The BAD AST Project - Faze II

[avewhtboy]

I just spent about 3 hours going through this thread from beginning to end, first time I looked at it. I can't get those three hours back but I feel like
I learned 10 years of fab so it was time well spent.

Really incredible project and kudos to you for sticking with it.

[astroracer]

I just spent about 3 hours going through this thread from beginning to end, first time I looked at it. I can't get those three hours back but I feel like
I learned 10 years of fab so it was time well spent.

Really incredible project and kudos to you for sticking with it.

Well thank you sir! I am glad you appreciate the work! I am also glad you aren't coming after me for those 3 hrs!
Part of the reason I am posting all of this stuff is so the "little guys" can see what can be done in a no name shop with a few hand tools and a little knowledge. I fully realize this is not a "professional" build and I also realize it is NOT going to be a top 10 Riddler contender at the Detroit Autorama. It will be far from perfect (it IS far from perfect). I just hope to open the eyes of the casual car builder to the fact that this stuff isn't rocket science and YES YOU CAN build it in your garage...(I see evidence that I am doing just that with posts like yours and the huge amount of "hits" the thread gets. Makes me smile!
Thank you again and keep tuned in. LOTS more to come!
Mark

[Grim]

I just spent about 3 hours going through this thread from beginning to end, first time I looked at it. I can't get those three hours back but I feel like
I learned 10 years of fab so it was time well spent.

Really incredible project and kudos to you for sticking with it.

Haha yeah I did that a few days ago and looking forward to the updates.

Great build thread and really shows you how much you can do with a little knowledge and a few tools.
Fab stuff like this at a shop (really almost anything major) the cost is not so much the materials as it is the labor. Example: Transmission shop for a rebuild kit pays $150-200 for the parts as long as it doesn't need a pump. The rest is labor.

I always take the money I would pay for labor and buy tools instead. :D

Mark: Thanks for taking taking the time to show just how much you can do at home.

[astroracer]

You bet Eric! Thank YOU for taking the time to follow my thread!

I have the rest of the week off! Took tomorrow so I can get all of my running done before the "dreaded" Black Friday crap.... Restocking the welder stuff and hitting my steel supplier for cut-offs and what not.
Here are a few things I will be working on once the tig welder is gassed up. I will be making these mounts for the trans cooler.

The verticle plates on the cooler will get welded to the shroud and I will mount the assembly to the body using some isolators I picked uup on eBay.

The round ones at the bottom are radiator mounts for a 4 wheeler. The upper mounts are 1/2" dia. expansion plugs. A 1/4-20 bolt threads into them and expands the rubber. This will support the top of the cooler on a couple of brackets that will bolt into the radiator support. The short pieces of aluminum tubing will get welded to the bracket to carry the plugs.
Here is a pic of my CAD model. The top brackets...


The bottom isolaters will thread into a couple of rivnuts in the bar.


I hope to have all of the radiator/trans cooler stuff, front wheel wells and inner fender repairs done by the time next Monday rolls around. Wish me luck.
Thanks for looking!
Mark

[wellis77]

Looks good Mark. I really like all the design you've done on these parts. Those isolators are great, I need to look into some of those.

[astroracer]

Hi Will, how have you been? Still overseas? Thanks for the compliments, much appreciated! I found the round isolators on eBay, they were cheap enough so I picked them up "hoping" I could use them for something. The expansion plugs I found at my local ACE Hardware. I was just looking thru all of the hardware they carry and found these. I immediately grabbed up a few and knew exactly what to do with them. At a buck apiece they were a good find.

I got all of my running done today. 245 dollars later I have new gas and some consumables for the tig machine! Part of the cost was the old argon tank i had. it was a dinosaur and about 30 years out of test!!! I had to pay to have it it re-tested which was 40 bucks and I also ordered a cover for the machine. After spending an hour or so cleaning it up I figured 80 bucks was worth it.

I hit my metal supplier also and picked up a nice sized pile of 16ga, 11ga, 1/4" steel plate and some 1/4 aluminum cut-offs. Quite a bit of metal for 35 dollars. The guys are good to me at Withers Steel. I am about the only one who comes in to sort through their drop bins. Lots of good stuff to be found there.

I also got a new toy dropped off on the porch this morning. A couple of weeks ago I did some test bending on the 1/2" hydraulic line with a Harbor Frieght hand bender I've had for years. It works real well on the softer stuff but this hydraulic tubing kicked it's ass... As seen here...

I found a nice bender at Speedway http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Tubing...nder,9848.html ON SALE for 140.00 with 7.99 shipping! It is missing one of the tube clamps. Easy enough to make out of some 3/8ths steel. ANYWAY.... After setting that up and running a few test bends in steel and aluminum tubing I am very happy with the machine.

With all of the dies it came with I think it was an excellant deal! I tried to bend a piece of 3/4" Sq. tube but I'll have to mount the machine on my bending post to do that. The 1/2" tube bent fine with the machine mounted to one of my jig tables. The 3/4" sq tube is a bit stouter.

