JEESUS!!!
At this rate I shoud be done w/ the car sometime in 2015.
Seems like every time I plan to get alot done anymore, my plan is so shortsighted, that I always leave the garage w/ the plan woefully "incomplete".
I decided to complete my minitubs. I have already completed one side, but wasn't all warm and fuzzy about how it came out, so I decided to do the passenger side the way it shoulda been done in the first place.
Obviously, the start point is the butchery required to get the old tub out:
Typically I use a cut off wheel, and a sawzall to do this. I start by making reference cuts along the inner wheel tub edge:
I cut the support structure free at the front and rear of the tub
Once referenced and free'd up, I whip out the sawzall and connect the dots. Eventually, the old tub is on the floor.
Now I'm gonna bounce around from right to left, because I didn't duplicate both side pics tit for tat, so don't rag me for not keeping it all lefty loosey, righty tighty.
Once free of the tub, you now have a big assed gaping hole where the old tub used to be.
I don't have to tell you that this is what all the support structure looks like before the carnage. The upper shock mount reinforcement, the upper spring perch, and the axle snubber mount.
There really isn't a lot of room to move the inner tub over where the increased width potential isn't cancelled out by the fact that the frame rails in a fox aren't straight. The rear most portion of the frame rail is significantly wider than the front, and limits the actual potential gain to about 2.5". Since I intend to use a 315 x 17 wheel, the stock tub was almost wide enough, but to be safe, and to give me the room to put the tire way up inside the tub, 2.5" is really all I was needing.
I slid the sectioned tub up in place, moved it over 1.5", and put the tire up there to check clearance:
This was all I had for inside clearance:
I was gonna need all I could get, so I wiped the frame rail clean. After about an hour of drilling out spot welds, cutting, and grinding, I had a completely clean frame rail.
After getting both sides to look like this I was ready to put the thing back together. Earlier in this thread, I made the necessary modifications to allow for coil over shocks. The upper mount bugged me. It was gonna stick too far inboard of the inner tub, so I decided to modify it.
My friends call me "Do it twice Mike", because it always seems I second guess myself. The version above was probably more than adequate to support the load, I just wanted to shorten it up, and at the same time increase the strength, and leave me the ability to finish it where it'll look decent. I came up with this goofy assed solutionb:
First it required I cut away the inboard leg of the mount.
Then I made the new reinforcement out of 3/16" bar stock, bent in a semi-circle to match the semi-circle beneath that was welded to the frame.
Whether or not this solution is any stronger than "plan A", it will allow me to cap it w/ a dome type cover that'll look a little less home made. Since the whole tub was out, there was no better time to do it. One things for sure,....there'll be no plan C version of this. This is it.
Next I moved on to prepping the tub. It was covered in undercoating, seam sealer, and glue.
And there was all of that old metal that had to be cut free:
I use a 4.5" cut off wheel to do this. I just follow the old metal seam, and cut the old mating surface clean away. After that's done, I strip the rest of the funk off of the exterior of the tub. It's best that this is done while its out, it's way easier.
Now Scott, @
RacEoHolic330 chose to strip the entire underside of his tub. After just stripping the 1/2-3/4
" that ran around the perimeter of this tub, there's no way in hell I'm doing that. It's still bonded to the inside like day one, and even w/ heat, and a stiff wire wheel running at 20,000 RPM, the stuff didn't want to come off.
So I'm leaving the rest.
Next, I prepped the inner wheel lip:
This is prep that you will thank yourself for later if you do it now. It is galvanized, thin metal w/ all kinds of undercoating/seam sealer just begging to foul your welds. Do it now, you can thank me later.
This^^^
This is the underside of the tub. Just like the inner, it needs to have the undercoating stripped so it won't catch on fire when you weld in the new section. This is an enormous mess, and there is NOTHING that makes it less so. I used a stiff wire wheel mounted on an angle grinder and a mapp gas torch to heat it up. It just throws junk everywhere, be sure to use a respirator, ( You know I didn't.)
I used a 3" wide piece of 18 ga. mild steel as a spacer to move the tub in board. Since there'll never be a better opportunity to make sure it's really tightly mated to the inner lip, I welded this first. I used a combination of clamps, and vise grips to hold the thing in place, w/ clamps located about every 4". I welded it completely along the inner cut line till I got to the top of the arch, where i couldn't get my weld gun in place to weld it anymore. After making a giant mess of the top of the arch, I called it a night.
This is what I'm talking about w/ regard to prep. Up until I got to the top, the welding was going along beautifully. But after an entire day spent to get this far, I had no patience to go farther after the disaster at the top of the arch, All I can say, is good thing these things are gonna be covered in sound deadener.