheet metal cut from the template.  The templates work for the left and right sides; all I had to do was make the bends in opposite directions.

File Folder Template transferred to sheet metal.  The red lines have scribe marks showing bend locations

Sub-Problem One - Jack points:  Alpines use, as I see it, the sketchiest method of jacking the car on the side of a motorway.  I’m sure it works fine as long as you’re on a perfectly flat, level and dry concrete surface, but nowhere else.  The Rootes-provided “jack” uses an upward-angled, square stock gizmo that fits into an equally upward-angled square hole located just under the bumper attachment point.  A chap is to slide the jack’s angled proboscis into the square hole and, using the lug wrench, crank the nut on top of the jack to raise the tire off the (we’ll say) earth.  (Check out the pic of the “jack’s” base – a measly 2” diameter disc guaranteed to sink into anything less that Sahara-dry soil.  Best case: only have tire troubles in dry car parks (parking lots, to us yanks.) 

My generous description for this whole setup is “teetery”.  I suspect that, back in the day, smart Alpine owners bought a scissor jack on the way home from the dealership and chucked it in the boot.  Oh, and never, no matter the emergency, put any part of anyone’s body under an Alpine when it is precariously propped on its factory jack!

The Rootes Jack - Just don't use it!

But, in the spirit of authenticity, I must recreate the jacking point on my new frame rail tips.  To wit, I picked up some 1” ID square stock, which fits perfectly over the Rootes disability-waiting-to-happen jack’s prong.  I decided that the square stock needed some reinforcement so I welded a strip of 1” flat steel stock to the top of it.  You can’t see the reinforcement in the finished rail tip.  At any rate, I plan to keep a scissor jack in the boot.  The Rootes jack is only for show and/or demonstration purposes.

Sub-Problem Two – Substantial attachment points:  The Rootes folk used a ½” fine thread (of course!) captured nut for the bumper bolt.  I feared that I would need something more substantial for the rotisserie attachment point.  I discovered that “coupling nuts” exist and are used to connect pieces of all-thread together.  Of course, no big box store has ½” coupling nuts, so to the internet! 

Bolt Depot gets a shout out here – I love ‘em; they have everything.  I ordered four ½” fine thread (they had fine thread, a strike for authenticity) coupling nuts along with a length of ½” fine thread all-thread that I’ll use to attach a 2X6 to the bumper attachments and then the engine stand plate to the 2X6.

Step Three:  Cut out the sheet metal!  I did all the tweaking on the file folder templates.  (It took a couple tries.)  Next, I made the bends in the templates and matched them to the frame tip I yanked from the Organ Donor.  I only had to cut the sheet metal once!  Each piece bent up exactly like the template!  No wasted sheet metal!  (OK, a small confession:  the first inner frame rail piece I bent in the wrong direction.  I was making the right tip, and I bent the piece in direction needed for the left side.  No worries, I saved it to for the left tip!)

The front piece before I welded the coupling nut

Step Four:  Welding!  First, I welded the coupling nut to the front piece.  The front piece is a rectangular piece of sheet metal that I cut and bent to fit over the opening of the boxed frame rail (see the pics).  Once the front piece was formed and fitted to the frame opening, I drilled a ½” hole in the center of the front piece.  I grabbed a ½” bumper bolt, a washer and a nut, and secured the coupling nut to the inner part of the front piece.  Then welded the coupling nut to the front piece. 

All the pieces ready for welding - also the original and the left side rail tip welded up.

I drilled holes in the side of the sheet metal where the piece of square stock rests and fill-welded each hole.  Fill-welds simulate spot welds, are just as effective and a great way to glue together sheet metal where it overlaps.

When the 16-gauge sheet metal is bent to shape and welded, it’s quite robust.

Yours truly burning some wire!

Step Five – Grinding and priming:  I’m using flux core wire in my MIG welder so the welds aren’t exactly stacked-nickels clean.  The flux core wire leaves copious spatter and ragged surfaces.  (I’m learning to weld during this project, so it’s not all the machine’s fault.)

I have a myriad of grinding apparatus, both electric and pneumatic, and trusty hand files too.  With some self-etching primer, the pieces are ready to weld on to Alphie.

Step Six – Getting the tips even!  Step six requires many trips under and out from under Alphie to measure, measure, measure!  I’m looking for a fixed point on each frame rail where I can consistently measure to the rail tip for a definitive length. 

