FS: 3 point Strut braces front and rear, Fabbing my own brand of braces get em while they're hot! Options

[Darkchylde]

Hey Guys and Gals

My name is Art, I've been a member of the community for about three years. I am a steamfitter by trade and was thinking of fabbing my own strut tower braces I am certified to weld under nuclear conditions with an X-ray test to determine the efficacy of my welds, both of the stick and MIG processes.

I was wondering if there was any interest out there for me to fab these braces for more than myself. I 'm not entirely sure of the materials yet, the easiest to get a hold of and join would be steel. I realize that is probably heavier than most of you would want, I just thought of this today so I'll be checking out the possibility of aluminum as well. Anyway shoot me a reply here on this post or in a p.m., the cost for the braces I am trying to aim for is about 100-150 for a front brace (3-point) and about 50-75 for a rear (3 point as well). These prices are not completely set as I have not made one yet. I am also entertaining the idea of buying the plans to make the frame insert for awd setups but I am not sure about that one yet. Let me know if your interested and in what and I will get on crunching the numbers and the first prototypes. I will post pictures in the next week or so and list the final product materials, and for those do it your selfers, post an autocad print of the plans for a price as well. So hit me back and let's see if we can't make some good parts for ourselves.

First mock up picture, Made this to check fitment for the steel jig I made from the wooden one that I made with Stevenson, from his Jspeed one.
This one is 3/4 schedule 40 steel pipe It's fit into my trunk right now, to make sure the fitment is correct. I have a couple of tweaks to make. But the rears are going into production tomorrow 12/16/10.

Front brace mock up for jig, fitment is good just have a couple of clearances to check

had to make the front support just about from scratch,didn't turn out too bad if you ask me though.


This post has been edited by Darkchylde: Dec 18, 2010 - 1:22 AM

[Darkchylde]

apologies to all interested in the braces, I ended up getting hired to work an outage at Indian Point. Working 12 hour shifts 6 days a week. I am in the process of trying to find a reasonably priced TIG machine. To make these with a wire feed MIG gun I would have to buy a 1,000 dollar spool handle to work the aluminum. I found a reasonable source for the aluminum tubing. It has just been really hectic because the 12 hour shift I was on was the 6 pm to 6 am. I am now laid off once again though and looking forward to continuing with the braces. I will pm all who were interested originally when the first sets are made until then please be patient and excuse my rather rude behavior of not updating while all of this was going on.