Its been a notching nightmare, im happy its only a few bars of being finished. Next week will mean a lot of work, the chassis will be seperated from the jig, bodyshell and driveline and fully welded.
10 Comments
Its been a notching nightmare, im happy its only a few bars of being finished. Next week will mean a lot of work, the chassis will be seperated from the jig, bodyshell and driveline and fully welded.
jaguh
That look tough.. Owh my god, now i really cant wait for this to be done.. Nice work man
joel
Hey man! if you are removing it from the jig to weld it up, how do you plan on keeping it all straight as all the welds contract? i imagine it would be an incredible nightmare trying to counter each at a time.
The wheel base looks pretty short too, how does it compare to the length of an s chassis?
looks freaking dope dude, how you created that birds nest of tube at the back blows my mind haha. cant wait to see how it continues.
KBanksAZ
What you’re doing is EPIC man!!
Chris
Have you modeled the frame in any sort of simulation program? Looking at the center star creation I think there may have been a more elegant solution.
Just thinking about the load paths I would not run that support bar off the front subframe mount point directly up into the middle of that top tube. Have it go into the junction at the front of the top tube near the cab.
Here is a good list of chassis design books:
http://www.gmecca.com/byorc/designpublicationsbooks.html#Chassis
Nigel
No i havnt Chris, are you able to do it? Or help me find somewhere i can do it? I know there will be ways of doing it better im just working off what i know which isnt everything 🙂
Chris
I wish I was a MechE so I could, but I’m not. I have limited knowledge of spaceframe design, but I understand enough to get me in trouble. So definitely don’t think I’m an expert. My main gripe (which may be wrong) would be that the proposed tube coming off the subframe support is putting the top tube in bending. Running that tube to the forward node would probably work better, but that’s me eyeballing it.
I know that Formula SAE is a pretty big thing over in your part of the world. Know of anyone still in school that is a MechE on an FSAE team that still builds spaceframes? I’m sure those guys could at least look at it and give you some quick pointers to get more stiffness with less tubes.
Nigel
I dont know anyone well enough to ask for there help, i still have a lot of work and steel to add to this project so please dont think this is the final outcome, it will be much more comprehensive.
Nick
Hey Nigel,
Just wanna say that I think your build is amazing, and your chassis is going to be tonnes stronger, stiffer, and lighter than the rest of the competition, so I wouldnt worry if anyone thinks its not ‘perfect’ from a completely optimised spaceframe design point of view. The quality of work and design so far is way beyond what I’ve seen come out of many big dollar professional workshops, which is awesome.
I’m currently building a ute with full custom chassis (and mid-mounted v8… haha) so i know how much work is involved in something like this (and mine is waaay less complicated than yours too).
Keep up the great work mate, you’re killin it!
cheers
Nick
Nigel
Nick, thank you for your comment. You are on the excact same page as me. I have been following your build and want to say we share inspiration, keep up the good work mate!
Paul
Is there a link to the build of this mid mounted v8 ute?
Cheers
Paul