Possums Ratty T-Bucket

Painting the front guards

2013-05-08T20:34:00.000+12:00

While in the garage working on my new "small" winter project I have also been chipping away at the job I hate the most ...painting.

The rear mounts are 95% complete, So I started on the front mounts. These were a complete nightmare to wire brush to get rid of the surface rust. Once I did that they got a coat of black hammerlite and then a sand and coat of zinc grey.

While I was brushing away with the hammerlite the seat subframe also came in for a coat of paint.

Left guard drying,

All done ready for top coats.

Next up were the underside mounts, they got a good coat of hammerlite. The fiberglass guard also got a coat of the final satin black.

All bolted together ready for the top coats.

That has take over 2 weeks of even work to get to this stage. Its rough, but should be well rust proof.

Extra strength for guards and fuel tank subframe

2013-02-04T08:54:00.000+13:00

After a "few" weeks away from the project I was able to spend some time on it over the last couple of days. Standing back and looking at the rear guard mounts I decided that I needed to add more strength. After a bit of thinking and trying different options I decided to triangulate down to the bottom roll bar mount.

Once again I had to do this all by hand and hacksaw. The first part required was and angle mount for the bottom mount point. This was done using 50mm angle iron. Once cut and drilled I bolted it to the chassis to start on the tricky up stay. This was not easy as there were no straight angles.

First cut was for the angle off the newly bolted on bottom mount. This was cut at an angle so that the up stay was as close to the guard as possible.

With that cut done, the real tricky bit was to try get cut the top cutaway. As it had to be at the right angle and also be a V to slot on the the angle of the existing mount. After a lot of hacksawing and filling I finally had the cut ready for welding. All I had to do now was repeat on the other side.....

The two finished mounts, all welded ready for grinding and a coat of paint.

Well after a bit of negotiating I was allowed in the garage for a good segment of time. The plan was to wire brush and grind as much as I could to get ready for some painting. That was the intention, but I took the opportunity to finish off the fuel tank subframe.

Removed Mounts and subframes that needed wire brushing.

The bulk of the subframe and mounts for the fuel tank were complete. I finished drilling the remaining holes to bolt the tank to the subframe, This was needed as I had to repair and straighten the mounts on the fuel tank.

I had previously purchased rubber stoppers to go between the subframe and the chassis. These were fitted. I could now see the final height of the tank and subframe when on the chassis.

Here it is all mounted up.

Now that I was happy with how it all fitted up, I needed to put some cosmetic skins on to cover the subframe and also the fuel tank tap. First up was the sides. After some initial drawing and battling with the tinsnips I had my first side done.

After tack welding it in-place a test fit was done. I must have taken that tank on and off over 50times. Once happy with the fit, rinse and repeat for the other-side. More trial and error and a little use of the hammer both side plates were fully welded to the subframe.

After I had finished the sides, It became obvious that I needed to also cover the gap created between the tank and the chassis at the rear. So after battling the sheet metal nibbler I had two strips 30mm wide that were used to create the skin for the gap at the rear. This was welded to the side skins and a spacer was welded in the middle. ( I forgot to get photos) Now the tank and subframe look like one unit and visually clean and tidy enough for the RattyT.

After some wire brushing the first coat of Hammerlite was applied. That was it for the weekend.

New fuel tank mount

2012-10-23T08:58:00.001+13:00

After the quick mockups with the new seat belt locations I needed to raise the fuel tank to give the extra clearance. I need to raise it about 25mm, I decided to make a completely separate subframe to mount the tank to, then mount the subframe to the chassis.

First job was to cut out the old mount tabs .... out with the trusty angle grinder.

Subframe mocked up, and sitting in the chassis. That is all I had time to complete. The plan is to get the subframe mounts completed and get it mounted in the chassis, still considering adding rubber mounts. Once that is complete mount the fuel tanl to the subframe.

Mock up

2012-10-23T08:42:00.000+13:00

Just starting to do a quick mockups of all the guards on to decide if I need to change them ... Actually after all the work on the rears Im not as happy with them as I was.

