Quote:
Originally Posted by CalgaryZL1
Not criticizing just pointers,
I’m a welder fabricator in the concrete and aggregate production industry and do a lot of fabrication and engineering. If you are seriously thinking of doing some production with this awesome design which I think you should, you will have to tweak a few things like add compression sleeves in your section of tubing where it bolts to the car to prevent compression on the tubing allowing to tighten it without any deflection and also allowing you to move to a lighter gauge steel in certain sections for weight loss, large diameter fender washers are not sufficient because they are usually a soft grade 5 washer.
Also boxing in (capping it by welding in a flat bar) any open sections of tubing not allowing water in and strengthening the overall design. We all wash your cars usually with water although some people dry wash but not everyone. And building a fabrication jig to make your life easy for production. I really do love the design, and if you were able to produce them at a reasonable cost with reasonable effort, I think it will be very successful.
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Great pointers Calgary! I appreciate you taking the time to write that up!
As for the compression sleeves, that would not be hard to add... and to be clear, this detail was not lost on me... First I tested one section, using some longer M8 bolts, and keeping the holes center in the center of the 1x2, then using an oversized (OD and thickness) washer to transfer the pinch force closer to the shoulders... I could NOT a torque spec in the GM manual, but based on other M8 fasteners, I torqued these to 15lbs, used some blue locktite, and did not notice any noticeable deflection. I would be worried to torque more than that considering these M8's are threading into some nutserts, that are pressed into the end of the frame rail with a thin end cap (seems like .125" aluminum or less) I will run this idea past by buddy to see how much cost this might add.
I also like the idea of box welding the end caps... or, perhaps to save cost... I can silicone in some plastic caps to save cost and weight?
Anything else you can see for improvement?
Definitely want to swap out the 1x1 square with a one piece, 1" round tube...