450v

[Kevinxkrazy]

Very impressive work

[dvallis]

Chopper installed. Bolted to the bench and bench tied in at 3 corners.



Concept for attaching tube frame to rolling chassis. 1" ID tube cut in half, welded to the 0.5" OD tube frame. Tabs will be held by bolts into the 1" OD rolling chassis tube.





Obviously I'm not using that tube. It's just some 1" ID drop laying around.

[dvallis]

Tested some new TIG tungsten. Turned out pretty good

[dvallis]

Frame tab test







We'll finish it off with a threaded marsin into the large tube, then bolt into that

[Northern]

Tested some new TIG tungsten. Turned out pretty good

Tungsten so good it creates a space-time paradox.

[dvallis]

Just seeing if you guys are actually reading this :-)

[dvallis]

Tack welded tabs holding the tube frame to chassis



Here they are before finish welding



Drilled each tab and the frame tube with 1/8" then quarter inch. Drilled the frame tube with 7/16" bit (technically should have been 23/64" but oh well) and installed 1/4-20 RivNuts and bolts.



It's solid. I'll do the other side then fab the final front brackets. They'll be a bit more complex given the geometry. Once that's done I'll clamp and tack weld the nose onto the quarters.

[dvallis]

Getting better at welding tabs on the tube



Final product before adding rivnuts to the whole thing. I'm really satisfied with the way everything is lining up. Nose mates nicely with the front quarters and everything sits on the chassis correctly.



Waiting for more 1/4-20 rivnuts and a 25/64 bit from Amazon.

[dvallis]

Nose tabs



Welding prep. Yes, really



TIG welding is great



We're gonna need a bigger boat (i.e. I need a bigger welding table)

[dvallis]

Front end mostly complete. Talking to a shop about a bigger welding table tomorrow.

[tomstin]

How is this project going? I'm sure it's hard to wrench, photograph and document. Best wishes!

[2mAn]

dvallis

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1958-maserati-450s/

Lets see whats going on with this thing?!

[dvallis]

HEY! Here I am. Thanks for checking in 2mAn. I didn't think you guys wanted to see me bending tube 4,000 times. I have good news though.

THE TUBE FRAME IS DONE. Almost.

Here's the front view, on the frame


Then the rear view, missing the tail cone


And now the final tube frame, on the welding table, with the tail cone.




That's all hand bent steel tub, TIG welded.

It needs a tail cone so that we can remove the tube frame from the corvette chassis. We move it with an overhead crane.


Next steps are:

- Finish welding on some tube frame joints
- Bab tail cone attachment tabs
- Coat tube frame with trisodium phosphate (rust converter, inhibitor)
- Paint large and small tube frame with Rustoleum black enamel
- Weld unify large and small tube frames
- Align body to chassis
- Install bushings between tube frame and chassis
- Move tube frame to rolling support frame
- Start forming and installing aluminum panels

[dvallis]

And we have baby shop Vultures now. So that's cool.