My '75 2002 Sleeper

[Habla]

Sheet metal fender flares! Or any other curvaceous metal panel...

[freeride53]

i can't deal with this stuff. too hawt. op, keep doing what u do plz.

[LJ851]

Not to give away too much, but I came to the conclusion I'll be needing this in the near future for "things". Kudo's to those that know what it is and what it does.

Stargate.

[willworkfore30s]

Nut Cracker?

Na, my guess would be:

Air hammer or English wheel.

Either way some metal shaping awesomness should ensue

[Bmwdayz]

Definitely a huge English wheel!

[IronFreak]

It has a deep throat.........

[JCarp90]

It has a deep throat.........

So do you.

[tinkwithanr]

I'm gonna say, english wheel or some kind of press.

Go with your gut lol.

^Nope.

Google planishing hammer.

Nope, please play again.

I've missed these updates! It's good to see you working on this again.

:pimp:

What is he going to make with that contraption?! sub'd

Stay tuned....

Sheet metal fender flares! Or any other curvaceous metal panel...

You might be on to something.

i can't deal with this stuff. too hawt. op, keep doing what u do plz.

:up:

Stargate.

Yes.

Nut Cracker?

Na, my guess would be:

Air hammer or English wheel.

Either way some metal shaping awesomness should ensue

Quite on point.

Definitely a huge English wheel!

:up:

It has a deep throat.........

So do you.

I'm not sure I like where this is going...

[tinkwithanr]

So knowing what my wheels and tires were going to look like, I've had the idea in the back of my mind that the turbo flares weren't really going to cut it anymore. So I've been slowly adding to my metal working capabilities in case it came to coming up with something on my own. I'm also going to need to make up some parks for the cb350, namely an aluminum tank and seat pan, so I should get plenty of use out of the equipment.

I put this planishing hammer together a few weeks ago. This is used to help rough out more drastic shapes, and then you can move on to the english wheel to smooth them out and fine tune them:





I've had this bead roller for a while now. It started off as a Harbor Freight cheapo model, but then I added a LOT of reinforcement and some style:




Next up is a Beverly Shear. This is used to cut the sheet metal into shape, and it is especially good at complex curves and tight bends that would be much harder with air shears.





Then we have a cheap metal brake. I found it for sale locally for dirt cheap, so I picked it up a couple months ago. The plan is to beef it up much like the bead roller, as well as add fingers to make it a true box brake.





With the English Wheel pretty much complete (of course I forgot to take a picture with the wheel and dies in place, I'll grab one next time), I wanted to start figuring out what the flares might look like. I'd done some CAD renderings, but they never really did it justice. The best way to judge something is in the real world. So some TIG welding rod and a lot of blue painters tape later, I had a VERY rough idea of what it was going to take to contain the tires.




They are a bit hard to really capture with just a picture, which is one of the reasons the CAD renderings never made me that happy. I will say that I'm much more confident now that I've 'seen' the idea on the car.






Overall I think these should be pretty original on a 2002. All the flares I've seen before, whether they were pig cheek, box flare, gruppe 2, or turbo flares, is that they always stay below the beltline trim. Which always leaves an awkward transition between the upper and lower sections of the body. My idea with these flares is to keep the main design cues and body shape (the indent that runs below the stainless trim along with the sloping curve that follows below that) while pulling the whole body out to cover the extra track width. The majority of the extra width will be carried by the section of the body directly above the beltline trim, which includes the hood, trunk, and body below the rear windows.

There is still a lot of design work and details to work out, including how to mold in the rear bumper, rocker panels, and come up with a new front air dam. But hopefully this design will end up being somewhat unique, while still carrying a strong period/motorsport vibe.

I mean honestly, how hard can it be??

[JCarp90]

I never know what to say here, so I'm just going to clap. I'm so excited to see how this turns out.

[Jb325is]

Man, really cool stuff in this thread. I just found it and I have a lot of catching up to do. I'm taking a metal forming class next semester as an ME elective and can't wait, so i'll be following along with this for sure.

[deutschman]

I am very happy with all this activity!

[E30NJ]

Wow!!!!

[DrLeadFoot]

Keep up the good work! Your thought process throughout this build is better than the actual work! Simply amazing!

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

[dirtbag30]

woow! can i come live in your garage?