tutorial, making an exhaust hangar bracket from scratch

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moparmat2000

moparmat2000

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Hi Y'all,

i was able to get a passenger side exhaust hangar assembly off a really rusty A body dart with factory dual exhaust. this was given to me for free by the salvage yard operator who probably thought i was nuts and had pity on me. anyway, i decided to look thru my scrap sheet steel ,and square stock tubing i keep in my shop to see if i had anything i could use to make a close to exact copy of this part.

this part is stamped as one piece in a die under lots of pressure. i dont have anything like this at my disposal, so i had to examine the part and decide how i was going to make it. i determined making it from 3 seperate pieces of steel and welding it together would be my best bet. so yes its not quite exactly like the factory one, but the welds are hidden on the side of the part you wont see anyways. this can be done with other parts for our cars with a little patience. follow along and see how i made a copy of this part.

i measured a thickest part of the bracket with my dial caliper and found it was about .075" - .080" thick. what gage this is i dont have a clue, but i found some scrap square tubing this thickness, and some flat sheet the same thickness in my collection of metal in the shop.

using a sharpie and the square tubing i traced, cut out and made copies of the sides and nut flanges of both sides of the brackets.

using the flat sheet stock i cut a rectangle the same width as the brackets face, measured and put the angled bend in it using my bench vise, and cut out the holes for the clip nut.

then i fitted the pieces together using aluminum tape and compared it to the original bracket

i welded up the bracket by using magnets to hold everything in place and tack welding to hold it together then welding a solid bead on the back side.

since there is a weld bead on the back side , i used my sanding discs on my angle grinder and rounded the bracket on the opposite side of the weld to simulate this rounded spot on the original bracket, and smoothed the bracket in these areas.

finally after making a template of the hole locations on the original bracket i transferred these to the new bracket with a step drill bit (unibit) and fitted this to my repaired reinforcement with the studs i just fixed.
 

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The problem with this tutorial is your having a sample to work from where others do not. If you really want to help me and others.. hammer the OEM bracket out to flat. trace it on paper, add all dimensions. Then anyone can copy it to 16 gauge ( OEM might be 11 gauge ) sheet metal, bend it up and be done. No welding. No possible cracked welds.
 
RedFish said:
The problem with this tutorial is your having a sample to work from where others do not. If you really want to help me and others.. hammer the OEM bracket out to flat. trace it on paper, add all dimensions. Then anyone can copy it to 16 gauge ( OEM might be 11 gauge ) sheet metal, bend it up and be done. No welding. No possible cracked welds.
Click to expand...

The reason it cant just be bent up, and yes i do have access to a metal brake is the bend on the face side where the clip nut holes are. If it was just a U channel with tabs off of it for the mounting holes then yes you can hammer it flat and make it out of one piece.

Take a look at the pix again you will see what i am talking about. I have done sheetmetal fabrication on aircraft for 19 years,, and i can tell you, there is no way to put this type of a compound bend in this part with a metal brake. The only way to duplicate the compound bent is with a hydraulic press as the factory has done, or make it out of multiple pieces and weld it together.
 
RedFish said:
The problem with this tutorial is your having a sample to work from where others do not. If you really want to help me and others.. hammer the OEM bracket out to flat. trace it on paper, add all dimensions. Then anyone can copy it to 16 gauge ( OEM might be 11 gauge ) sheet metal, bend it up and be done. No welding. No possible cracked welds.
Click to expand...


Give him credit for getting the job done. Nice job Matt.

He did what he can with what he has to work with (and with what he's good at - Matt's great with welding). I think that welding the pieces together like he did would be easier to make more accurately, than trying to do it by cutting a flat pattern and bending it.


It is not easy to bend metal very accurately with what most of us have in our garages (maybe a vise). Probably not a big metal bender like in the shop at American Chopper. (but I would LOVE to have one) :D

The radius of each bend will add variation to the part. Not everyone will have the same radius on each bend. (I couldn't do it by hand with my vise and a hammer).
 
krazykuda said:
Give him credit for getting the job done. Nice job Matt.

He did what he can with what he has to work with (and with what he's good at - Matt's great with welding). I think that welding the pieces together like he did would be easier to make more accurately, than trying to do it by cutting a flat pattern and bending it.


It is not easy to bend metal very accurately with what most of us have in our garages (maybe a vise). Probably not a big metal bender like in the shop at American Chopper. (but I would LOVE to have one) :D

The radius of each bend will add variation to the part. Not everyone will have the same radius on each bend. (I couldn't do it by hand with my vise and a hammer).
Click to expand...

Not only that but i wanted to show what could be done with metal we all usually have lying around the legs with the attaching holes didnt have to be bent because it was cut from scrap square tubing, the part with the clip nut has the across bend making it a compound bend which means this bracket cannot be made in a metal brake or vise in one piece. However i bent its bend as a seperate piece in a vise with soft jaws.

This is not to show how to make one of these without an original to copy, but rather if you have an original part that is too abused or rusted to use , and its fairly simple but hard to find, you can make a copy of it with some patience and practice.

Thanks for all the kind replies.

Matt
 
The reproduction work is pretty I wont argue that. "Tutorial" and "from scratch" is my focus.
Most of us have workbench, vise, and hammer, at best.
I'm sure if you can hammer it flat the material will be there to recreate the form.
If the bolt holes in the frame are provided by the factory, that bolt pattern should be scaled before flattening and drilled after bending.
 
