Last Post of the "Summer"
A last week the steel came in, with the amount of bodywork that needs doing we decided to make a rotisserie for the car and had some sheet metal shipped along. The total came to about a 270 euro's with shipping which we felt was quite reasonable, they swapped some pieces in the order so more is coming(at least we got some free steel).
We decided to weld in the braces for the doors first these should give enough support to allow us to remove the sills. There are also a further two more braces that will be mounted from the rear wheel arches to the front wheel arches for which the steel is still underway.
I'll upload a plan for the rotisserie later but its basically the same as: 1750GTV105.44
http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/gt-1965-1974/170260-1968-1750-gtv-race-car-build-2.html
Thanks for the idea.
With the main carrying beam running through the front grill into the transmission tunnel, with the load being supported on the front wishbone mount and the rear trunion mounts. Halfway there is also a support on the gearbox mount, this mainly to prevent bending of the beam under the car and will not bear any considerable load.
This also means the chassis will be tied into the structure thus becoming load bearing which means we only have to worry about the short distance between the mounting points and the stands. Before we ordered the steel I had calculated the different amounts of bending we would get for the various steel profiles, in the end we opted for a nice big 80mm square stock with a 2mm wall thickness which should be ample. For the stands and mounting points we opted for a smaller 60mm seeing as these both span smaller distances. Well the calculations all add up but I think the achilles heel in this plan is my welding with no previous experience I hope my welding will have enough structural strength.
So far the welding for the panels has been good although I feel a smaller wire size would give me a tidier and smaller weld with less to clean up. Going through the shielding gas a little quicker then expected and its only running at 8l/min.
However for welding the rotisserie I feel I havent quite managed to get the results I want.
Although the weld appears to be strong holding my weight and resisting abuse by mallet, I am not getting the penetration I am looking for. The machine is maxed out at amperage 10B wire speed 2,75 for any fellow powertec owners. Currently its running on 240V which is single phase here in europe, I am pretty sure this means its only using one of three transformers. This being a 400V 250A 3 phase unit with 3 transformers, this probably means its only running on 1/3 capacity 75A. This seems low considering I still get decent results, I'll have a little fiddle around this week to see if I can put in a 400v socket by the kitchen.