The rear guards, despite my efforts will still need some triangulation to give them extra strength. I think that I will either add the extra mount down to the bottom roll bar mount or add a completely new point... still deciding.

Front guards Part 3

2012-10-10T13:11:00.003+13:00

The next part for the guards is to weld on the mounting strip that the fiberglass guards will be mounted to. I wanted to try and have them match with the style of the rear guards with the srtip down the middle. I thought that this will also give the front guards a lot of extra strength.

The first tack welds on holding the steel strip in place.

A quick test fit of the fiberglass guard to make sure everything was still correct.

Repeat the process for the right hand side guard

The steel strips fully welded to the uprights and the uprights full welded to the mounts.

The next step was to mount the fiberglass guards in place to work through the final position and make sure that on full lock they cleared the radius arms. Below is all the mounting nuts and bolts.

First guard bolted on. even with only then three bolts it felt strong and sturdy.

Both guards now temporarily bolted. The red line is where the fronts will be trimmed off at.

The temp guards ready for tidy up, grinding and the trimming of the fiberglass guards.

A breezy Saturday morning and time to start the grinding and tidy up of the guards. The mounting rods were trimmed and the bases re-welded to the mounts for extra strength. The steel band was also trimmed to the red line market out earlier. All other welds were cleaned up.

After all grinding and tidy up was done I needed to finish the mounting of the fiberglass guards. Fiberglass is known to crack and break if there is to many pressure points. So to try and avoid this I used cutoffs from the steel guards to create large flat backing plates the the fiberglass guards would be sandwiched between.

After a little mucking around and lost of drilling here is the completed back plates of one guard.

A happy weird welder that I found in the garage ..... no relation to Wallace

After a full mock up of the guards were done I welded the bolts to the back mount plates. This is make it easier to mount and tight if required, and if any nuts did come loose the bolt wont rattle or drop out.

Final mock up of the guard mounted.

Both guards now complete.

I discovered an issue after it was all complete that guards visually look a little wide and over hang to the out side of the tire, its not centered as it had looked during mock ups. But I was thinking of getting a wide combo anyway so with extra width it will allow for that future plan, and hopefully they wont be on for long as its just for certification until I get my fender exemption. But it still bugs me a little, I can use spacers on the mounts to make them more center. Hopefully once fully painted it will be less pronounced.

Front guard : Part two

2012-09-19T07:11:00.000+12:00

Before I could continue with the guards I had to tap out the existing holes with a larger metric diameter. So after tracking down and purchasing a 8mm tap the two existing holes were re-tapped. Once this was done the downward mount could be bolted on to test fit and find were it needed to be welded to the main mount.

Down mount bolted on and the tack welded while in place.

Mounts taken off and fully welded. I did both at the same time.

Finished base mount welded up and bolted on.

Spacers taped on to the tire to get the guard to sit at the correct ride height so I can start to figure out the rest of the mounting system.

So here is the master plan, 12mm rods coming out of the newly created main mount, that the steel strip and fiberglass guard will be mounted to. Below shows the first one.

The debate I'm having is do I need more than three. I don't think I do.

The next big issue I have to sort is how to best mount the guards to the 12mm rods, stay tuned.....

Front guards : Part one

2012-09-16T13:17:00.000+12:00

While waiting on the transmission tunnel to cure I started on the very last major fabrication piece, I hope ! the front guards. In New Zealand unless you have a fender exemption your hotrod needs to have guards. I dont have my fender exemption yet, so I need to run with guards. I have completed the rears and now needed to start on the front.

I got some fiber glass ones molded from the steel guards thatI have made, the rears are all steel. I wanted the fronts to be as light as possiable due to the vibrations that they would experience and light weight would help with not having to have a huge mounting system. Well that was the theory.

The shot below shows what the old guards were like and the new unmounted fiber glass guard.

So after sitting and pondering what I wanted to do, I came up with a plan. Of course I had to use what I had in the way of materials, so the trusty 25mm box section was used. I was going able to reuse the mounts that the old guards used. So I just had to come up with the mounting design.

Same as the rear I wanted the guards to go on and come off easily, had to be a little differnet to what others had done.

