(upbeat music)
Alright, we're at the point where we need to
lower the chassis down.
We gotta swing the legs out but fortunately the bottom
of this chassis is so flat that even though this thing
was 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 of every orifice the whole time
and we've swept the shop like five times.
(upbeat music)
Alright, we have the car all washed, it's clean.
No more glue, no more seam sealer, it's ready for fab work.
So the first thing we're gonna do is start building
boxes for the hoop to land on.
We're gonna build some boxes in this corner
because this is the frame rail and this ties into
the frame rail down below and has steel parcel panel.
Have the hoop run up into here and we're gonna try to get
it as close as possible into here and still be able
to weld it in.
This is the top mount, since this is a non Z06 car,
it has a targa top and no support or anything here.
We're gonna have to cut this, make the cage work
around it, and start going to town.
We're trimming all the stuff off the front end
that we don't need.
Ty's actually already been here cutting off this side
of it, marked it with a tape line.
This is just inner fender stuff for stock cars,
may or may not interfere with what we're gonna be doing
but it's just added weight that we don't need.
I mean, look at the difference between this side
and this side, much cleaner.
This is a headlight bucket so that's already done.
This is where the fender mounts, that's already done
so bam, tube front, checked off the list.
(power saw buzzing)
we're doing some stuff like getting the top,
maintaining the OEM latches but we have to clearance
it out for the hoop 'cause the main hoop is gonna
go right here.
We got our shapes cut out for our boxes for our hoop
and the front boxes partly ready for our A pillars to land.
We had to clearance out in here to give us room
for the A pillars but now that this is all clean,
once that's done, we're gonna trace out the main hoop
and start bending.
So we're fitting up the main hoop template now
and here at our shop, we do template bending.
So, this is a bend, it's 90 degrees.
We have a start mark and we use that to visually see
where the bend is going to start and wind up.
So something pretty sweet about a Corvette is that
since there's nothing back here, Ty and I were able to
trim up a piece of cardboard to go around and fit to the
chassis so that we'll know the width,
clears the tranny tunnel,
and this is where the main hoop's gonna sit
where you're able to just go ahead and mark it
with a Sharpie.
So our layout's done, our measurements are figured out,
and it's pretty exciting because we're gonna take the first
cut for the piece of tubing for the Corvette.
First cut, first piece of tube, time to start bending.
(upbeat music)
Alright, so we got our top two bends,
now we're gonna--
- [Ty] It's flat.
Yeah, alright, lays flat.
Go to our template and see where we wanna start
going for our second bend.
So you can see here, this is like where that roof mount is
and this is where the chassis is so we're just inside the
chassis, pretty much right where we wanna be.
And we're gonna start our second mark, make sure we wind
up inboard of the bottom foot, give ourself a little
bit of room for the door bars to be welded all the way
around and we'll be able to trim it, and throw it in.
(upbeat music)
Alright, that's it.
See how we have the door bar, where the door bar's gonna be
mounting on the hoop inboard, so we'll be able to weld
all the way around the door bar there
and it'll land center on our box.
The cardboard represents the outside of the car.
(upbeat music)
Alright, so the hoop seems to fit pretty good,
it landed exactly where we wanted it to here,
to be able to weld the roof mount into it.
We have just enough room to get our door bars in here
and the correct amount of clearance that we wanted up top.
We're getting the boxes tacked in, we have the hoop bent up,
fit, we're gonna have to put 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 just come across the floor,
fill in the corner, but you can't since it's fiberglass
so we have it fit so it still welds to the steel part
of the chassis, we'll be able to tape weld the front of
this, weld that into the chassis, and seeings as this is
the actual frame rail right here,
it should be plenty strong.
(upbeat music)
We got the hoop in, it feels pretty damn good.
We got our boxes done, this is how the hoop fits.
This is the roof mount that we're gonna be welding into
the hoop.
The hoop's super level all the way across, nice gaps
all the way down, just enough to weld our door bars in,
just enough to get all the way around the bottom portion
of it welding.
I'm pretty impressed.
Alright, now that the hoop and everything is all tacked,
we're gonna start with our rear bars.
Just tacked in these plates.
The rear bar is gonna come basically from the opposite
side of where the A pillar's gonna land,
mount it on the hoop, come down 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 correct
and 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 mark
on the center line of the top of my notch.
I'm gonna bring this over here 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 tight
against the hoop and this lays totally flat against
our plate, it's totally centered on the plate,
so 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.
(upbeat music)
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.
(upbeat music)
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.
(upbeat music)
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 mean time 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.