71 Wheeling Rig

looking forward to watching this all come together! i love watching people spend their money and putting projects together!

 

same.

 

Looks familiar. North 40?
I have the same one on the B. It killed me to cut the extra 19’ off.

 

Yep North 40! I couldn't pass it up when I saw it there. And yeah. I need about 18 inches of the 20 ft cable.

 

Because I can’t throw anything away, ever...

 

I was going to post that it's still in your shop somewhere. Beat me to it.

 

Had a little hobby time tonight.

I decided to straighten out my fresh air duct. I redid the lower mount to the radiator cowl and now it's square with the radiator and the duct output doesn't slant down so much. I'm much happier with it:


But now I need to cut this off and re-position it next time I have the welder fired up:


Then it was on to some more CAD work. This disk is 2" bigger in diameter than the fan for a 1" clearance all around. Here it's matched with the motor location on the radiator. The Jeep has stock motor mounts and my radiator is centered in the chassis. You can see how much Jeep moved the motor to the driver's side to make room for the front driveline.


And on a mock-up shroud:


From the top:


This is a little tight. I'll probably angle this side in 30 degrees or so for more clearance:

 

CAD = Cardboard Aided Design?

 

yup.

 

Exactly. Term stolen from ITLKSEZ.

 

Term stolen from Project Binky crew.

 

i first saw Colin Furze use the term. if you don't know who he is, you're missing out.

 

Some sorta progress tonight.

Test fit the CAD shroud. Needed a little trimming to center the fan cutout, but I'm happy with it:


Actual shroud metal marked up:


Used a piece of aluminum to guide the plasma cutting. Otherwise it looks like a drunken sailor did it:


All cut out:


The first short bend for the mounting flange went fine. I sandwiched the sheet between the welding table and a piece of angle stock. It hammered over without too much effort.


The next bend to took me the rest of the night. I'm using 14 guage sheet to make the shroud and I had a heck of a time bending it. Here it is clamped to the welding table ready to bend:


But bending 20 inches of 14 guage sheet was not going to happen easily. The first attempt was pounding with a large hammer and a block of wood. This had no effect. So I grabbed the two longest wrenches I have for leverage:


That got it to 45 degrees but the wrenches were hitting the table on the back side of the bend. After more pounding and frustration, I used my large Channel-Locks to squeeze it within 10 degrees of done:


To get it the last 10 degrees, I clamped the bent portion to the table and used the rest of the shroud for leverage to bend it downwards. Then I did little hammering to sharpen the bend:


That took over an hour and was a really un-fun. I need to attack this differently. I could cut it into pieces and weld it together but it's hard to get all the cuts straight and keep everything square when welding. Instead, I'm going to perforate the fold lines by plasma cutting 1 inch slits with 1/4" of metal between them. Then I have 1/5 the metal to bend. Post bending, I'll seal up the perforations with the welder.

A sheet metal brake would sure be nice but it's not in the budget right now.

It does look like it's going to fit the radiator as expected so at least I did the measurements right:

 

Lookin' real good. While you're at it could you whip me up a new transmission tunnel cover?

 

That’s 2minutes with the proper brake. You might spend a couple minutes calling around town to find one.

On the other hand we do enjoy watching you work/struggle.

 

The struggle is real!

When I have bent 16 gauge, which is mostly what my 2a body is made of, I take a straight edge like you used for your plasma cutter and score the bend with an angle grinder. It makes the bend straight and possible, otherwise you have a bend that's round and warbley. I then weld like 1" stitches across rtes inside of the bend. Almost no matter what you do, with thicker steel, you're going to have some issue with this.

I bought this 6HDPB20TFBA-SWAG 20 TON Finger Brake Heavy Duty DIY Builder because ITLKSEZ had good luck with his. One issue for me is that you have to mess with it to get really crisp bends by using different angles and steel dies to achieve this.

I bought it when it was 300 bucks and I thought it was at the upper limit of what it was worth, but you can still use the press by pulling the assembly out. I got my 20 ton harbor fight press for 75 bucks new because it was missing the handle. They aren't really worth more than 100. My ram is not square, I need to cut it off, face it in my lathe and weld it back together...

 

I’d tell you to bring it up, but 20” is my limit, and with the sides sticking out, it wouldn’t fit in the press. If you get the opposing bend done, I can do the other 2 sides.

 

Are there any sheet metal company’s in your town you can take it to and have them brake it. They will need a special brake to do it.

 

I think that shroud design looks great!
I gotta question your use of 14ga steel..... That's pretty beefy....

 

Yeah, these bends are 21" and 22". Just slightly too big. I need to order one of those brakes you and Chris have. They are are cool.