Making a reinforcement rear body support bar

25th June 2011.

Having managed to get my front bumper to fit I decided that in the light of my fuel regulator not turning up I would have to finally get round to building a new rear body support. This would be version two as the previous rear support although strong interfered with the position of my exhaust and I had to remove it . I decided that I would try to make the new support so that it could use one of the existing chassis mounts. I choose the mount nearest the shock absorber mount as this was quite near the body work and had a clean flat position near the body work. I bought some 40mm X 8mm stock mild steel 4m which I had cut into 1m 1.5m and 1.5m so that I could get them home from the steel suppliers. This was similar material I had successfully used on the front bar.

I started fabricating the bracket by measuring the distance from the bracket to the body work. This enabled me to make a piece up that would reach onto the body. I welded another piece onto this at right angle so that it would come out from the bracket and run flush. I placed this on the body work and measured the mounting hole coming through the chassis. This fixing was a M10 fixing so I drilled a 1.5mm hole in the bar. This could then be bolted onto the mount. I then used a different piece of bar held horizontal to work out the height that i wanted the bracket to be on the body. I welded this on and made another bracket mirroring the first. I tried to bolt this on but found that the body work was concave and not flat and therefore the body was sitting away from the bracket by some 25mm. I would need to bend the bar to make it follow the shape of the body work. This turned out to be more simple yet more involved than I anticipated. I first of all tried to heat up the bar, this could not get the bar hot enough to even start a bend. I eventually found three 22mm tubes and used two of them one side of the bar and one the other against the metal in a vice. The vice could be then be tightened to bend the metal work. I put three of these bends into the bar and repeated this on the other bracket. With the side brackets made I bolted them onto the car and measured the width of the body work to create a join between the two side brackets i measured this as 94cm and welded a bar on. I also added some small tabs to the side bars so that I could add an under seat support bar. I then tried to refit the bracket and to my dismay found that even with the 80 mm body lift kit there was not enough room to get the bar in without removing the engine. I decided the only option was to cut the bracket in half and lap another piece of 40mm x 150mm to splice the two pieces with bolts. I welded this to one half of the bracket and drilled the other half whilst the bar was still together before cutting it through one side. The resulting two bars then were fitted to the body work the bracket had to be pulled into the body work to allow the two bars to meet. The next problem to overcome was how to drill the body work behind the fan housing to get the bolts through the bracket and fibre-glass. I found that I could heat up a small wood working bradel and use this hot to push through the bar into the the fibre-glass marking the position of the hole as this would push tight through. I could then frill the holes from the inside of the body work. With the brackets mounted I started to fabricate the cross bar . This was made by measuring the distance between the two drop down brackets a length of 935mm bar was cut and some 90 degree up-stands welded on each end. This was then drilled so that it could be bolted to the tabs. I then took the brackets of and painted them with Acrylic black paint before refitting them to the car.

Whilst I was making this bracket I also found some Stainless steel and made a bracket for my front number plate. I made this is in a similar construction to my rear plate. I used an angle grinder to cut the perimeter after drawing around my number plate. I then drew diagonals onto the square plate so that I could drill the corners of the intersections. This meant I could then use the Angle grinder to cut out the inner triangles from the plate making it lighter. I then bent a piece of stainless steel 10" long x 4" this was then bolted onto the number plate backing and protruded enough over the bumper to allow two bolts to be used to bolt it securely on. The finished plate was then cleaned and thick number plate pads where used to secure on the the number plate.

I was still waiting for my fuel regulator to turn up it was the second one i had ordered that had not so far turned up and I was beginning to despair at eBay this rendered my engine not running and I was beginning to worry about time. I found out shortly later that the seller of my item only ships out Saturday morning. It would have been useful to have known this when buying. Hopefully this does mean that it should be with me by Wednesday latest.