The BAD AST Project - Faze II

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Not much to report. I spent Monday and Tuesday evenings rebuilding the lawn mower deck. Last nite I got some new pieces cut out for the rear rail/front rail interface.
The pic below is of one of the rails I got from Alston. Ran into some problems with those not being "linear" around the bends...

The front half of the RH rail is .50" lower than the rear half. Not a show stopper, it just creates a set-up issue that has to be taken into consideration. The LH rail is different from the RH so it will require a different set-up.
The spring hangers are not dependant on the rail height. They register on the bottom of the crossmember which is still square to the table.

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I got a LOT Done today.
There is actually a complete chassis sitting on the table in the shop. Mel was over and helped a ton getting the back half jigged up, squared and welded.

Getting the "twisty" rear rails squared up was the big problem.



In the next pic you can see how we end up getting the back around the rear shackle hanger square and letting the front go where it needed to. The front is a little out of alignment but it is do-able

This isn't all bad as the front of the rail "floats" inside the spring hanger. Once all of that rail was welded in we build the spring hanger box to tie the rear rails to the front.

Building the spring hanger box and tacking it in. The twisty rail disappears into this box so there is really no evidence of the misalignment after welding.

Have a few welds to complete tomorrow. Fill the C notches up front and add another brace to the top side of the front to rear rail interface. That will get done tomorrow.