Sunday, August 17, 2014

Still waiting on the side glass so I can finalize my doors so I tinkered a little more with the wing.
I cut through the aluminum trunk floor extensions to expose the  1.5" x 1.5".065 square tubing  that I had welded in to connect the 06 floor pan to the bumper support system. I welded two  1/8" tabs to the tube . This is where I will connect my wing support. I made up some wing washers out of .060 mild steel bending a 1/2" flange around the perimeter so that I could shrink the edges to help fit the contour of the quarter panel. I also ran it a bit through the English wheel to dome the center so that when I tightened the wing down it would not flatten the quarter.




The first picture is of the bottom side of the wing washer showing the tabs I welded on to make my connection to the trunk extensions via adjustable rods.
I added some 1/16th double sided foam trim tape to dampen vibration. I left the release paper on as this tape is impossible to remove should I need to remove the wing washers.
I made up 3 adjustable rods so that I would be able to fine tune the tilt of the uprights fore-aft and side to side.
The last picture is of the rods installed. The main reason for the need to adjust the wing is that my right quarter panel was in pretty bad shape when I got the car and had to be hammered out.  The top surface not being perfect once the wing washers were in place this helped me true the wing uprights.









Sunday, August 10, 2014

Well I have been horsing around trying to get my daughters house ready to sell while I wait for my door glass. I got the right side inner door shell mounted and the latch and the window regulators mocked in. Can't move on with that till I get the glass so I started tinkering with the wing to distract myself. I cut the very warped center section on my El Cheapo one piece fiberglass wing out and started to spruce up the uprights. I mocked them up on the quarters and found that the base of the uprights were kind of flat and which made them lean severely to the right and left. The guy who sold me the one piece wing said they were like that so that when you bolted them to the quarters they would take the whip out of the cross piece. The only thing they looked like they were going to do if I loaded them to get them level was distort the hell out of my quarter tops. So I shimmed them and modified the bases so they would stand on their own. Also the left upright looked like the two halves had been glued together a little wonky so that the back edge was whipped. I did a little sanding and mud work and straightened it out.

After that I started to build my steel center section. I started by cutting some profiles out of .060 steel. I clamped them all together and sanded them as a unit to make sure they were uniform. I then taped them all together and drilled them out. (2) 3/8" holes and (1) 1/2" hole for tubing to run through end to end and align the profiles.





I widened the center hole on the profiles I would use for intermediates and left the two end pieces with just 5/16th holes so I would be able to line them up accurately with the wing bolts. I set two 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" square steel tubes on my work bench and leveled them to the bench and to each other so as to have a flat surface to construct the wing on. I slid the drilled out profiles on to the 3/8" tubes which were cut to the wing width. The 1/2" tube was cut shorter to allow for threaded "T" nuts to be welded into the ends. This would fit behind both end plates.Once the profiles were evenly spaced and squared up I tacked them all into place.





I notched a piece of 1/4" tubing to act as the trailing edge of the wing and tacked it into place.
I had hoped to wrap the wing with a single piece of steel but that would not work out for a number of reasons so I broke it up into segments. I covered the flat top section with .035 with a vertical bend at the front to keep it straight as possible.
I then added a piece of 3/8" tube to create the leading edge of the wing.





Finally I covered the front of the wing top with .035 steel. I flipped the wing over after priming it on the inside then I tacked it to the rails to keep it straight for the final skin.




Finally I mocked it up on the car. For anyone is curious the top wing weighs 12 lbs.