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Well chassis is basically built. Have a few brackets & such to go on it but nothing much really. Things like tub supports, hand brake brackets, radiator brackets. Some of which will get welded on as fitting various components to know where the exact locations are. They are already made and ready to weld in place. I guess ready to set tub on there & start figuring tub mount locations. Got the corner gussets welded on on one side, ready for the other side now. Well it kinda looks like it has for a while, but she’s all finish welded. Have to drill the holes for the Buzzweld application & drainage yet. i guess I can weld on the chassis horn caps too. The 4”x 4”x 3/16” corner gussets that tie in the rails & rear cross member together. Plus the bottom of the rails have the 3/16” x 3” wide plate that goes all the way over on the cross member, welded on all sides and runs several inches forward of the shackle hanger. The top sets of gussets weld onto the 3/16” cross member and directly to the chassis rail sides right next to the built up weld on rails seams. The bottom gussets on each side of both rails weld to the 3/16”stiffener plates of the shackle hange assemblies and weld onto the 3/16” rear cross member. Cheers, Allen

Not sure yet, don’t know if it would be better to leave holes open so anything can drain out or try to plug them. If I plug them and some moisture gets in, it won’t be able to get out. So a bit on the fence on this. Cheers, Allen

Side view of front spring hanger outside reinforcement plates. Waiting to be derusted and finish welded. Front shackle hanger tacked in place with shackle. Rear shackle hanger & one shackle. The weld in the upper right corner of pic will be cleaned up and finish welded, it won’t stay like that! :-) i have a FB page, 69’ Series IIA Build that has more in progress pics if anyone would like to see them. Cheers, Allen

Flipped the chassis right side up and cleaned some of the flash rust off. Have some Purple Stripping Discs to remove all the rust off everything. Then I will finish the welding after I get more welding gas Friday. Going to use rattle can primer to keep rust away for the time being. Then when ready to start coating everything with Buzzweld coatings, will strip & sand blast everything down to bare metal so nothing will come between the Buzzweld coatings and the steel. :-) Right side up now, with the 6 outrigger locations all marked and outriggers sitting In relative positions. Openings in front of chassis rails will be capped with ¼” like the rest of the spring hangers. Rear looking forward. Rear spring hanger with access holes for Buzzweld coatings application & drainage. Rear spring hanger side view. Cheers, Allen

Bottom view inside of the front spring hanger bracket. The joint between the chassis rail & hanger side plates were completely welded before the bottom cap went on. That is an old SIII rear spring leaf I set there to see what it will look like, (well sorta anyway) when the RM parabolics go on. Same view, with the bottom cap & spring hanger tacked in place. Was running low on welding gas so did heavy tack welds and will finish weld everything this weekend, using angle metal bracing clamped to hold things in position and only weld small sections at a time to keep things from trying to move around on me. :-) Cheers, Allen

Upside down getting the spring & shackle hangers welded into place. Just about out of welding gas, today so just heavy tack welded them in place. Did lots and lots of measuring, remeasuring, double & triple checking and setting up a clamped in jig to hold everything in position for welding, paid off. Everything is within 1/16”/1.5mm or less position! :-D Whew! I’ll get more welding gas Friday and over weekend finish weld everything. When finish welding things I’m using angle metal clamped tight and not welding very much in any one area at a time, to help prevent things from moving on me. Upside down, looking forward. Upside down rear spring hanger front, looking aft. Upside down rear spring hanger bracket and hanger, with two holes to apply Buzzweld coatings & drainage holes. Cheers, Allen

Got a few bit done today. All 6 outriggers are now done except for running a finish weld the seams. They are either welded inside or tack welded well and close. Ground down the tack welds to make the final weld easy to run nice & pretty. The middle chassis is done less grinding down the tack welds, almost stitch welded. Then final weld the seams & weld the rib to the bottom of it. Hopefully weld up the front cross member & then the chassis rails hopefully tomorrow! :-)

All of the parts & pieces have now had all the mill scale ground off man that stuff is a pain to get cleaned off! Lol I welded up the rear tank outriggers today. I tacked them up and welded the inside corners & ground down the tack welds on the outside corners. I’ll finish weld the outside corners next day or so. The welds on the inside corners aren’t exactly pretty, it was a bit challenging to get in there to run the corner beads. They don’t really need to be welded, but I figured a fillet would be helpful to add some extra strength and give me some material to be able to round off the outside corners a wee bit. Over the next few days will be welding up pieces to make components to be welded together to make a chassis! :-)

