volvo p1800 into ferrari 275gtb spyder: v12, 5spd, tube chassis

[C5GTO Active Users Find all posts View Profile Close C5GTO]

To finish the firewall I'm still unsure if I want to seam weld and dress all the welds or just tack it every inch or so and neatly mask and seam seal.

Looking NICE!

As to the welding/finish question, have you considered rounding off the edges? This would make butt welding the pieces together (welding on near flat instead of 90 degree joints) and finishing off the welds much easier. The edges can be easily rounded with a T dolly and hammer. I think a rounded edge will also provide a more aesthetic look on the interior tunnel. Probably easier to cover with carpet as well.

I'd certainly secure all seams with more than tack welds and seam sealer. It might be overkill but I'd weld all the firewall seams. Having hot air, fumes and noise leak into the interior isn't good.

I just made some T dollies for fabricating my GTO engine covers. Pics posted on that thread. They're easy to make and use.

[String Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close String]

In a bid to keep you rollin' and progress being made we can all follow ....and enjoy , a couple of thoughts before final welding would be to use a bead roller and roll a 'T' or 'X' shape across each of those panels ...similar to the panel just visible at the base of the 'A' pillar and possibly lining up with the floorpan pressings.This would greatly stiffen the panels and avoid any tension across the panels when they distort after welding.
To weld those panels , making a 3/4 inch folded angle strip to place along the joins would give you a greater surface to weld to ..or even spot weld.
Just some ideas incase you were having a dry spell, keep up the good work.

[275NART Active Users Find all posts View Profile Close 275NART]

That was a really good idea to use a T shape dolly, I just saw in your thread Joel. Next time I will have to do that. I'm okay with this as of now. The whole interior will be sprayed with sound deadening and then have sound deadening (dynamat) applied over top. This should help with radiusing the carpet over the hump later on and add some rigidity.

String a bead roller is on my list soon! I definitely have to have it for creating flanges on the body parts.

[275NART Active Users Find all posts View Profile Close 275NART]

I have some progress on getting the car steering again and I finally started on the rear axle upgrade as well.
The steering column and wheel are from a saturn vue with power assist (obviously). It was really straight forward to fit up. I forgot to document how I did the mounting brackets but it was very simple.







I was able to use the factory firewall grommit as luck would have it it

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The shaft already had a splined to 3/4"dd joint where it attached to the steering rack on the saturn. It was also the perfect length and that made it easy to connect to the stainless steering shaft material I purchased. I am going to anchor the section of steering shaft that runs parallel to the inside of the frame rail using a 3/4" heim joint. I will weld a threaded bung in the frame and the heim will thread in to that. It will also allow the steering shaft to be pushed off the frame rail a little bit as well. You can see there is some interference with the joint and the frame rail close to where it comes through the firewall.

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Next I have started on the rear axle. As I may have mentioned earlier it is out of a late 90s ford explorer. Disk brake 3.73 gears, 31 spline axles. It was originally 59.5" but by cutting down the driver's side axle tube and using another passenger axle I could make it 56.5" to match the front axle width.



no turning back now...

Using a little angle iron on either side allowed me to keep everything true while I tacked it up. I used a straight edge on the axle tube all the way around the circumference to double check as well.




Now I can move on to fitting it up in the car with adjustable link bars and brackets.

[275NART Active Users Find all posts View Profile Close 275NART]

Throwing this in here because I thought it was a neat photo.

[Satant RaM Member Find all posts View Profile Close Satant RaM]

Next I have started on the rear axle. As I may have mentioned earlier it is out of a late 90s ford explorer. Disk brake 3.73 gears, 31 spline axles. It was originally 59.5" but by cutting down the driver's side axle tube and using another passenger axle I could make it 56.5" to match the front axle width.



no turning back now...

Using a little angle iron on either side allowed me to keep everything true while I tacked it up. I used a straight edge on the axle tube all the way around the circumference to double check as well.




Now I can move on to fitting it up in the car with adjustable link bars and brackets.