Here is a 90 degree in some 1/2" aluminum tubing alongside the original test piece.

Here is a 90 in that same 1/2" steel line...

Much improved wouldn't you say? The radius is about 2 1/4" which will work fine for my application. That is probably most of the issue with the old hand bender. To short of a radius (you can see it is much smaller) which flattens out the tube.
Besides a bit of playing today I also got a few pieces cut out on the stomp shear for the trans cooler. The bottom bracket and the two verticle plates that will mount to the upper brackets.


I'll get out in the shop early in the morning and get these finished up before we have to leave for Turkey Day.
Have a good Thanks Giving everyone!!!
Mark

[avewhtboy]

I was wondering if you can go over how you determined where to relocate the tie rod end on your spindles.

I am contemplating something similar with the late model Blazer S10 spindle.

[astroracer]

This was all done inside the Performance Trends Suspension Analyzer software. My starting point for the suspension design was the inner pivot points of a Corvette rack. I developed all of the other points from those and the upper and lower ball stud points of the dropped Astro spindles. The program will tell you where the rack centerline, inner tierod points, outer tie rod points, roll center, ackerman and anti-dive will be. I ran through 10 or 12 iterations before I optimized the suspension points at their current positions. Katz (when he was working at Morrison's) really helped me out in determining where I needed to be.
The software makes this pretty simple as long as you have some numbers to start with and know what your goals are. Katz told me this is a 1G suspension if I can get the CG low enough. Moving the engine down and replacing all of the fixed glass in the van with CF panels will hopefully help a lot in that end.
Mark

[astroracer]

Got a good bit done today on the van. I did a little welding yesterday, read that "practice" welding, almost 4 hours worth. I am getting to the point that reading the puddle and dipping the rod (no nasty comments required here... ) are almost second nature. I still need to bring my consistancy up but at least I can do some decent looking welds on the outside corners.
Here are a few from the radiator shroud I welded this morning.


I know they aren't perfect but they are a whole lot better then what I was doing!
Fillet welds still kick my butt. I have some ugly ones I wont show you on the trans cooler.... I need to grind them out and redo them.
Here are a couple I did that aren't too bad. Pretty wide bead but that seems to be the way this stuff wants to weld. I am cleaning it and the rod, it justs take so much heat to get a good puddle going it ends up with a wide bead.


Mel and I got the left inner wheel well finished up and welded in today. We ran a bead on the inner skirt.

and tack welded in here.

This is the inside view.

Once it was tacked we pulled the panels out and sweetened up the mating edges. I welded the panels solid and got everything cleaned up.

Here you can see we were well on our way to having the panel welded in. Lots of spot welds.

as with the other panels this dude is solid with all of the welds complete.
While I was dinking around with the welder Mel was making the patch panel for the mangled right front inner fender. he cleaned up the mating surfaces,

made a pattern and cut a blank out of some 18ga.

We'll get some holes puched around the edges tomorrow and get this welded in so we can pull the fender back off. Right now the fender is the only thing holding the right front corner to the van!
One last gratuitous inner fender well shot

Thanks for looking!
Mark

[avewhtboy]

Nice work and thanks for the reply on the tie rod end, I down loaded the software and ran some simulations
through, posted on my suspension thread if you care to comment.

[astroracer]

Thank You sir, no problem. I have been following your thread and can only suggest you find a rack with inner pivot points where you need them to be THEN design your suspension around them.

Mel and I hit it again this morning. He was a bit late though... Having to drive on snow slicked roads slowed him up a bit. Criminy! Thursday it was 65 and today we have a 1/2" of snow!

We got the inner fender repair wrapped up. here is the panel he made yesterday, punched and tacked in. We got it this far so we could pull the fender. It's amazing how strong this was with just a half dozen tacks...
Inside the fender.

Outside

Rebuilt the missing flange and added some stiffeners to the joint.

This all got plug welded to the existing pieces. Not real pretty but it will get seam sealed and painted and, once the fender and HVAC are in place, you won't be able to see it anyways...

After a bit of grinding and wire brushing to clean up the welds.

I'll prime this with self-etching primer and throw on a skim coat of bondo just to seal it up. It will do the job and is probably stronger then the drivers side.


I tried to do some welding this morning but had no luck... :( All I was doing was making a mess. The trans cooler shroud has some nasty fillets in it and I just couldn't get a puddle to form that would bridge the gap and let me weld them together. Ended up melting a bunch of filler rod and getting frustrated... Put it away for awhile and I'll talk to my buddy at work about it.
I did get the upper brackets cut out and drilled.

I need to weld that little "bushing" into them to carry the expansion plug mounting sleeves. I will take these to work and have Jesse look at them also. I am pretty gunshy right now...
I got the lower radiator bracket mounted to the body also.