So on with the show, I first cut 12 sections with angled ends, when pieced together they start to form a circle. The circle radius is close to the internal rim radius of the front tires.

Here's one welded up and the first mount also welded on. The mount was cut out of the old guard mounts. I have to reuse what I have.

Test fitting.

Once happy with how this was heading as a design, I welded up both mounts.

Over the weekend I was able to get out and cut one of the front steel guards up. I wanted the steel strips so that they would match the rear in design elements. It took for ever to cut the strips and went through 6 cutting blades.

The cut steel strip over the fiberglass guard.

I also took the chance to clean up the mounts. That was it for the weekend.

Fiber-glassing : Trans tunnel part two

2012-09-14T12:58:00.000+12:00

After completing the top side of the transmission tunnel and letting it cure for a couple of days it was time to tackle the bottom. First I had to remove the foam board. This was done with a chisel, then some time outside with a power sander to firstly get rid of the foam board and smooth the edges out.

Already for the bottom layer of glass. This additional layer should increase the glass layers to 6-7 and should make it super strong as well as helping with the structural strength of the cabin.

First layers of glassing done.

Once cured taken outside and trimmed and sanded, covered holes re-drilled and all the underside tidied up. Now I'm not sure if you are supposed to do this but once the clean up was done I did a covering of epoxy resin to smooth and seal everything up.

Final shot of the under side. Pretty darn happy with the result since this is my first time fiber-glassing on this scale. Now I'm thinking of all the other "things" that need glassing.

Fiberglassing

2012-09-10T12:43:00.000+12:00

After a little break and gathering some much need dollar resources for the next phase of the build we are ready to start the fiber glassing. I went all out and got a 4litre and pumps. I didn't know how much I would need and was pretty sure that once I had it and played with it I would find other uses for it.

My first little project with the fiber-glassing was to make a firewall recess for the steering universal. I used some left over mashey from a kids project. It created teh perfect dome shape for this first attempt at fiber-glassing.

I have never done fiber-glassing before so this was a trial by fire.

After a bit of playing around and learning as I went got a good 3-4 layers of glass over the dome. It was a good learning curve and I learned what worked best. The completed dome waiting to cure.

After leaving it for 12hr, not fully cured, and still soft enough to cut I cut the dome out.

I then tested fitted the steering subframe in and market where it fitted and cut the hole in the dome. I then marked out the size of the hole needing to be cut out, I forgot to photograph that part.

The dome all taped in ready for body filler and then fiber-glassing.

View from the firewall before and after body filler to smooth the joins.

The body filler sanded back and corner edges smoothed out ready for fiber-glassing.

First layers of glassing complete.

Shot of the "man" space with all the work in progress.

The next day I tackled the bigger job of the transmission tunnel. Earlier I had mocked up using foam board. I then also used body filler to smooth out the intersections to reduce the sharp corners to make it easier for glassing.

The plan was to fiberglass the topside with 3-4 layers, then sand out the back/bottom and glass that side.

After a couple hours of work the final top layer of glassing complete.

So that completed stage one of finishing the cabin.

Brake adapter plate

2012-07-18T13:59:00.001+12:00

One of the last items on the List from the Certifier was to have a adapter plate between the new brake booster and the older master cylinder.

I didn't have any means of milling a plate form steel or nylon so I decided to make my own by using epoxy putty. Its a two part putty that you kneed together and it sets like rock and can be filed, sanded, drilled and painted. Since the plate is not for strength, but for mounting support and just under compression it should be ideal.

The issue is that it sticks like sh@t to anything so I had to make sure that the contact surfaces were protected from the epoxy for fear of it sticking the whole assembely together.

The gap that the adapter has to fill, as you an see the biggest challenge is that its angled.

Preping the master cylinder so the epoxy wont stick to it.

I made a plate out of the foam board to use for the initial template, this allowed for easy access to to form the plate at the right angle. I didn't have time to take a photo of that process as the epoxy hardens quickly.

