Custom a-arm suspension

[66brm]

Those blocks of wood make my welds feel better about themselves, awesome work, can't wait to see the next update

[Ol'fogasaurus]

As a thought: get some lengths of all-thread with a nut on the bottom (or long fully threaded bolts that you will use upside down) for a base as this works pretty well for figuring out the dimensions also (a probably legal mockup not for the actual mounts ). Add two nuts to act as jam nuts then put the assy into a bolt hole from the bottom; repeat 3 more times.

Then using the bottom nut as the base (smaller base than 2Xs) you can worry the jam nuts up (and down) to adjust the height and tip back then lock in place. When you have it all done you have a good solid measurement(s) for the new seat mounts and it should eliminate any bad language as the seat is fighting you over what you are doing.

Lee

[vw1970]

or as AVE would say; "Dead tree carcasses" haha i'm no wood elf but I can sure stack the hell out of some 2x4's

Those blocks of wood make my welds feel better about themselves, awesome work, can't wait to see the next update

I like your suggestion Olf', I hadn't thought of the benefit of doing that and the headache and smashed fingers that could save me! Thats how i have the body/frame suspended on the chassis table and I could essentially just copy that system. Still need to spend the big dollars on the pedal box from tilton to have all the drivers controls together for placing the seat. It would actually be the most expensive piece of drive interfacing equipment of the whole project so I'm kind of dreading it

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Hanging pedals we just talked about in Leather's build. Advantages and disadvantages to each hanging and floor mounted assys'.

I've learned a lot on your build also.

Lee

[vw1970]

i decided i liked the under foot tilton layout for various reasons but mostly packaging. I mounted them on a raised and bent peice of 12g steel that will house the nuts for mounting and provided way better rigidity than the 14g floor pan would as it also spans from outer pan rail to the tunnel. it also allowed me to scoot it back another inch or so which is huge since i was worried it'd be to far forward, placing the seat to far back from the steering wheel and shifter.
I also acquired a shifter assembly that you can see hiding in the first pic. It's a stock shifter from a 2015 wrx that matches the transmission and should be fairly easy to make use of.

IMG_20190504_093751 by Travis L, on Flickr

also finished the upper control arms and they fit wonderfully
IMG_20190504_093925 by Travis L, on Flickr

next order of business will be making seat mounting rails and brackets ass well as lower control arms so i can finally hang the rear wheels to deign coil-over mounting bracketry, toe links and sway-bar mounts

[Jadewombat]

I'm a welder by trade and take pride in my welds more than most welders you might meet. I also work at a small fabrication/machining job shop so it enables me to have access to a lot of equipment without the large company profitability/insurance hustle so I'm kind of cheating hahaha.

Yeah, I was a fabricator for a while at a place, Hated the hillbillies who worked there, and smoked near constantly in the shop, but you get spoiled having access to a big h-saw, plasma cutter, 40-ton press brake (I made), and TIG setup. Sigh. I don't miss that dusty shithole otherwise.

Keep up the good work!

[vw1970]

The large gap since my last post has been spent doing a little redesign and relaxation. just finished up resembling the tunnel and welding in the floor pans. Here's a few action shots including most of my clamp score from last week from a large shop i once interviewed at the is now closing down. All slide clamps in picture were had for $20 a piece with a retail new between $100-$280 each!! Needless to say it came in super handy today.

the next step will be adding weld nut's to the under side of the pedal cross member for attaching the pedal assembly and welding it in place. Then likely doing the same for the seat mounting rails which will add a lot of rigidity to the center section of the tunnel. then onto welding out the front and rear tube sections that now pass through the front and rear bulkheads to add more mechanical attachment between the two

IMG_20190630_120440 by Travis L, on Flickr

IMG_20190630_120625 by Travis L, on Flickr

[H2OSB]

Thanks for all the praise everyone!!
next time I'll include a short disclaimer before I post weld porn as to not have anyone else disowning their children lol

I'm a welder by trade and take pride in my welds more than most welders you might meet. I also work at a small fabrication/machining job shop so it enables me to have access to a lot of equipment without the large company profitability/insurance hustle so I'm kind of cheating hahaha.
In the last few days I've obtained some sweet seat through a little Craigslist fuckery. Finally finding the coolest miata club member that needed a good excuse to upgrade to some aftermarket track seats.. To my benefit!

Just blocked up the seats to roughly oem seat base height and they fit wonderfully. I've seen a few on threads of people putting these in vw based buggies and as an aftermarket upgrade to the oem seat in type1's. I have to say they fit so well i'm glad the other seat options ended up falling through. These were had for $400 for the set in 9/10 condition.
IMG_20190421_191838 by Travis L, on Flickr

Also I got around to tacking together a control arm jig for the uppers in the rear. used a chunk of .25" hot rolled for the base because it was cheap. I made my own adjustable camber links out of a couple full thread grade 8 1"-14 4" long bolts. I had the machinist notch the hex end portion to fit against the bushing sleeve after i turned the hex off on the lathe and attempted to hole saw notch the sleeve profile in the head unsuccessfully. Only burnt up two hole saws on the mill after getting half way through one bolt head and work hardening it.. Need to do some bending and notching but I'll get to that later next week.
IMG_20190421_191714 by [url=htztps://www.flickr.com/photos/155952545@N05/]Travis L[/url], on Flickr

I, too, have Miata seats in both of my Supers. It's amazing how well they fit, and how much they look like mini 911 seats.

Keep up the good work!
H2OSB

[vw1970]

Miata seats are something I came across as an option on another forum and while pondering what other production car that is similarly tiny. Definitely seem like they will be a great choice for my 6' 140lb frame.

