70 Hemi Superbird Restoration..................errr.....scratch that........

[69 GTX]

Warm weather this weekend! That gets me motivated!

 

[Bigal75]

Looking good!

 

[Lighthorseman]

I love your nose-attaching idea. Once you do so, please be sure to document it well. I'm saving all those pictures.

...Come to think about it, since you've already done all the tedious measuring and figuring, would you be willing to bend up another pair for someone like me?

 

[Hemirunner]

Looking good!

Thanks Al!

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I love your nose-attaching idea. Once you do so, please be sure to document it well. I'm saving all those pictures.

...Come to think about it, since you've already done all the tedious measuring and figuring, would you be willing to bend up another pair for someone like me?

My setup isn't using the factory spacing and gasket. These tubes would also require the reinforcements that I put on the upper and lower yoke. They also will not work with the z-braces which you'll need to mount the headlight buckets. If I have enough tube, and you still want to go this route, I will bend you up a set.

 

[Hemirunner]

My last two posts are gone. Awesome.

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^^^^^^^sarcasm.

 

[sparcy]

looks awesome !! ben there !! I can smell the welding looking at the pics . I build all my stuff in my head next is a split between a promod and a real daytona street car all steel body !! cutting slicing and fabbing !! WAHOOOO !!!

 

[Hemirunner]

Ok, so after getting my last few posts deleted by whatever upgrade was done, I'm going to try and repost it. Anyway, I managed to get a little work done on the car in between work, engine building and trying to keep the wife happy. Anyway, since I couldn't weld the nose bars on yet, I decided to jump around and do a little more work on the cage itself. This will be an SFI 25.3 certed chassis which will be legal (not able) to go 6.50 in the quarter mile at 3600lbs. This chassis all starts with what is aptly named the #1 bar. If you'll recall, I made 3 attempts earlier to get this bar right and finally did. It's the one in the middle.

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This bar will be on the floor, behind the seats and will go from rocker to rocker. At each rocker, a 6x6x1/8" plate is required. I bent these up on the SWAG press brake attachment in a Harbor Freight 20 ton press. They came out pretty decent.

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With both plates made, I cut through the trans tunnel of the rear floor to get the bar down where I wanted it.

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After getting this tube in place, I was able to use up the second non-usable #1 bar by forming it into an upper drive shaft hoop. I really don't like this bar and have determined that I most likely won't use it. It's pretty ugly and really looks out of place.

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Note the hole cut in the floor board on the left side of that picture. It's there to fit tubes that will go back and tie into my front spring hanger boxes.

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Here's a shot with all the tubes in place so far. You can see both tubes going back to the spring boxes from the #1 bar. Note the shiny spots. Those have all been cleaned for welding.

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You can see the comparison here. The tube on the left has been polished to remove the mill scale. The tube on the right is as delivered. You really want to prep this stuff to get the best weld possible.

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With the #1 bar done and in place, next up was the main hoop. Since I've never built a cage before, I watched all the youtube videos I could find and found this one particularly useful.
https://youtu.be/yyvQwxcijpA
It's a little slow and dry, but the content is solid. They suggest laying out a template, so I did.

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This was a real useful way to get the bend angles as all I really had to do was measure them.
Since the bar was 11' long to begin with, and I always work alone, I had to figure out a helping hand to hold the bar while I bent it.

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This worked out real well as both are on wheels so it could all just move around as I watched the pointer on the bender degree wheel.

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Here's the first two bends on the template. So far, so good. The next two bends were the critical ones. If I missed the starting point of those, it would either be too narrow (not a big deal other than visually) or it would be too wide which would make for another scrap bar. My target was 57" wide with 57.5" being my absolute max width.

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After the second two bends, you can see the results.

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The template is 57" and the bar ended up 57.5" or just at my maximum width. Let's hope that sucker fits!!!

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Well..... here you go. It fits. This is the initial placement and really got me to rethinking my #1 bar placement.

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Here's the view of the whole thing so far.

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The problem with the near vertical main hoop is illustrated here. Not only is the hoop too far forward at the top, pushing the seat that much farther forward, it's just visually unappealing.
I've never really like the bar in this position. The main hoop should have been leaned back.

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By moving the #1 bar forward, it leans the main hoop back to the point that it really follows the line where the window trim is dividing the front and rear windows. The perfect place for the main hoop to go.

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This side view illustrates the angle. It's just about 9 degrees.

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Much better. This is why nothing will get welded until it's all built and fitted in place.

 

[daytona kid]

Very cool ! Wish I had leaned mine back now..

 

[69 GTX]

Very Nice!

 

[Hemirunner]

Bent up the rear hoop this afternoon.

Still need to notch the ends at a 10 degree back angle to meet the main hoop.

 

[BigBlock61]

Definitely makes me want to go out and get a tube bender. That video makes it look easy.

 

[usaroadrunner]

Damm your doing a very nice job with this...looks awesome.

 

[Hemirunner]

Thanks guys. I'm taking my time trying to figure all this out as I go since I've never done this before. If you learn the bender like any other tool it's not too bad, but one missed measuement and you just created scrap. On most short bars, you can't manipulate the bend by hand so overbending produces scrap as well. Lots of measuring/calculating going on for so little bending.

 

[69 GTX]

Yep your right, takes awhile to figure the spring back out. I like 680 certainium for tig rod on moly.

 

[Hemirunner]

I managed to get the ends of the rear hoop notched at a 10 degree angle and fit in. I think it looks just as I had envisioned.

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The fit up is pretty good to keep the tube from pulling and you can just get the screw in and out.

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Next up is the inverted hoop inside the main hoop!

 

[Pops1967GTX]

The Love this Post......

outstanding hemirunner!!!!!! SEXY!!!!!!

 

[Hemirunner]

I have post envy....

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Here's the inverted hoop fitted into the main hoop.

 

[BigBlock61]

Why the inverted hoop and not just a straight bar? Just curious and looking to learn a thing or two.

 

[Hemirunner]

The inverted hoop puts that bar right where it needs to be to intersect the lower rear double frame rail. The upper rear double frame rail will intersect the rear hoop. This is all being done to sfi25.3 spec so it will look something like this

 

[Hemirunner]