The next job I decided to tackle was the rear crescent infill panels. The first part of the process was to de-burr the edges of the aluminium where the laser cutting process had left lots of rough edges. A good sanding block and a set of various files are needed to do this and it is always handy to have a pack of plasters!! Yes, I managed to cut myself ... again!!
Anyway, once I was bandaged up, I was ready to move on to the next step, bending the tabs over. This is a simple process but should not be rushed. I took each tab in turn and clamped a right angle off-cut of aluminium to bend against, and clamped it together. It was then a simple case of using 2 thumbs to bend the tab so you bend it square to the infill panel.
The whole job takes about 15 to 20 minutes and the end result looks like this.
The next stage is to line up the panel. This is where a bit of lateral thinking is required. Where should the panel sit? Well I looked at the where the rear panel would sit and this runs over the flat part of the chassis rail where the roll bar sits so I took a flat edge and clamped that and that then gave me a guide as to where the curve of the crescent should be.
Once that is lined up, it is a simple case of clamping it in place as best you can and then following the same process as fitting the other panels. Mark the panel where the rails are, remove the panel, draw a centre line, mark off 50mm points (2 inches), centre punch, drill the holes, de-burr, offer up the panel, drill a couple of guide holes into the chassis rail, fix with self tapping screws to hold in position, drill the rest of the holes, remove panel and clean debris, rough up the contact points to get a good bonding surface and apply a bead of Sikaflax or similar.
Finally put the panel back in place and add all your rivets, in this case I used 33 per side.
And the end result is a very neat inner panel that is very securly fixed.
Finally, repeat the process for the other side.
No comments:
Post a Comment