Drilled out the tube for #10-24 rivenuts and installed 9 of them. It will support the radiator with no worries. And it's nice to have all of those C-clamps out of the way.


Well that's about it for this weekend, thanks for looking
Mark

[astroracer]

Well, I took the cooler shroud in to work today and Jesse had it welded up in less then 10 minutes! We talked for a while and he said I am doing everything I need to do except not using enough heat. He was running the shops Dynasty 350 at about 140 amps while he was welding and it did a beautiful job! You can see one of his welds, that took seconds to do, where I spent an hour fighting it...

That will be where I go when I get the Tig back out. Probably tomorrow night. 3/32 tungsten, more heat and turn off the pulse.

I spent this evening getting the shroud placement figured out, bending the upper brackets and getting those mounted.


I need to get some 10-24 riv-nuts and a couple of 6mm ones for the lower isolators... Yea, metric. I may get some inch ones from McMaster Carr. They're less then 2 bucks apiece there...
Mark

[wellis77]

Looking good as always Mark. I'm looking forward to getting back and starting to play with my TIG so I can get some projects going centered on my cooling system as well. I'm actually moving back the end of January and won't be back over Christmas, but hoping I find time to get a lot more done once I'm living in the US permanently.

[astroracer]

Thanks Will,
After you get back home and settled in we'll have to hook up. I would like to check out Dart.

[wellis77]

Not a problem there Mark. I'd love to have you stop by and get some feedback/opinions. I'd like to stop out and see the van live and direct. I've wanted an Astro since I was in high school and yours gets giving me more and more ideas. I think my wife hates this website...

[Motorcitydak]

I have found more and more that I enjoy taking a lot of time building just one little part, seems like you do the same thing. Spending an hour making 1 small bracket may sound tedious but if it fits perfectly in the end it is well worth the effort.

When the van is done (drivable) are you planning to hit up some track days at Waterford? I hope so then when my car is done, we can meet up there; Will too if is stays in the area

[astroracer]

Hey Will, that's a definite. We need to get together just for the helluva it.
HI Steve, I do enjoy the fabrication! Mel is the same way. That's why you will see me doing a lot of the little, tedious work while I let him go off on his own and make templates and fab the big stuff. We have a good system most of the time, I do admit we have bumped heads on a few things but it's usually because one or the other doesn't quite understand where the others head is at.

I will probably hit a track day at Waterford. The co-worker who's MG I painted this spring won't let me live it down if I don't... I will have to have some drive time on it though. I have built a few cars and trucks and done a lot of suspension work but I have never built anything like this. I am kind of nervous about all of those hand fabbed suspension bits holding up... Know what I mean? I will probably have that thing on the hoist checking for cracks everytime I drive it...

[Motorcitydak]

I know exactly what you mean. Every piece of my car is being built by me and I am so nervous about a failure! I plan on painting everything grey to see cracks. Also I have some pretty vacant roads around me so I will probably put hundreds of miles on the car just around where I know no one else is in danger. Ill ditch it if I have to

[astroracer]

Yup, I'll be the same way. Taking it easy until I get comfortable with it...

I got a bit of work done last night. Nothing physical but it's done anyway. I had a dentist appointment last night which didn't take long at all. I drive right by my local auto parts store on my way home so I stopped in. We did a bit of research on the power steering fittings I need. Everything I am using, the '86 chevy pump, the '94 'vette rack and the '95 astro hydroboost all use the same fiittings. 16 and 18mm o-ring style. They let me borrow one to verify and it fit all of the 16mm ports. This makes it real simple. I will be ordering all of the fttings and hose I need through them. The ones I am looking at are less then 3 dollars each... I'll get pics when I get them. I'll mock everything and pull hose lengths, should go fairly smooth.
Mark

[astroracer]

HURRAY!!! The major sheet metal work is DONE! We got the right front wheel well finished up and all welded in today. We also got some closeout panels made and welded in. And, along with that, we cleaned up a couple of benches and swept the floor!
Here are a few pics of what we got done yesterday. Fitting and more fitting. This actually went pretty quick as we had already done the drivers side so we knew what to expect

This is the inner closeout clamped in place. We knocked off here Saturday. The same place we did last weekend. You can see the "bead centerline" marked out on the lower panel.

Today we rolled the bead on the closeout panel and finished up fitting it all in. Here is the closeout tacked and out on the bench.

Once we started tacking things together it went pretty quick.
All welded in.

This is one of the little closeouts we made to clean up the front of the new wheel wells. Compare this pic to the previous. You can see what we cut out and how much nicer this looks.



From underneath. This looks really clean and there is plenty of room for tire under here.


A couple of "clean bench" shots! This right here is a milestone all in of itself!!!


I have tomorrow off. Plan to do some running, picking up rivnuts at Grainger's, probably some power steering hose and I'll check on the Tig welder cover I ordered a week ago.
Thanks for watching.
Mark