Looks like an engine bay :)

Got done what I wanted to tonight. After jigging the two top rails I welded yesterday and the two rear upright tubes (cut ages ago), I welded it all together.




I've done some "masking tape CAD" to show where the two braces go on each side of the engine bay. Should get them cut and welded tomorrow night.

Didn't get as much done this weekend as I hoped due to other commitments and various interruptions. I did get the two engine bay top rails tack welded together which I'm very happy with. This required the manufacture of a jig to hold the strut tube in the right place and angle while everything was tacked up. Here's the two finished articles.

And here's an end view that shows the 5.3 degree installed angle of the strut tubes.

Tomorrow's job is to tack these into the main chassis along with the rear uprights (already cut) at which point I'll have the outline of an engine bay :)

More soon.

Catching up again

Restarting this blog now that I'm making some visible progress and because I've shifted my web page hosting as well. I'll jam a few months worth of updates into this post and hopefully try to put something up every week or two.

So, from January 2008, some chassis progress:


And from more recently, some suspension bits. First the shortened strut housings with the Koni inserts etc:

And then the parts to make an adjustable top mount for the strut:

Lastly, the top mount bolted into the 135mm diameter tube that will actually get welded into the chassis:


All of the alloy bits need to go off for anodising yet but I can proceed with putting the tubes into the chassis. That'll need a jig to hold everything in place (the tubes go into the chassis at a 5.3 degree angle to suit the installed angle of the strut itself) so I'm making that now.

For a start, here's the MX-5 (Miata for our North American friends) seats that I bought off another Australian builder. Good condition, light weight and the right size - and only $300 for the pair. Quite happy with that.
 

I've decided to try using a blog to report progress (or lack thereof) on the Gecko Project. Only time will tell as to whether the ease of update will actually result in more updates.

I'll post some pictures and notes soon.