RedFish said:
The reproduction work is pretty I wont argue that. "Tutorial" and "from scratch" is my focus.
Most of us have workbench, vise, and hammer, at best.
I'm sure if you can hammer it flat the material will be there to recreate the form.
If the bolt holes in the frame are provided by the factory, that bolt pattern should be scaled before flattening and drilled after bending.
Click to expand...

This what i dont think you are getting. This part has a compound bend that can only be duplicated as one piece in a press. Hammering this part flat ruins it as a template.

The from scratch refers to the scrap metal i used in my shop to make the pieces needed to duplicate the bracket.

I agree a lot of guys only have a vise, workbench , and hammer at best. This is what i used to make this part. I do have access to a bender at work, but i did not use one to make this. I used what are common tools most people on here have. I even chain drilled and hand filed the square clip nut hole holding it in a bench vise. Everything i used most guys on here have , with exception of the wire welder, which i am willing to bet about 50% of the people on here have since you can buy one relatively cheap these days.

Is it a tutorial?? Well ask yourself, did i learn something today?? ,if so then yes. If not well i dont know what to tell you. After 19 years of sheetmetal fabrication in the airline industry, of which i have been an instructor in a back shop environment for the last 2 years. I come across guys who listen and soak up the knowledge i provide (rationalist) and some who dont take my information and wonder why doing things their way wont work (empiricist).

Look up both definitions if your not sure what they mean, decide for yourself which personality is yours.

Cheers
Matt :)
 
Nice work Matt.

I agree, good luck getting that compound bend done using a vise and hammer. Isn't gonna happen.
 

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crackedback said:
Nice work Matt.

I agree, good luck getting that compound bend done using a vise and hammer. Isn't gonna happen.
Click to expand...

Yup yup yup exactly what i have been trying to say all along.

I guess for some folks the quote " you can lead a horse to water, but you cant make him drink it " applies . I say good luck bending this part out of one piece using a vise and a hammer. I bet i could whack out a dozen of these in the same time it would take somebody to beat just one of these out of a single piece of steel on a vise, and be a hell of a lot more accurate with less waste and fustration.

LOL

Matt
 
I can see the bend without a circle drawn to point it out. A compound bend doesn't scare me. To cold forge parts takes a little practice so you know which bends to start first, how far to take them, how to support them.
I aint saying I would make something like a brake backing plate with a hammer.
I still insist this bracket looks too easy.
But anyway.. You've got it going on. Make them to sell.
 
RedFish said:
I can see the bend without a circle drawn to point it out. A compound bend doesn't scare me. To cold forge parts takes a little practice so you know which bends to start first, how far to take them, how to support them.
I aint saying I would make something like a brake backing plate with a hammer.
I still insist this bracket looks too easy.
But anyway.. You've got it going on. Make them to sell.
Click to expand...

Well, now that i have made mine, i can send you the rusty old piece o **** i copied it from if you want to take a try at making this out of one piece. Unless you have a set of dies to form this part and access to a large press i am betting you are not going to make this part out of one piece of steel, and get it to the dimensions and angles the original is this includes the compound bend.

If you want to give it a whirl, feel free to pm me with your address and i will send it to you.

Cheers
Matt:)
 
Very nice job Matt! Now all you need to do is make 65 more for the rest of us :) I know on my 69 Dart I didnt use a bracket on the passenger side, I just bolted the hanger to the floor mount. I would not be opposed to buying one from you if you were thinking of making some more for sale. Greg
 
blu340dart said:
Very nice job Matt! Now all you need to do is make 65 more for the rest of us :) I know on my 69 Dart I didnt use a bracket on the passenger side, I just bolted the hanger to the floor mount. I would not be opposed to buying one from you if you were thinking of making some more for sale. Greg
Click to expand...

Another member posted on a previous thread i started on the cars and parts section when i was looking for one of these about a site where you can get this bracket for $35 out of stainless steel. It takes me about 4 to 5 hours to make one to my satisfaction. I am,O.C.D. By nature. I imagine if i made a bunch of these this time per piece would go down. However when i made this part i didnt know a stainless steel one existed for that cheap or quite frankly i would have just bought one of those LOL.

I figured i would use my camera, and take pix as i went along so maybe somebody else needing a part that nobody makes could possibly make their own replacement.

Matt.
 
Wow, I didn't know that maybe helping to educate other members that don't know what a compound bend is/looks like would be taken with such angst and as an insult to anyone's intelligence.

Carry on with whatever floats your boat and please hammer the **** out of your metal folks! It's great for frustration reduction.
 
In retrospect, I guess I have a different conception of what a tutorial should/could be.
May be that the title of the thread had me expecting scaled drawings, measurements, etc.. Fabricating the part from 3 pieces ( as shown ) requires more detail than pretty pictures provide. Anyway..
My apologies to all.
 
RedFish said:
In retrospect, I guess I have a different conception of what a tutorial should/could be.
May be that the title of the thread had me expecting scaled drawings, measurements, etc.. Fabricating the part from 3 pieces ( as shown ) requires more detail than pretty pictures provide. Anyway..
My apologies to all.
Click to expand...

A picture is worth a thousand words or so they say. The point of this was to show what can be done if you have an unusable part that you cannot find a replacement for that is fairly simple to make. It wasnt a blueprint making session. I can make up measurements to,fabricate this part, that also include bend allowance, but the point was taking what you have and tracing it out to make a copy for your own use.

Again if you learned something from the pix and verbage in my original post about making a replacement bracket or other item out of steel to replace a rusty original you have, then you learned something. That was the intent of the thread , to give the knowledge i have freely to others here who may learn from it, and use it.

Isnt this what fabo is about?? A small community of folks who want to help each other.

Matt
 
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