Howard you might need a horizontal link tube between your body upright frames as an aid the stiffness (see photo) my body has a stressed aluminium skin which creaks and groans a bit but has not cracked in 20yrs use. There is no structure forward of the the centre hoop just a support rod to the firewall and radiator but the fuel tank is at the rear, just a suggestion. Terry,
I will have a light channel section between rad cowl and bulkhead to secure the bonnet. With the tank fitted the front end seems quite "tight" but I probably shouldn't rely on the tank to provide too much stiffness so a bar between might help. I'm kind of relying on the stressed skin concept to take care at the back but as SWMBO wants doors (and in fact I can see the positives as we approach our seventies) I think strength and stiffness midships is an ongoing issue. I can always put another angle rail just below the bottom door line.
Your special looks awesome! A pic of the less than naked car would be nice?
As mentioned in an earlier post I've been tidying up welds and painting and drilling mounting holes in the sub frame that will carry the plywood body. But I found a problem. I had used the existing body support bracket on the rear crossmember as a model for new brackets which incorporated my body subframe. This included an identical dimension for the brake cable guides. See pic below. I'm holding the original bracket with the new fabricated bracket below (oops dirty finger nails!). Today I found that the brake cable would foul the subframe!
A quick check on my RK (similar short chassis just 1 year younger) showed that the brake guide support brackets were completely different. They do not incorporate a floor pan mount and cantilever the cable guide much closer to the chassis. Second pic.
I will fabricate new brackets which will hopefully move the brake cable closer to the chassis, spring and away from my body sub frame!
Been a bit busy galavanting around (Guildtown, Brecon etc etc) so work on the car has only just started up again. Main developments have been forming the flitch plates and hot riveting them and the bulkhead to the subframe. I've also given the completed frame a coat of Technogrip. I am quite pleased by the strengthening piece I made for drag link clearance.
Yesterday I bolted it down onto the chassis in preparation for skinning it in ply.