Sunday, July 31, 2011

BBQ fish

Made a rotisserie for working on the underside. It's not quite finished, this is a trial fit. Good fun spinning the car around, and it sure makes getting through the layers of shitty underseal on the bottom easier.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Mopar Missile

Here's a quick concept image showing the front of the Kuda. Bring on summer!
Here's a little bit of the recent work. Around the door and window apertures I've added one or two plug welds between every factory spot weld.

Cut some templates to the inner roof skin shape and had some RHS bent up by Dydo manufacturing. These were for bracing the roof, and I had figured I'd tie the roll cage into these braces where they joined the sail panel structure. However I now plan to tie the main hoop to the sail panels via the upper seat belt mounts. That would make the horizontal brace unnecessary weight. And the roof is one of the worst places to add weight. So now I'm not sure I'll use these at all.

I milled them full of holes on one side to lighten them. I drilled the bottom of the horizontal piece thinking that I wanted the maximum surface area to glue to the roof skin with panel-bond epoxy. However after thinking about it I decided the upper surface was a better choice as there is still plenty of area for the roof skin to bond to it, and the weakening from the lightening holes would be offset by the roof skin. So I milled the holes into the top of the diagonal piece.

Here they are sitting in place, they fit up against the roof skin perfectly. If I did decide to use them I'd get another horizontal piece made up and drill the upper surface.

They were a good exercise, but they seem unnecessary now and I won't be adding them.


I've added a handbrake to get rid of the shit, factory, foot operated parking brake. Plus the subframe connectors get in the way of the factory underslung cables. Don't know if the parking brake mechanisms in the drums are up to handbrake slides, but it would be fun if they are.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

 Doubling up the factory spot welds, tripling in many places.

 One of the base plates for the main rollbar to bolt to. 3mm steel with 10mm nuts welded on.

Welded in place.

Mockup of the foot plate and roll bar.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Interior

Here's a quick concept of the Kuda interior. The side intrusion bars are removable for the ladies.

Friday, July 1, 2011

That's better...   Overkill unless I roll the car.

Rear Brace

Making the rear brace for the half-cage backstays to mount to. First off a 3mm plate on the chassis rails. I drilled the chassis rails so I could plug weld to the plate when I weld up the underside.

 50x50 3mm RHS.

3mm top plate. This is what the backstays will bolt to.

The RHS braces extending rearwards to 3mm plates on the chassis rails, plug welded through the floor. Some really awkward places to weld...

Lateral bracing. Upon reflection while they would be suitable for stiffening the body for better performance, they aren't strong enough to count as a roll structure. So I'll cut them out tomorrow and put something beefier in...