The BAD AST Project - Faze II

[astroracer]

Will, You were right. To much movement to heat & bend. I talked with a few people in another thread about this also and the end decision was cut and weld. Ideally I also needed to invert the ballstud (ballstud pointing down, rather than up, as the stock Astro was oriented) so cutting and rebuilding was beneficial. I also talked with the owner of Iron Mike's (Mike) in Flint and after looking at my situation he ultimately recommended the cut and weld solution.
That is what I've been working on.

I had yesterday off so I broke out the sawsall and grinders and modified the two spindles.

You can see in thes pics I have ground the existing support ribs down to the base web thickness. I did this on both sides.

This will give the new support plates a solid foundation for welding. Everything has been ground down and chamfered for good weld penetration.
I did a LOT of grinding yseterday. It was hot and I was sweating and my arms were ORANGE...


Making the fishplates to support the new tie rod position. The plates are 3/8 inch thick and will be plenty stout when welded in.

If you look back at the first couple pics you can see that the old arm "hung" out in space. I am taking the new plates all the way in to the lower ball stud area. I think these will be plenty strong.

I have the RH spindle ready to go to Mike for welding and just need to make the fishplates for the LH spindle.
Once this is all welded together the modified portion on the spindle will be stronger than the unmolested part... As you can tell I left the plates a little oversized. After the welding I will grind everything down and make it look purty.