Project Chili Pepper

[TomT]

The stands were designed to work with some leveling feet that I purchased from Carr Lane.


Here a stand is loosely fastened to the jig.


Everything leveled up nicely using a digital level I picked up from Sears.




Next step - stations (crossmembers) to attach the frame to.

[desids]

Wow, those adjustable feet are a work of art - nice design!

Desi

[TomT]

Wow, those adjustable feet are a work of art - nice design!

Desi

Thanks Desi!

[Norm Peterson]

Everything leveled up nicely using a digital level I picked up from Sears.

I'd rather see the height adjusters screwed down to the minimum heights that still give you a level plane to work from. There will be horizontal forces applied to it from time to time, which will try to bend the bolts. When you can't avoid loading threaded fasteners in bending you should at least minimize it. I am assuming that the frame will be sitting on the I-beams when you drop the body on it and jockey it into position . . .


Norm

[TomT]

I'd rather see the height adjusters screwed down to the minimum heights that still give you a level plane to work from. There will be horizontal forces applied to it from time to time, which will try to bend the bolts. When you can't avoid loading threaded fasteners in bending you should at least minimize it. I am assuming that the frame will be sitting on the I-beams when you drop the body on it and jockey it into position . . .


Norm

Norm - They pretty much are at the minimum. If you look at the close-up photo there are only a couple threads showing between the jam nut at the top and the flats on the stud at the bottom (some of the space between the two is a shoulder that is not threaded but it is still less than 1/8"). I also went heavy on the feet - they have 3/4" studs and are rated at 10,000 lbs each (as long as you don't have more than 2" of thread showing on the studs). The total length of the studs is 4". The DOM has a full 2" of thread which is 2.67x what is necessary for maximum strength (based on the rule of thumb that maximum strength is realized at 1x stud diameter). I figured 40,000 lbs of capacity should provide a sufficient margin of error considering that the whole car shouldn't weigh much more than 3000 lbs.

The frame will fasten to crossmembers (I'm starting out with 6 of them). I would like to add some diagonal bracing to the transverse I-beams at some point (and maybe in other areas as well). Once the frame is mounted to the jig I would think (and hope) that we would be able to tell if any more bracing was needed.

Tom