I did get some time this morning to procure some weld nuts and install the pedal "pedal-stool" lol

IMG_20190701_141658 by Travis L, on Flickr

IMG_20190701_141830 by Travis L, on Flickr

[Jadewombat]

This is great fabrication you're doing. I don't mean to be rude, but those flat panels you have for the floor section will be very loud every time the car hits a bump. The factory put bends in for strength and to reduce the noise considerably.

I redid the drivers' side floor section of a vanagon a couple of years ago (replacement panels are of course NLA on these cars). Maybe add a few cross-sections with raised portions (like you have under the pedal cluster) 2-3" wide with speedholes drilled in them??

[Ol'fogasaurus]

This is great fabrication you're doing. I don't mean to be rude, but those flat panels you have for the floor section will be very loud every time the car hits a bump. The factory put bends in for strength and to reduce the noise considerably.

I redid the drivers' side floor section of a vanagon a couple of years ago (replacement panels are of course NLA on these cars). Maybe add a few cross-sections with raised portions (like you have under the pedal cluster) 2-3" wide with speedholes drilled in them??

That is very true and I should have mentioned it. While the thicker material does have an advantage over the stock design, as far as strength goes, the pan it still going to want to flex/twist, and do other nasty things that, while they are so small we usually don't notice them, still causes aging of the materials.

The body adds some additional support to the pan and spreads the loading around as does the tunnel but the tunnel, especially in open cars like buggies, can set a bend in the tunnel (usually in front of the shifter hole) or even start to crack (usually by the e-brake hole where it is more common when/where the pan is shortened for some buggies. The tunnel does a lot of work that is not always noticeable.

Bead rolling the flat stock is one way as does the flanging of holes and slots but flanging of pass-thrus' is going up one step further. If you notice that the forming on the stock pan is horizontal to the tunnel with the exception of the footwell for the rear seats and the body to pan mount along the outside of the pan.

The seat mounts also add some structure but I don't think it is that much but "anything in a storm" can help.

For what it is worth: on my buggies I have added a body lift which, when I got into the blue one the first time, I didn't have to sit to notice the difference in the rigidity (non-flexing) of the pan. The addition of the 1" square tube in the body mount area was more of a bust so I would recommend a 1X2, with proper wall thickness, instead.

Lee

Additional thought: First of all, your work is top of the line and a pleasure to look at (out of jealousy too )!

One of the things that distracted me from the floor itself was the way you formed the tunnel. I think, and I mean think, that the bends in the tunnel should be/maybe be stronger than just a "hoop" and now allow the tunnel to flex/bend front to rear as easily. What I am not sure about is strength when twisting/torqueing as the arc itself is disturbed by bends (you can see why I am not fully sure).

Anyway, good job on the build and I will be watching for sure.

Lee

I've only drawn up one part that comes even somewhat close to what you have done and that was a flat pattern for an intercostal which was done maybe close to 50 years ago.. if not more. It was an odd thing we had to do so there was a lot of discussion (mostly for my benefit) from experts in the field of structural bending/forming f metal. The one I did had piercings for pass through objects hence the flanging of slots and holes.

[vw1970]

i do appreciate the suggestions and encourage others with problem solving thoughts and or experience doing this sort of build to chime in at any time. That said I had already planned on relying on a way more stout than stock seat mounting scheme. Others may have beaten me to the punch but I guess the saying rings true; "great minds think alike".

I took some time today to add the seat rails that have practically the same cross section as the outer pan rails with fine thread m10 nuts welded to some 1.5"x1.5" 12g backing plates for safety sake. My thinking being that if the nuts were to want to pull through, they'd have to pull through 0.190" of steel to do so as it will distribute the load in a wider area that way. The nut are the same hardware used on the OEM miata seats so it seemed like a good fit to me.

I intend for the seat rails to have a few different main functions.
One, helping mount the seats in a very solid manner as opposed to the OEM VW style Popsicle sticks not bridging the tunnel or outer pan rails.
Two, by bridging the area between the tunnel and pan rails it will effectively keep the center most section on the tunnel from spreading(with the addition of bracing internally on the tunnel later on) under a mid ship load such as jumping train tracks and landing squarely with all four wheels.
three, By spacing the rails at even intervals spaced along the pan sections it will reduce the unsupported areas on the pans which will potentially make the most noise down to around 18"x18". which i have deemed mitigatable with the application of sound deadening materials.

i'll address the issue of a twisting tunnel when I get a little further along in the build. I have already given it some thought but the list is long

IMG_20190704_192904 by Travis L, on Flickr

[vw1970]

Made a little more progress today!
I received my parts from Australia today and slapped on the snycro nose cone conversion housing on the trans after gutting all the gears and differentials out of it to make it WAYYYY easier to move around. Then fabed up the rear tube frame and stabbed the engine and trans back in to re make the transmission mount. seems to fit like it should everywhere it needs to. I didn't get a picture of it but i used some twine taped to the nose of the trans to simulate where the driveshaft will be and it's looking really good. The angle off the trans will be less than 5* judging from initial mock up but will likely be even less once finalized.

I'm starting to formulate ideas about running radiator lines along the bottom of the tunnel opening

In this picture the engine and trans are actually hung from the pan section and not supported separately

IMG_20190707_161507 by Travis L, on Flickr

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Do a search on driveshaft angles. It is interesting and opinions vary between 0.05° and 2 1/2 ° and even that I am not sure of. The angle on IRS half-shafts is different from driveshaft angles.

Lee

[Jadewombat]

The angle doesn't mean anything on an IRS car, it's the length of the half shalf. I seem to remember if it can do full travel you add 1/2" cup to cup or something.