Basically I kneed up the putty and with the use of the foam template form up the plate at the right angle and made sure it covered the full area of the master cylinder mounting flange. Once it was shaped and the epoxy started to go off I put the master cylinder and booster together to make sure of the fit.

I separated it to make sure no epoxy was bonded to the different parts. Then I bolted it together to apply pressure before it fully cured to get a perfect fit. I will tidy up the excess that was squashed out.

The plate 90% cured, Left over night ready for cleanup filling, removing the monofoil and painting.

Job done, rough and ready but will work.

Rear guard mounts & transmission tunnel

2012-07-16T09:52:00.000+12:00

The final stage of the rear gauards is the inter mount holes. To make this acurate the guards had to be full assembled. I got the required bolts and buttoned up both guards.

The hole locations were marked out and then drilled out to 16mm, in three stages, 5mm,10mm,16mm. They were made this big so I can weld in anti-crush tubes as these will be tighted very tight. And since they go through the floor to the chassis also act as extra body to chassis mounts.

Crush tube ready to be welded in.

All the welding done and cleaned up. This pretty much completes the fab work on the rear guards. They took along time to get sorted. But are now looking pretty darn good. There will be extra work done once I finalise the paint and detail work for the RattyT.

But the objective to have easy on/off light guards was achieved.

I now had to finish off the interor holes. The wood floor was drilled ,but not the chassis below.

Final test fit with the mounts all drilled and complete.

Next big job was to start the transmission tunnel. I was planning to do this with wood, But after a bit of play I was going to be to bulky and I wanted to have it as streamlined as possible. So I decided that I would have to fibreglass it. Since I havn't done fibreglass before ... another first.

After some reading and basic knowledge from talking to other people who have done it I decided to fibreglass over cardboard.

I mocked up the tunnel in simple box cardboard as it was easy to work with and I planned to transfer to foam cored cardboard once I got the shape right.

Rough cardboard template transfered to the foam card.

The card is 5mm high density foam with card either side. I used it alot when doing my design course. Its easy to work with, you can use hotglue gun to join. It allows you to mock things up very quickly and it strong.

First part of the tunnel mocked up.

Complete cardboard work all glued in-place.

Body now off the frame ready for epoxy fiberglass, now on the hunt for a cheap fibreglass supplier.
The plan is to glass over the top, and also around the ply firewall, for additional strength. Then to trim and then do the underside of the tunnel in glass and the complete underfloor in resign to make it water proof.

The once clean chassis... now needs a cleanup and repaint ....

Seat continued & rear guards

2012-07-16T09:26:00.002+12:00

Continued work on the seat, I bolted everything on and checked the clearances again. All good this time.

Next was to look for foam for the seat, Luckily a shop called ParaRubber had everything I needed. The foam is upultory grade 100m. I didnt have the excat size so just got rough the right size. The smaller piece is 75mm and is for the back.

The final job on the seat frame was to drill out the front mount holes.

Now that the seat frame was complete I could work on the final mount points for the rear guards. One issue I ran into was that since the test fitting and mucking around I forgot to check the clearances of the diagonal rails I put in the seat frame. When the guard mounts are in place they hit those rails. So I had to cut notches into the rails, not biggy but another job ....

Put the guards together and buttoned them up, as I now need to do the internal mount points. The hole through the floor had already been done when mocking up the guards.

Shot of the interior with all the part in-place.

Later in the evening it was time to tackle the seat. I was just going to use my mexican rug, but it was just a fraction to small and I was worried that if I did just have that and it got wet... likely living in Christchurch that I would be a real pain to get dry. So I got some plan old black vinyl to cover the foam first and then Ill make the mexian rug into a throw over the top. So if it does get wet its easy to take off and dry and the foam will stay dry.

I marked out the foam and them took it back to ParaRubber to get cut, far easier them me trying to cut it without the right tools.

Test fitting of the vinyl and trying to figure out how best to do it without sewing.

No turning back now, all cut ready for gluing and stretching.

Front edge done first.

Tabs cut out ot make the corners easier

All done glued and stretched, corners done best i could, Its only to keep the foam dry.

Test fit, its sure is comfy, if alittle to high, but I'm sure my fat arse will compact it over time.