Gazzer, what I did was cut a piece of 1/16”/1.58mm sheet 2” wide and extra long. put a piece of angle along the edge of the work bench & clamped a piece of ¼” plate I had laying around. Clamped the 2” piece with 1” sticking out. Then used a rubber mallet to start bending it over a bit, then took a piece of 2”x4” x 3/16” about 8” long I had sitting there and put it on the strip & whacked it along the strip. It bent it over smother than just the hammer or mallet. When it was bent over 90 degrees, took it out & squeezed it in a small bench vice, working it along and increasing the bend till it was almonds folded over. i think what really made it look nice & even was I put a piece of ⅛” thick strip with a bit of a radius on the edge, about 2” wide I had handy. And clamped it into the inside corner of the strip and finish hammered it nice and uniform. I tried to make it without the ⅛” piece inside & the corner wanted to collapse onto itself unevenly, using the ⅛” strip worked a treat. the i marked it about ⅜” used angle grinder to cut it down. It had a bit of curve in it so I took two pieces of ¼” metal and clamped it between them & clamped it to press out the curve. Took the angle grinder with flap disc & ground it down flush with the ¼” plates. Gave a nice uniform channel a bit less than ⅜” wide & ¼” high. It went really quick, probably 25 mins to make it. I thought that when I tried to bend it to match the curve of the cross member it would twist and/or collapse on itself. Nope! :-) It followed the shape of the CM and kept the contour great. One thing that I thought was going to be a pain & take good while to make was one of the easiest & quickest things I’ve made! Lol You can see it in these two pics laying on the cross member without any clamps holding it in position. Cheers, Allen

Didn’t get much accomplished this afternoon. But thought it would be nice to have a plate on the splices of the chassis rails, at least on the inside. One on each side at the rear splices & one on each side on the front splices. So made some upfrom a bit of 1/16”/1.59 mm sheet. I know no one will see them, but I made the 4 forward & 4 rear ones all shaped, contoured & the holes the same. Made the corners with radius’s to make it easer to weld & not have stress risers. The ⅝” holes will be welded all around the perimeters, to add strength, tying it into the rails & sealing them so that moisture can not get between the pieces. Just one of the interesting things that can be done to make it nice when one is building it oneself. :-) Rear splice front splice

Got the tubes for the cross members welded up today. This is my high tech method of keeping them round. :-) The first & second cross members ready for welding & now have the mill scale removed & have a nice even 80 grit surface ready for Buzzweld coatings when welded up. The Fluid Etch, RCP & then War don’t need the surface texture so much, but the 2K Armor that’s going on the outside of the CM after they are welded into place like a good texture to get a bite into.

The rail sides now have match ground contours and are ready to have the mill scale removed, 80 grit finish. I’m going to put 1/16”/1.59 mm doubler on the inside of the two seams on rack side of the rails. Going to keep the top & bottom of the doublers about ⅛”/3mm set back so can get weld bead on all four sides of doublers. That way if moisture ever gets in there, it can’t get between the doublers and sides of rails. Of course with Fluid Etch then RCP and than War applied to the interiors, moisture probably wouldn’t be able to get between them, but let’s make darn sure! :-) Cheers, Allen

Ya know, it doesn’t look like much work or effort required to weld the 4 chassis side panels. But each one is made up of three pieces. They of course have some pretty big contour to them. They had to be lined up straight, and then make all 4 of them the same. Ground the welds smooth on both sides because they are getting clamped together and the contours all matched dead on. They gained a bit of weight when all 3 pieces are welded together, kinda funky shaped and a bit floppy to handle. But all & all not really a problem, just a bit tiring wrestling with em single handed. :-) Upward & onward! Not the best pic, but I was getting kinda tired at that point. Lol Cheers, Allen

Thought I’d make this in two posts. That gave me this after ran a file down the insides to smooth it up. It had a nice flat face on one side & a nice radius on the other side. I was concerned that as I bent it to follow the contour of the bottom plate of the cross member it would twist and or buckle, but it laid right down nice as you please with minimal fuss! :-D Pic of it on the forum block I used for the CM bottom cap & the rib and with it laying on the CM, it’s not in the center of course, but will be when it is welded into place. Am I putting too many pics & too much detail? I like the details of how something was made, but don’t want to bore you to tears. :-) Cheers, Allen

It rained a lot yesterday & rained some today & my open sided carport/work area isn’t all that dry today I thought it might be wise to hold off on welding till tmw. :-) I did a little part that I wasn’t sure how I was going to actually make until I actually started fiddling with it. I wanted the rib on the bottom of the second main cross member and have it look ‘right’. Thought about cutting a piece of ⅛” or 3/16” into a strip & welding that on the bottom. But I think that would look ‘fake’ and just not ‘right’. I know this isn’t a period correct build, but I am trying to maintain the over look & feel of a SIIA, maybe just slightly updated. Looking at to real on it’s a bent rib, not just a strip of metal. So, I cut a piece of 1/16” material 2” wide. Bent it on edge of bench & then put it in vice & & bent it all the way over. Pounded nice & flat with a piece of ⅛ inside it to make it uniform. Then marked it ¼” & cut it to size. I needed to figure out a way to make it a uniform height. So I sandwiched between two pieces of ¼” bar, clamped it down and used flap disc to grind it down flush with the ¼” bars.

