68 Barracuda Fastback build

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yotah1 said:
That’s pretty true, but that’s not really the reason why there hasn’t been much progress lately :(. We had to take apart and rebuild her car during the summer to fix some engine and transmission issues before she could take it to a trackday, so that kept me away fromthe Cuda for several weeks. We’ve just restarted working on the old fish tonight, working on the rollcage which requires a lot of adjusting, cutting, grinding, measuring... so we’ve done the main hoop properly, and adjusted the roof hoop too. Next on the list (probably thursday) will be the diagonal bar under the roof and the a pillar bars.
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Keep it coming. I went thru a lot of that, about done now, down to tuning and refining !
 
I've managed to work on the cage recently. About 3 days of work total to get one side mostly in place. I tacked the base plate in the car to install everything and I will grind those tack welds to get the entire side assembly out of the car, finish the welds properly in the tight areas, and weld on some gussets too, and then weld that back into the car before switching to the other side and repeating the process.

I will have approximately 120 feet of tube in the car when I'm done, with crosses in the doors, under the roof, in the back passenger area, and in the main hoop with harness bars too. 2 bars will go into the engine bay, with gussets to the strut towers, with one other V shaped bar connecting both sides via the firewall at the back of the engine. The trunk will have one bar going from one side to the other, with the 2 bars connecting to the main hoop from it, and another cross under the rear glass.

Still a lot of work to be done before I can start the massive task of cleaning the underbody also ... But I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, albeit very small it can be :p

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I will also modify my current 68 bucket seats to reinforce them and add lateral support, and then fit an aluminium sheet in the middle with some dimple dies (gonna machine these probably this weekend) and a bit of cushioning for "comfort".

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Did some more work last night. I finished all the welds on the passenger side of the cage, so yesterday I also cut some cardboard templates to mock up my gussets. I will scan these tomorrow, draw them on the computer and waterjet them on saturday. The lateral cross bars gussets will be a little bit bigger in the end, but all I have to do is scale them up and keep the same cutout shape for the tubes.
There will be a little surprise on these to make them "custom designed" to the Cuda :)

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I also started cutting out my perfectly good hood to get some air vents in it. These are just the first cuts, there will be the same ones on the driver side, and then the back portion of each air vent will be bent down at a 30 degree angle or so, and 2 triangles will be welded in on each side to connect everything together. It should come out pretty nice and compensate the loss of rigidity in that area due to the cutting.

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I'm hoping to get this done by the end of the weekend so I can switch to the driver side of the cage, and then move on to the front section, roof cross, and engine bay.
 
yotah1 said:
Did some more work last night. I finished all the welds on the passenger side of the cage, so yesterday I also cut some cardboard templates to mock up my gussets. I will scan these tomorrow, draw them on the computer and waterjet them on saturday. The lateral cross bars gussets will be a little bit bigger in the end, but all I have to do is scale them up and keep the same cutout shape for the tubes.
There will be a little surprise on these to make them "custom designed" to the Cuda :)

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I also started cutting out my perfectly good hood to get some air vents in it. These are just the first cuts, there will be the same ones on the driver side, and then the back portion of each air vent will be bent down at a 30 degree angle or so, and 2 triangles will be welded in on each side to connect everything together. It should come out pretty nice and compensate the loss of rigidity in that area due to the cutting.

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I'm hoping to get this done by the end of the weekend so I can switch to the driver side of the cage, and then move on to the front section, roof cross, and engine bay.
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big *** vents !
 
More work done this weekend, but I need to find a space heater for the garage, it's getting close to 30 in there, hard to work on metal with those temps :(

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Thanks a lot, glad it's seeing some appreciation :)

I've moved forward a bit on the cage with the gussets that take me a crazy amount of time to get a very tight fit and allow for better and easier welding. I'm getting to a point where my welds are somewhat ok, it's nothing close to what a pro would do or what I see some guys doing. But for a guy who picked up a torch for the first time after buying the Cuda, it's getting decent...

Little custom detail on one of the gussets on the cross which goes into the doors on the sides of the cage. The logo takes me about 90 minutes to cut and grind by hand, but I like the final result.
2 more gussets on the passenger side to do, 2 more tubes to fit between the a-pillar and the firewall to connect to the tube which will go into the engine bay, and that side will be done.

Most tubes are already cut for the driver side so hopefully next week I can start on that. The goal is to finish the cage for Xmas, and maybe finish seam welding the chassis also.

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Getting very close to finishing that side of the cage. The engine bay is done on the passenger side, and I have one more tube to weld to finish the triangulation between the firewall and the door part of the cage.

This weekend we should be able to cut, adjust and tack-weld the other side of the care in place.

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yotah1 said:
Getting very close to finishing that side of the cage. The engine bay is done on the passenger side, and I have one more tube to weld to finish the triangulation between the firewall and the door part of the cage.

This weekend we should be able to cut, adjust and tack-weld the other side of the care in place.

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motor plate ? I almost got my front tubes in the way of my motor plate brackets, by not figuring it out before hand.
 
I got the passenger side welded in and got a coat of primer and paint on it to protect it yesterday. Switching over to the driver side this week.

Famous bob, what do you mean by motor plate? I measured before I got my tubes in the engine bay, they are outside of the maximum dimensions of the engine in terms of width anyway, so it shouldn't interfere. But, again, I only have a 318 with nothing but an alternator in the front so not much to interfere with anyway :)

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yotah1 said:
Famous bob, what do you mean by motor plate? I measured before I got my tubes in the engine bay, they are outside of the maximum dimensions of the engine in terms of width anyway, so it shouldn't interfere. But, again, I only have a 318 with nothing but an alternator in the front so not much to interfere with anyway :)
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Bob - looking back at his engine pics it looks like he is using a stock style K frame and biscuit mounts. No motor plate to worry about.
 
mosleyme said:
Bob - looking back at his engine pics it looks like he is using a stock style K frame and biscuit mounts. No motor plate to worry about.
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cool, thot I might help out. I almost got mine in the way before putting the engine in. had to do a little " rigging !"
 
lots of work done over the past 4 weeks as we are moving to another house on April 1st so the car had to be assembled.
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Not really, but I'm expecting to be safe though, because I love my life and when I go road racing with it, I wanna be enjoying it for years lol
 
We started the engine in the car this weekend. The fuel system isn't finished yet so we're pulling fuel from a jug right now, and the car doesn't have any brakes on it, and the wiring still needs to be finished in the cockpit, but we had to put it all together within a 2 week timeframe as we moved to a new place in April (bigger garage that fits both muscle cars now).

 
Love the build! Its definitely giving me some motivation for my 69 build! Keep up the good work.
 
Still working on it, wiring is done, most of the welding is done, roof came off to finish the top of the cage and is now back on. Engine, trans, rear end all done. I still have to manufacture caliper brackets both front and rear

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