Once I build up the courage to cut the frame rails, I’ll measure from my fixed points to get a consistent distance to the tip of each rail.  I’ll spot weld each tip to its rail and measure a few hundred times more before I stitch the welds together and grind it all smooth.  I plan to fill-weld some scab plates inside the box frame at the junction where each tip meets its frame rail.  All part of my build-to-110% plan.  I will take it as a win if the frame tips don’t bend while I’m rotating Alphie around on her rotisserie.

If they do bend, I’ll throw a proper wobbly!  (Gratuitous Britishism for this post!  I’m rather chuffed I found a way to use it:)

Welded and ground down.  All it needs now is primer, paint and to be installed in Alphie.

Next Up:  Roasting an Alpine!

Captain's Log, Supplemental – Fitting the Shiny New Frame Tips

The frame tips are fabbed up, and they are a cracking bit of kit, in my (somewhat) humble opinion.  The problem is gluing them to the end of the frame rails.  Simply butt-welding sheet metal to sheet metal will not be strong enough.  The tips will bend/break when they hold Alphie’s weight on the rotisserie, not to mention if she takes a future shot to the bumper, perish the thought!

Like I mentioned in the previous post, my first thought was to scab in some sheet metal rectangles and fill weld them to the inside of the frame and to my spanking new tips, a fairly solid plan but…

A Flash of Duh!

At about 2AM one morning, a couple of things occurred to me:

1) I used 1X1 square stock tube steel to recreate the teetery Rootes jack points, which means…

The tip with the 1X1 fill-welded into place

2) The interior width of the frame rail is 1 inch – you know, because the jack point is 1X1…

3) I can extend a piece of 1X1 square stock into the frame rail box to give the tips the strength they need, Duh!

Such twilight epiphanies create groggy mornings, my mind races, and being a little too pleased with myself, I struggle against the urge to make a lot of early morning noise in the garage.  BUT I have a banging better plan!

Cutting the frame tips off was more involved than I expected.  Contorting the grinder inside the fender and lower valance was problematic.  I had to drill out spot welds and drop the lower valance to get access.  I probably would have had to remove the valance to get her on the rotisserie anyway.

Cutting off the old tips cleanly and squarely didn’t happen.  The first cut was a bit ragged; it looked like I chewed it off, but nothing that lavish welding and grinding can’t fix.  I also razed a rodent subdivision that had gone up during Alphie’s dormant years, ewww!

I cut a piece of square stock that runs about three inches into the tip and about five inches into the frame rail.  This piece will run along the top of the frame rail and be fill-welded to the top and both sides of the frame rail box.

Homemade panel separator
and requisite hammer 

A good plan until it met the enemy.  Welding the 1X1 square stock to my nifty new frame tip was easy, but fitting the other end to Alphie’s boxed frame required suffering.  To get a good weld to the frame rail, I could see I would have to remove a 6" X 3" piece of sheet metal that makes the outer skin of the frame box.  Sounds easy enough, right? - like when the instructions say, Step 2: Remove drivetrain. 

It took a grinder, sawzall, spot weld drill, air hammer, my handy homemade panel separating knife (see the pic), an hour and a half and a spot of blood to wrest it from Alphie’s grip.  Also, I had to keep the piece intact enough to measure a pattern for its replacement.  The rust inside the frame would have compromised the welds anyway, so all necessary work.

Like a good little fabricator, I vice-gripped the frame tip/1X1 assembly into place and measured, and scrutinized, and palpated, and pondered, and squinted, and measured…  The tip stuck out farther than the passenger side.  I cut 2.5 cm from the frame rail, getting a much cleaner cut with the entire valance gone, by the way.  Re-vice-gripped the frame tip to the frame and repeated the measuring/squinting cycle.  Eventually, everything was GO.  Time to burn some wire!

The tip welded inside the frame rail.  The square stock provides extra strength

I welded everything and ground down some solid if ugly welds.  The new frame tip is strong enough to rotisserize Alphie, but I decided to hold off fabricating the replacement frame rail’s outer skin until I can rotate Alphie so that I can weld without crawling under the fender well.

The yellow shows where I will fab a cover piece
that will become the outer skin of the frame rail

Can confirm that welding upside down SUCKS – note to self: get a welding blanket, those little sparks burn when they fall in one's lap and jump around the floor under one's bum.

Now for the passenger side!

Partially welded in.  I'll need to fill in the gaps and holes