Seat continued

2012-07-13T08:27:00.004+12:00

A fine day, so with D2 (Daughter Number2) having an assigned nap ... time to get some work done. Next step is to make the seat base, Now on my trusty trailer wood working table I marked out on 18mm marine plywood the base, using the skill saw the base was cut out in quick fashion.

Sitting in its new home.

Next was to make the seat front. After some mucking around and jigsawing a 8mm plywood the front was made, had to have cut outs for the gear selector and hand brake cables.

Seat Frame

2012-07-10T13:36:00.003+12:00

Now that I have the seat belts sorted I can start on the interior. With the change to the seat belt mounts the fitting out of the interior should be "easier"

Challenges are making sure I can get access to the battery box / battery, Gear selector and the brake fluid opening. I did a lot of mocking up with different seat heights, lengths & angles. There is not a lot of room in a T-Bucket to even 10mm makes a difference. Finally decided on the length and just enough height to clear the gear selector.

The picture above shows testing where the steel sub-frame would end. The wood based seat will over hang the frame about 50-60mm. The seat base will be 18mm marine plywood.

Rails and cross members mocked up. The bottom rails sit above the chassis rails, wanted to make sure that no flex was present. Front cross member raised 50mm from floor, while the rear cross member is flush to the floor.

Seat belt final check.

2012-07-10T13:18:00.000+12:00

Very cold winters morning, But I got a few hours, so got the body back on and did triple check of seat belt mounts and clearances.

Brrrr.... was cold

Seat belt bolted on, plenty of body clearance

With Fuel tank on, all still fits :)

New seat belt location & mounts

2012-06-18T10:18:00.001+12:00

Now that I have moved my thinking toward the interior and mucking around with the seat belts I came to the conclusion that I didn't like the solution I come up with a few years ago. Pictured below

This solution took up a lot of room in the cabin, which has very little room as it is. I didn't like how the top mount had to stick out so far .... very close to my head, in the event of a crash I had pictures of my skull impaled on it. Lastly it was going to make doing the interior a pain due to having to work around the belt cassette, and it was pretty darn ugly.

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Rear Fenders fabrication finished

2012-05-23T10:14:00.000+12:00

Last piece of the rear fender puzzle completed. The riveted detail panel. I knew from the onset that I would need to do something to breakup such a large area of sheet metal. I had always envisioned that I would rivet a panel on. And with the need to widen them it worked out to be a great solution.

Now that I have the finished product, Pretty happy. A few little bits to tidy up before paint. As with everything on the RattyT its about function, so I'm not going to be tiding up all the extra weld or gaps .... that is part of the look ..!!

Rear fenders part 3

2012-05-22T09:21:00.001+12:00

The right hand side fender mounts are now complete. All that remains on the rear fender mounts is some cleaning up (Grinding). Next will be doing the detailing on the panels that are going to be used to cover the widening.

Rear Fenders continued

2012-05-15T22:13:00.002+12:00

So after much pondering I decided to use the box section for the top mount and mount that off the roll cage stays. Next was to get it all mocked up again and start work on the top mounts.

Rear Fenders

2012-05-12T22:02:00.001+12:00

Well, have been putting in some energy into the RattyT, I am able to find time in the evenings and limited time on the weekend. Weekends are 1-2hr tops, I save that time for loud tasks like grinding / cutting. Everything else that is done during the evening and all done by had, to reduce noise and not wake kids. Getting pretty darn handy with a hacksaw!!!

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Rear Bumpstops

2012-05-02T13:42:00.000+12:00

So the next item on my to do list was the rear bump stops. Since the shock were old and don't have built in ones the Certifer wanted bump stops. After looking around I got some off Trademe.

Next I had to decide on what I was going to make the mounts from. The trusty 25x50 box section was selected. I cut some cardboard out to make the templates required before cutting the steel.

So after making a template / guide on the axle to mark the amount of travel I wanted before the stop was hit, I then started playing around with mount locations and angles

I think this will be perfect ......

Transfer of the template to the box section, ready for lost of hacksaw work....