I like how you weld. Do you use a MIG welder? I want to learn how to weld like that. The past I weld it all come out chicken pox.

[275NART Active Users Find all posts View Profile Close 275NART]

I like how you weld. Do you use a MIG welder? I want to learn how to weld like that. The past I weld it all come out chicken pox.

Thank you for the compliment! This is a TIG weld on the axle but I also mig weld. I am still a beginner but I learned quickly by spending a few days with a friend of mine who does it for a living. If you can take classes at community college or a weekend workshop I recommend doing that. There is a big learning curve for the technique and gaining coordination but the most important things for TIG welding are cleanliness, visibility, a proper fixture to hold parts, and being comfortable. The weld settings and torch setup can be figured out pretty easily. Generally I use an oversize #14 cup and gas lens when welding steel so I can have the electrode stick out 1" or more. With aluminum a #6 or #8 cup and gas lens. It "wastes" some gas but is worth it to get nice welds.

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I took the car to a friend's shop who does roll cages and traded him some welding work for this. We bent and tacked some 1 5/8" down bars to connect the A pillars to the frame rails. It's surprising how much this changes the look of the car at it's current state. Even though these bars will not likely be seen once the body is on I'm pleased with the design, clearance, and finished look. It also gives me something to build the radiator and bumper support from- I'm thinking I may make that removable so the engine is easier to remove and install later. I will be finishing the welds on the down bars soon and will seal up and epoxy prime the front end, firewall and floors. There's a little surface rust starting to develop, especially after transporting the car in this humidity, and I want to nip that in the bud before it gets out of control.

[275NART Active Users Find all posts View Profile Close 275NART]

A little update here, A lot has been going on for me but I have some progress to report. Doors have been cut down and roughly mocked up. I will need to build back the jams and door frames.















A friend scanned a scale model I have and is working on scaling and figuring out how to slice into 2d sections so I can build the buck from it. I have a few ideas how to translate the sections to wire, either using a projector, plotting it on paper, or CNC in cardboard or plywood. This part doesn't have to be pretty as long as it's accurate. The nose and tail sections will likely be CNC'd in foam to capture all the detail.

[275NART Active Users Find all posts View Profile Close 275NART]

I'm hoping the wire buck will turn out something like this:

[ncrazyballa Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close ncrazyballa]

nice work so far. How close will that body fit to your chassis? does the 3d model have to change in some areas for it to fit? If you need help designing the rib form in cad i can help you with that or i can even machine you negative molds for your body for rapid prototyping.

[275NART Active Users Find all posts View Profile Close 275NART]

nice work so far. How close will that body fit to your chassis? does the 3d model have to change in some areas for it to fit? If you need help designing the rib form in cad i can help you with that or i can even machine you negative molds for your body for rapid prototyping.

I have seen some of your work here on the forum and it's fantastic. I am planning to do the body in aluminum so I can build the large portion of the body buck, but I will likely be contacting you to cut the nose and tail sections as it will be easier to capture the detail, plus, a fiberglass nose and tail will be nice wall art for my shop after the body is complete.

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This is obviously a long overdue update. I was presented an opportunity to have nose and tail portions of the car 3d printed... yes, 3d printing part of the body buck! I bet this is the first time you will read that. While 3d printing full scale may not be an economic solution for building a whole car, there are a lot of opportunities to print detailed parts or molds (very quickly). I didn't even consider this earlier on in the build, because I just didn't know printing in this scale was possible. The massivit printer prints something like 1foot per hour for something of this size- it's nuts, and puts my rinky dink desktop 3d printer to shame.

While I could use these printed parts to build sheet metal panels directly from, I will be bodyworking and painting these printed pieces and pulling splash molds from them and will build the sheet metal from a fiberglass part instead.

After slicing to my liking, preparation of the model and printing was done by the sign connection in Gastonia, NC on their Massivit 3d printer and anyone who's serious about printing larger parts should definitely be talking with them.