Since the last post most of my powdercoating has been finished, I built a differential, and seam welded the majority of the car.
TOOLS!
First - some new tool purchases.
Some hole saw cutters from Blair for sheet metal and spot weld cutting. These are fucking awesome.
Spot-weld cutter arbor assembled. The pilot is a spring loaded pin that merely keeps the cutter centered. No need to worry about drilling all the way through and damaging your bottom panel.
Porter Cable 15" Drill Press
Mittler Brothers 4-pc Dimple Die Set (1/2", 1", 1-1/2", and 2"). Good for use in up to 1/8" mild steel. They're made from 12l14 tool steel, with Rockwell 58 and 20-30 hardened deep case.
Got some new welding PPE too. Got tired of how loose the headgear was on my old helmet so I bought this guy.
Also pretty unrelated to the rest of this post, I've decided to rebuild my engine wiring harness pin-pin with milspec wiring. So I've been depinning all my connectors - fortunately all it really required is patience and a safety pin to release them from the housing.
I also started playing with my tubing flaring tool again - Ridgid 377 for JIC flares in some 1/4" seamless stainless tubing. The lingering steam vent hardline project I started a while ago and had since put on the back burner was starting to irritate me.
After a bunch of practice flares, this seemed to be about the best I could get it. The whole process is extremely sensitive to how the tubing is prepared / deburred before flaring and it took me a few times to get it right. I'd say surface finish is ok - it's not a mirror finish or anything but it's about as good as I could expect given the texture of the interior of the tube.
I marked the sealing surface up with sharpie and pulled it tight against a male -AN fitting. When I pulled it apart all the sharpie was gone, suggesting that I have a pretty broad sealing surface, but I'd still like to leak check some samples before I make the lines for real. On a low pressure application like the steam vent, I'm not really worried. But I'm also going to be remaking my brake and fuel hardlines with this same tool, and I'm not nearly as tolerant towards failures there.
I followed these guidlines for size: http://www.hoseandfittingsetc.com/technical-info/jic-tube-end-assembly/. Took me a couple times to get the depth set right, but it seems like .075" - .080" above the surface of the tool will provide me with ~.360" OD at the flare. I might make myself a depth stop to make the process faster and more fool proof.
REAR STRUT TOWER REINFORCEMENT
Moving on. I have been working on reinforcing my rear shock towers to give me a footing to weld a strut tower brace onto. I will be building that out of .120" wall DOM, which will also tie into my subframe mount reinforcements.
The sides are 16 gauge steel and the top is 1/8" plate. I had tried to do the sides initially in 1/8" as well, but it was too stout to hammerform as I was welding in on. Tacked in place below.
Welded
Top detail
TRUNK FLOOR, OR THE LACK THEREOF
During the above process, I got the brilliant idea to cut out my trunk floor, relieving myself of the capacity to carry a spare tire, in order to run a true dual exhaust - or dual mufflers should I say. I originally wasn't going to do this to keep more of a stock-ish outward appearance, but I liked the idea of adding more flow capacity to the system overall while maintaining sufficient noise reduction.
After some cutting, I was left with this.
Note that I also cut out the top layer of sheet metal that was covering the rear subframe mounts.
Since the spare tire well provided a good amount of support for the subframe mount tubular section, I decided to throw a piece of 1"x1" in there to help support it.
Next I welded in this floor extension piece to bring it flush with the rear-most portion of the subrame mount channel. I welded this in from the bottom side of the car, grinding it flush as I went to help ensure everything will be watertight.
I then started laying out my first few patch panels to box this section in again. Putting my dimple dies to work in some 16 ga sheet
Then broke out the bead roller and made this guy
Here's everything roughly laid out - you can also see all of my subframe reinforcement stubs that are tacked in.
Tacked
Bottom seam welded
Top panel welded in. I welded the seam in front, then hammered the excess over rather than cutting if off. I like to tell myself that it adds a little more rigidity to the structure, but it probably doesn't make a difference. I ended up needing to cut the clearance holes for the subframe stubs bigger to give me room to get in there with the gun / torch when it's time to weld it out.
That's about where I'm at with this at the moment. From here I have to decide how to construct the rest of it. I have to find a place for the charcoal canister (which was in the spare tire well), but I also want it mounted such that I can actually use the trunk for some storage space when I need it.
IN OTHER NEWS....
My carbon-fiber sunroof delete panel came in from S2R Tuning. It's a nice piece - great finish on everything. Fit is still to be verified.
My first decent real TIG weld ever! I needed to weld a 19mm nut onto the end of my lug not tool for my fancy spline drive Mcgard lugs for the WRX. In case of a flat, this will allow me to remove the wheel and reinstall the spare with the wrench included in the boot without needing any additional sockets or adapters.
We also had a big ash tree taken down that required some clean up. Emerald ash bores had its way with it and had compromised some pretty big limbs to the point that they were a liability. The largest base of the tree eclipsed 40" in diameter.
Ash sure does burn nice though. Gonna have a ton of firewood for a while - this is only a fraction of what was split.
