Roll Cage provided by #48 Jimmy Johnson sponsor - Lowes!

LOL - looking good! :thumbsup:

Lol! Yeah, too bad Lowe's isn't sponsoring me too. :D

Finally some more progress...

First off, another class assignment. We learned about frenching, and for our assignments we had to make a panel and french a tail light and antenna. We were graded on just going through the process, not finishing it to paint ready. Here's mine and my light is in the background. It was a fun assignment but it's not as pretty as I would do to a real car, I knocked it out quickly to get back to my car...

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...ator/frant.jpg

I wanted a fairly large tub, big enough to stuff a 13" tire at full suspension squat. The main problem with doing this to a wagon is the back seat. I want to keep mine totally functional in the up and down position. This required some creativity and some trial and error. Finally on the 3rd cardboard design I got everything to work out. I started with a "chip board" pattern and flat 18ga sheet metal to come up with the sides.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l.../wellside1.jpg

Using the pullmax I raised the edge to a 90 degree angle

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l.../wellside2.jpg

and using the slip roller bent the top.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l.../wellside3.jpg

Here's the final product, panels welded with screws holding them in place. They are slightly different side to side because the gas filler neck is inside the wheel well on the driver's side.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...lldoneboth.jpg

Notice the notch I had to create to allow clearance for the back of the seat.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...welldoner2.jpg

[http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...welldoner1.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...welldonel1.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...welldonel2.jpg

Now I have to modify the seat back just a bit, the hinge bars run into the wheel wells so I need to move them inward about 1-1.5". More to come on that...

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...atbracket1.jpg

Nice Shaggin' Wagon!

Keep it coming' :)

Progress updates...

First off the final shots of the wheels tubs. After welding I used a DA with a 220 grit pad to clean them up and then coated the cargo area with Por-15. Eventually I'll cover the area with some bed liner type material so I can still load messy junk back there.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...or/tubfin1.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...or/tubfin2.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...or/tubfin5.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...or/tubfin3.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...or/tubfin4.jpg

Tuesday I started on the roll bar. Previously I picked up some 1 3/4" .120 wall tubing from the local metal supplier. They came in 24ft lengths @ $53 ea and I had them cut to 12 ft lengths. After some measuring my professor helped me start bending the main hoop. Using the PVC mockup we were able to bend the curves to match the design perfectly without needing to remove the bar from the machine for test fits. It turned out great and fit nice and snug. Next order of business was the hoop cross bar. This was bent to allow a pretty wide range of movement for the seats.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...tor/roll01.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...tor/roll02.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...tor/roll10.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...tor/roll08.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...tor/roll07.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...tor/roll09.jpg

Ugh! Had one of those days Friday. I volunteer on Friday afternoons to teach a drawing class at my kids' elementary school so I have the leave the shop at my school by 12. I really wanted to have the roll cage in the car by Christmas break so because of running out of days and the Friday short day I was in somewhat of a hurry-up mood. Seems like when you try to rush, things go wrong and that's just what happened. Looking back I have to laugh but it was pretty frustrating at the time.

I checked out the hole saw from the school's tool room to use in the milling machine to notch my tubes. When I put it in the mill I found the arbor had been "studentized" and was slightly bent making the hole saw slightly wobbly. I used it anyway and it did an acceptable job on the main hoop cross bar. When I tried to notch the first of 4 short tubes I'm using to connect and triangulate the newly bent rear bars, the blade caught on the tube while cutting and the shaft on the arbor shattered sending the hole saw flying and it gouged my bar. I wanted it done so taking the advice of another professor here I set it up in the chop saw to cut it on an angle. Part way through cutting the blade caught the bar funny, shattering it and sending blade shrapnel around the shop. "Good grief!" I thought, "what else can go wrong?!!" I ended up using a 4" grinder to shape the notch, lined it up and started welding it in. I think because I forgot to sand the surface rust off I was getting a lot of spatter from the welder. That was frustrating because I'm trying to make pretty welds, not to mention that when I finished I tipped my helmet up looked over my shoulder and saw a rag on the table a couple feet away had caught on fire from welding spatter. Yep, I was cursed Friday.

After the rag fire I realized that rushing through this was not the answer so I took a second and looked up tubing notchers online in the computer lab. I found that Speedway motors has one for $100. It has a 40-90 deg range and it comes with a 1 3/4" blade. I've decided that I'll just buy one of those and take my time to do this right when school starts up again in January. I do get 2 more days in the shop before the break so I'll get some little things on my list knocked out.

I guess the moral of Friday's story is another reminder to not rush through things and learn to laugh at the irony of things that go wrong. I always try to do that and enjoy later telling my wife my funny "fail" stories as we both have a good laugh together.

Anybody else have days like this?