Over the past week me and Jakob have been working on the front crossmember. The first thing we did was clean the whole thing and then get it sand blasted.
Once it was sand blasted we painted the whole thing except the area that we needed to weld on. After we painted it we repaired the cracks on the top of the crossmember where the shock connects to. (The area where the shock connects to is a very weak spot on the crossmember and this reinforcement came highly recommended by other people. The reason for the reinforcement is because the metal at the top is very thin and the pressure that the shocks put on it is too much for the thin metal, as a result of this the metal bends and cracks which leaves it not structurally sound.)
We first hammered and ground the cracks down to get it all level to be welded shut. Once the cracks were welded shut I worked on flattening the top of the crossmember with a hammer and grinder to give us a good surface to weld to and so the plate sat flat and level on the tops of the crossmember.
The metal plate is made from 3/16 inch think plate steel. We first made a template of the top of the crossmember and traced it onto the plate steel. Then we roughed out the piece with the metal chop saw and did the final shaping and rounded the edges on the bench grinder. When we got the piece shaped we measured the 3/4 inch hole that we needed to drill for the shock mount. We then prepped the surface for welding and bolted the piece in so it wouldn't move while being welded.
Both pieces have now been tack welded to the tops. They will be fully welded by the end of the week.
Once the pieces are fully welded on we will grind the welds flat and paint over all of it to seal it in.
The left side plate tacked to the top
Left side top view
Right side tacked to the top
Right side top view
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