To have it galvanized I would have to send it to Oahu Island. It’s expensive & has to be put on a barge to send it there from a Big Island. But Buzzweld coatings are actually better and longer lasting than galvanizing. Amazing stuff, check them out at buzzweld.co.uk Chees, Allen

Made some progress today. Started setting up the jig for the chassis rails. This is the first time I’ve had two of the side panels set up and the top caps set into position. Whew, they like each other! Lol Up until now I was hoping they would fit together without a fight. I pre-bent the top & bottom caps so they are a very close fit just sitting in place. The vertical angles will be tack welded with heavy tacks & have cross pieces tacked to hold them apart & maintain alignment. Will tack the side panels to the vertical angle pieces of jig to maintain exact alignment while welding & cut the tacks after to release it. Will have wire alignment string to make sure nothing walks out of alignment while welding. Will tack weld caps in place & weld in short sections alternating side to side & end for end so as not to get everything too hot & make it walk. The three pieces of the side panels of each side will have their diagonal seems welded with the panels laying flat. Then all 4 side panels will be clamped together and match contoured so they will be identical. The top caps are in two pieces & the seam will be diagonal. Once both top caps are welded, I’ll rearrange the jig & repeat for the bottom caps. All the metal will be cleaned to bare metal & given an 80 grit surface finish for the Buzzweld coatings. The interior of everything is getting etch primer, then RCP followed by War. Exterior gets 2K Armor, then CIO topped with War.

Lol yes it is should be a reasonably stout frame. :-) Cheers Allen

Here is the rear spring hangers bracket in approximate location on the chassis rail. The red area shows where the plates overlap the rails & the red lines show where the ¼” plates weld to make the spring hanger brackets. And the spring hanger welds onto the brackets. These are the the brackets and bits for the chassis. The two pieces on the lower right are two hand brake brackets and are the only pieces that are being used from the old chassis. These are the brackets for the gearbox cross member. One side of the angle will be trimmed when cross member is mounted.

These are the front parts of the side panels of the chassis rails with the front spring hangers. The top one is the inside spring hanger and the bottom one is the outer spring hanger plate. The red lines are where the ¼” plates that box the spring hangers, the red line is the outline of the chassis rails. And shows the fish mouth on the rear of the spring hanger plate to distribute the stress to not cause stress concentrations. Lower picture is shows the position of the front spring hanger as it will be welded on. Cheers, Allen

Here’s a pic I found of the front spring hanger side plates, as I was finishing them stacked together so they are the same profile. The inside ones butt against the front cross member and the outside ones extend past the cross member and have their ends fish mouthed so there isn’t an abrupt change in the thickness in one spot. I’ll get some pics of the finished pieces posted tmw. That’s four pieces of ¼” inch plate being finish shaped to match. The blue line is a leftover from figuring out layout earlier & isn’t being used at this point. Cheers, Allen

Yes, I’m going to put a 3” wide strap on the top & bottom caps of the rails that go over the cross member and corner gussets on inside & outside corners top & bottom of the rails. Also will have 1/8” x 1-½” angle going from the rails to the outer ends of the cross member and one st the top & bottom from the rails to the middle area of the cross member on each side to tie in the cross member to the rails and strengthen the center of the cross member where the hitch is located. Since the rails are ⅛” material, putting a doubler plate on the rails where the angle is welded to the rails to spread the load over a larger surface area of the sides of the rails. There will be quite a bit of added structure to tie the cross member into the chassis rails. It doesn’t add much weight, does add more welding, but that’s a small price to pay to have everything tied in well. Having the cross member well tied into the chassis rails is a big consideration. Wait till you see the front & rear spring hangers, robust comes to mind . Plus lots of weld area to spread loads out to the chassis rails. I can say cutting them out of ¼” plate was an all afternoon job. :-) I’ll post up pics of them tmw, now I have them cut out & shaped. Cheers, Allen

Thanks Soren, part of the reason I'm posting detailed pics of what I'm doing and how I'm accomplishing it, is to encourage others to go ahead and go for it, using materials that are available. And you don't have to have the ideal tools and equipment to make the components and parts, just think outside of the box and get creative and the finished part can be just as good and precise as using the optimal tools and equipment, we just have to use a bit of imagination, but that is part of the fun. :-) Cheers, Allen

This is a pic of the back side, what goes towards the inside of chassis.

Thought I’d repost the pics from above bigger to easier to see.