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We're good to go! Just gotta make another one.
(upbeat music)
Alright so we're working on our A pillars and the roof kinda was a little bit intrusive here, it hung a little low so Ty and I started to trim the roof. And then we came to the realization because we thought that this was just plastic, that all this material on the inside of the roof is magnesium. So we lit some on fire, almost caught the whole roof on fire by using a cutting wheel but we got it figured out.
It's just super, super tough to try to cut it out. I mean, that looks like plastic to me and then you look here and it's clearly not so, Chevy, you crazy. Roof's all trimmed out, magnesium flakes everywhere, don't catch yourself on fire there bud. Looks like all hands on deck today, Cody's cutting out doors, Pancha's making engine bay fill plates, Ty and I are working on the A pillars. Going hard today, going hard.
That was kind of a pain but we got our A pillars bent up. This car is not like any other car that I've ever done a cage, especially A pillars, in. With the A pillar of the chassis being aluminum and it's steep angle in and steep angle back, it's pretty difficult. Messed up one, not really messed up but it just didn't fit quite how we liked it, not quite enough head room.
That's it on the floor, but now you can see that this thing fits much better, super out of the driver's way, way more head clearance. We moved it out further so that the driver's head would have more clearance right here, and it meets up with our rear tube so pretty happy with it.
(upbeat music)
This is it with the roof off. I was really working on getting it tight in here and still being able to clear the handle pulls for the targa 'cause I kinda want the roof to still be able to come off. Gotta add some little braces in here, we feel like it's gonna be that much stronger, especially considering the roof can come off the damn thing.
Alright, we're back today, it was a long night last night. We made a big, giant mess, lots of tubing everywhere. So I'm gonna clean up a little bit and then get going on the door bars.
(upbeat music)
Alright, I got my door bar notched and bent, and we're just kinda grinding the end in, it's a really, really tight fit so I just gotta take a little bit at a time until it fits. Yeah, that fits good here. I really even have to like snap it into the cage, it's nice and level down the chassis here. Plenty of room for the driver, and you see if you close the door, oh yeah.
Alright, so I got both the door bars bent up, the upper and the lower, I'm gonna go ahead and tack them in. How this cage is built is kind of difficult, and it's very close in a lot of places, so the door bars are just gonna be tacked in, and I'm basically build them all together and remove them when I go to weld the entire cage to be able to drop it down.
The door bar actually fits in this little pocket and I was able to ding out to get in, and we'll be able to weld the chassis to the door bar there. So, it's gonna be interesting to weld this thing up but it's gotta fit good.
There's the door bars, it took me way too long, but damn they look good. I'm done, I'm exhausted, I've been here by myself all day, which is a nightmare. I got the door bars all figured out, but I like them. The cage is near done. Once I get the other side all finished, I will start welding it.
Getting there! This week, we made huge progress. Got the cage pretty much done, I still have to weld it, fit up a couple more tubes but we're getting there. So next week, I'm gonna drop the cage down off the boxes, weld the top of everything, bring it back up, weld the cage in place.
I'll probably start fitting up my seat, figuring out my steering column, maybe get that fabricated, and also the pedals. I'm gonna be waiting on a lot of parts from HGK, a lot of carbon kevlar parts, the sequential transmission, so in the meantime, I'm just gonna get as much fab work done as possible.
Might set the sub frames in with the engine, start figuring out suspension arms with Parts Shop Max, so it's gonna be a busy week. Stay tuned, make sure to like, comment, and share.
WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en(upbeat music)Alright, we're at thepoint where we need tolower the chassis down.We gotta swing the legs outbut fortunately the bottomof this chassis is so flatthat even though this thingwas made for S-chassis frame rails,it should fit on no problem.Alright, that fits pretty good.I gotta pressure wash the chassis,this things full of leaves,sand, all kinds of stuff.Sand's been coming out ofevery orifice the whole timeand we've swept the shop like five times.(upbeat music)Alright, we have the carall washed, it's clean.No more glue, no more seamsealer, it's ready for fab work.So the first thing we'regonna do is start buildingboxes for the hoop to land on.We're gonna build someboxes in this cornerbecause this is the framerail and this ties intothe frame rail down belowand has steel parcel panel.Have the hoop run up into hereand we're gonna try to getit as close as possibleinto here and still be ableto weld it in.This is the top mount,since this is a non Z06 car,it has a targa top and nosupport or anything here.We're gonna have to cutthis, make the cage workaround it, and start going to town.We're trimming all thestuff off the front endthat we don't need.Ty's actually already beenhere cutting off this sideof it, marked it with a tape line.This is just inner fenderstuff for stock cars,may or may not interfere withwhat we're gonna be doingbut it's just addedweight that we don't need.I mean, look at thedifference between this sideand this side, much cleaner.This is a headlight bucketso that's already done.This is where the fendermounts, that's already doneso bam, tube front, checked off the list.(power saw buzzing)we're doing some stufflike getting the top,maintaining the OEM latchesbut we have to clearanceit out for the hoop 'causethe main hoop is gonnago right here.We got our shapes cut outfor our boxes for our hoopand the front boxes partlyready for our A pillars to land.We had to clearance outin here to give us roomfor the A pillars but nowthat this is all clean,once that's done, we'regonna trace out the main hoopand start bending.So we're fitting up themain hoop template nowand here at our shop,we do template bending.So, this is a bend, it's 90 degrees.We have a start mark andwe use that to visually seewhere the bend is goingto start and wind up.So something pretty sweetabout a Corvette is thatsince there's nothing backhere, Ty and I were able totrim up a piece of cardboardto go around and fit to thechassis so that we'll know the width,clears the tranny tunnel,and this is where themain hoop's gonna sitwhere you're able tojust go ahead and mark itwith a Sharpie.So our layout's done, ourmeasurements are figured out,and it's pretty exciting becausewe're gonna take the firstcut for the piece oftubing for the Corvette.First cut, first piece oftube, time to start bending.(upbeat music)Alright, so we got our top two bends,now we're gonna--- It's flat.Yeah, alright, lays flat.Go to our template andsee where we wanna startgoing for our second bend.So you can see here, this islike where that roof mount isand this is where the chassisis so we're just inside thechassis, pretty muchright where we wanna be.And we're gonna start oursecond mark, make sure we windup inboard of the bottomfoot, give ourself a littlebit of room for the doorbars to be welded all the wayaround and we'll be able totrim it, and throw it in.(upbeat music)Alright, that's it.See how we have the door bar,where the door bar's gonna bemounting on the hoop inboard,so we'll be able to weldall the way around the door bar thereand it'll land center on our box.The cardboard representsthe outside of the car.(upbeat music)Alright, so the hoopseems to fit pretty good,it landed exactly wherewe wanted it to here,to be able to weld the roof mount into it.We have just enough room toget our door bars in hereand the correct amount ofclearance that we wanted up top.We're getting the boxes tackedin, we have the hoop bent up,fit, we're gonna have toput it in, mark it, trim it,and then be able to fit it onto our boxes.And these are kinda crazy looking boxes.So, normally we would justcome across the floor,fill in the corner, but youcan't since it's fiberglassso we have it fit so itstill welds to the steel partof the chassis, we'll be ableto tape weld the front ofthis, weld that into thechassis, and seeings as this isthe actual frame rail right here,it should be plenty strong.(upbeat music)We got the hoop in, itfeels pretty damn good.We got our boxes done,this is how the hoop fits.This is the roof mount thatwe're gonna be welding intothe hoop.The hoop's super level allthe way across, nice gapsall the way down, just enoughto weld our door bars in,just enough to get all theway around the bottom portionof it welding.I'm pretty impressed.Alright, now that the hoopand everything is all tacked,we're gonna start with our rear bars.Just tacked in these plates.The rear bar is gonna comebasically from the oppositeside of where the A pillar's gonna land,mount it on the hoop, comedown to here on both sides,then after that,we'll start working on our A pillars.