Hack sawing away.... I found this to be the fastest and easiest way for mounts like this, then hand filing.

Mount one cut out

Ok test fit .... Shit.... due to the location of the newly fabbed Pan hard bar there wasn't enough space to fit the mount..... even after I checked it with the cardboard template. Well it fitted the gap OK but I did allow for the 25mm thickness so I would not be able to blot the pan-hard bar in.....

So after fiddling and thinking... and a little swearing the decision was to mount at an angle off the corner of the Z frame. This also allowed easier access to do the vertical welds required. I hate welding vertically.

First welding job was the bottom plate to mount the stops to.

Test fit, Looking good.

Both bottom plates all welded on.

Mounts with the top wedges cut to allow mounting to the chassis.

Tacked onto the frame to check alignment and position before full welds.

Both mounts fully welded in, Pretty darn happy with how it looks.

Next steps will be getting the last items on my Certifer checklist done. This requires getting some engineering work done that I cant do, But shouldn't take to long.

Panhard bar mount extension

2012-03-14T20:36:00.001+13:00

Well finally back into the garage to start the little jobs that the Certifier noted that needed correcting. First up was the pan hard bar. It was on to much of an angle and was pushing the rear diff assembly to the left when under compression.

So I had to either extend the mount on the diff or the one welded to the frame. I though and played with just extending the one mounted to the diff, but was worried about the strength and that the extra leverage would place on the mounting bolts. There was also that once it was raised it didn't leave a lot of room for the fuel pump and plumbing that are sitting below the fuel tank.

So I went the route of extending the frame mount. I was a much bigger job doing this way, but the best solution. Best of all I could do it without spending any money.

First job was to turn the RattyT around so that it was face the other way so I could get access to the rear end.

As you can see from this shot the angle the pan hard bar was on before I started.

I noce fine even to get out there and start cutting :)

Panhard bar removed to allow the cutting off of the mount. I left plenty of meat on the frame so I have a lot to weld to.

Mount cut off and then trimmed to fit the tune I was going to use to extend the mount with.

Mount be gone

Next can the fab work on the new mount. First I cut a tab out of a 50x20x3mm box tune to slot the trimmed mount into. This gave a lot of extra contact and welds. Above you can see it tacked on.

Next was to cut the top part of the mount to be the right height and fit around the exist mount still on the frame. All the cutting was done with a hacksaw and hand file ......

Test fit for height and fit to the frame. More filing required.

After a lot of test fits, cutting and filling I finally got good fit. Next was to re-add the side tab. This so that the was addition laterial reinforcement for the mount.

All welded up tidied up.

The next evening I removed the fuel tank to make for easier access to the welding that I was going to need to do. It was going to be a pig of a job. All weld were either vertical or upside-down.

Existing mount cleaned up ready for welding

New extended mount clamped ready for some tack welds.

After numerous welds and grinding the mount is now welded on tp the frame. It is not pretty but sure is strong.

Next job is to get so bump-stops and make some brackets for them and weld to the frame. That will require some $$ so might have to wait a couple of weeks. That then completes the backend to cert level.

Progress

2012-01-30T21:16:00.000+13:00

Yes ... 2012 is off to a good start. I will have the Ratty-T finished this year. First step toward that was to get the LVVT inspector to come and check out the work completed to date. So that happened today. So heres the list of what needs correcting.

Pedal box (Brake pedal needs re-engineering)
Brake push rod (Need to be one machined rod)
Rear suspension needs bump stops
Rear panhard bar needs to be more parallel to diff.
Master brake / booster adapter plate
Front dragbar longer no adapter

So the list is quite long and requires a fair amount of work. But I am pleased that none of that is anything that I have altered changed. All the work I have done passed with flying colours.

So once again Im correcting the bad work carried out previously.

Pretty darn excited to be back at it.

Soon ....

2011-08-11T19:41:00.001+12:00

Site cleared for the renovations to begin

2011-07-26T20:30:00.001+12:00

One step closer to getting a garage back. Spent numerous weekends taking out fences, moving pavers, moving stones, sheds and playhouses to get the site cleared for the builders to start work.