(upbeat music)So, now that I got my lower angle correctand it sits nice and flat on the plate,I'm gonna come up here and mark my notch.So you can see here, I put a Sharpie markon the center line of the top of my notch.I'm gonna bring this overhere to the tube notcher.Put it in, set my angle, run it,and then see how it fits on the car.Alright, I got my notch.The notch fits good,both sides nice and tightagainst the hoop and thislays totally flat againstour plate, it's totallycentered on the plate,so we're good to go.Just gotta make another one.(upbeat music)Alright so we're working on our A pillarsand the roof kinda was alittle bit intrusive here,it hung a little low so Tyand I started to trim the roofand then we came to therealization because we thought thatthis was just plastic, thatall this material on the insideof the roof is magnesiumso we lit some on fire,almost caught the wholeroof on fire by using acutting wheel but we got it figured out.It's just super, supertough to try to cut it out.I mean, that looks like plasticto me and then you look hereand it's clearly not so, Chevy, you crazy.Roof's all trimmed out,magnesium flakes everywhere,don't catch yourself on fire there bud.Looks like all hands on deck today,Cody's cutting out doors,Pancha's making engine bay fill plates,Ty and I are working on the A pillars.Going hard today,going hard.(upbeat music)That was kind of a pain butwe got our A pillars bent up.This car is not like anyother car that I've ever donea cage, especially A pillars, in.With the A pillar of thechassis being aluminum and it'ssteep angle in and steep angleback, it's pretty difficult.Messed up one, not reallymessed up but it just didn't fitquite how we liked it, notquite enough head room.That's it on the floor,but now you can see thatthis thing fits much better,super out of the driver'sway, way more head clearance.We moved it out furtherso that the driver's headwould have more clearance right here,and it meets up with our reartube so pretty happy with it.(upbeat music)This is it with the roof off.I was really working ongetting it tight in hereand still being able toclear the handle pullsfor the targa 'cause Ikinda want the roof to stillbe able to come off.Gotta add some little braces in here,we feel like it's gonnabe that much stronger,especially considering the roofcan come off the damn thing.Alright, we're back today,it was a long night last night.We made a big, giant mess,lots of tubing everywhere.So I'm gonna clean up alittle bit and then get goingon the door bars.(upbeat music)Alright, I got my doorbar notched and bentand we're just kinda grinding the end in,it's a really, really tightfit so I just gotta takea little bit at a time until it fits.(upbeat music)Yeah, that fits good here.I really even have to likesnap it into the cage,it's nice and level down the chassis here.Plenty of room for the driverand you see if you closethe door, oh yeah.Alright, so I got boththe door bars bent up,the upper and the lower,I'm gonna go ahead and tack them in.How this cage is builtis kind of difficultand it's very close in a lot of placesso the door bars arejust gonna be tacked inand I'm basically build them all togetherand remove them when I goto weld the entire cageto be able to drop it down.The door bar actuallyfits in this little pocketand I was able to dingout to get in and we'llbe able to weld the chassisto the door bar there.So, it's gonna be interestingto weld this thing upbut it's gotta fit good.(upbeat music)There's the door bars,it took me way too longbut damn they look good.I'm done, I'm exhausted,I've been here by myselfall day, which is a nightmare.I got the door bars allfigured out but I like them.The cage is near done.Once I get the other side all finishedI will start welding it.Getting there.This week, we made huge progress.Got the cage pretty muchdone, I still have to weld it,fit up a couple more tubesbut we're getting there.So next week, I'm gonna dropthe cage down off the boxes,weld the top of everything,bring it back up, weld the cage in place.I'll probably start fitting up my seat,figuring out my steering column,maybe get that fabricated,and also the pedals.I'm gonna be waiting ona lot of parts from HGK,a lot of carbon kevlar parts,the sequential transmission,so in the mean time I'm justgonna get as much fab workdone as possible.Might set the sub framesin with the engine,start figuring out suspensionarms with Parts Shop Maxso it's gonna be a busy week.Stay tuned, make sure tolike, comment, and share.
