Assembling a Monocoque

[Rune]

It has been some time since I posted pictures on the forum .Reason for that is my other job(the one I earn the money to pay for this car) ,and it has been cristmas and away on holiday with my family.

I have been working together with GOX on getting the last tools ready. it is a huge work to complete tools all the way from drawing board to a finish tools for only one part, testing and do adjustment to get it perfect and ready to produce parts according to the drawings.
I do not know how many tools that's made for this project, but it fill up a quite big room , and they weight some tons.

The work with the tools is almost at its end and all parts are produced and ready for assembling to the chassis.
The parts shown on these pictures ( must be a treasure for the copycats ) requires for some very complex tools to be bent like this.

We will now start spotwelding things together.
I now know that things take time, sometimes longer than planned.

 

[Rune]

Some more part pictures

The parts look alike , but they are all different , som right some left ,front and rear.

 

[Rune]

Now I'm building again, this time curvating parts for the chassis , as one can see, I'm using a Fokker Eckold The ultimate tool to do curves. You crimp and tretch almost as you want .The chassis is almost assembled using clamps. And hours is used to study where and how to start the spotwelding. This is almost the only thing the old original drawings not tell the builder.
It is possible to reach all places for spotwelding if you do it right. And I'm intend to do so.

 

[Jean-Paul Reckinger]

Just amazing....Good Luck Rune

 

[Jim Rosenthal]

You need to get some heat in that shop. You look cold.

 

[Rune]

We have heating in the shop, but I alternate between two buildings with a outside temperature here in Sweden, sometimes lower than minus 15 deg. Centigrade,then it is safe to have a good dress.
This not like the sunny places in US.

 

[Rick Muck- Mark IV]

Almost got an Ekhold free! A shop that used to do some work for me had one and I inquired once if they ever used it. The owners son told me "no, we haven't used it in twenty years, I'm gonna have it hauled out for scrap!" I offered to take it and pay for the moving and he was fine with that. His father however decided that "we may need it someday" and my offer of them using it at my shop wasn't accepted. Damn.....you can make almost anything with one of those!

 

[Mike GT40z]

Wow! This is an amazing feat. Please keep posting pictures. Absolutely amazing!

 

[jyrki sulka]

Now I'm building again, this time curvating parts for the chassis , as one can see, I'm using a Fokker Eckold The ultimate tool to do curves. You crimp and tretch almost as you want .The chassis is almost assembled using clamps. And hours is used to study where and how to start the spotwelding. This is almost the only thing the old original drawings not tell the builder.
It is possible to reach all places for spotwelding if you do it right. And I'm intend to do so.

Hi Bune
It was shame we didn`t see in Strömstad; Bert said You left factory little earlier, i was late due problems with car.
But i wondered Your mono-parts, and i`m not specialist in tooling, but seems to me You can do almost everything with that Fokker. Beautiful parts. I hope soon we can drool them here too.

Keep on excellent work :thumbsup:

 

[Keith]

Agreed..that is a real clever Fokker all right... :blank:

 

[Rune]

here are some of the last parts completed to day . To do this job it is nice to have a number of spotwelders they are all needed in this complex assembly step. The clue is to be able to weld all places where the the drawings call for a spotweld. It is a bit way to rolling car,. but one have to work steady

 

[Rune]

here is first time my monocoque is put together . All sub assemblies is hold together with clamps so this is how the chassis will look like . and second reason for this assembly, is to study in wich order it has to be welded. It seems that all parts fit pretty good together. But as with all handmade things some adjustments must be done during assembly prosess.
I feel now that the first milestone is passed , and some more to go.

 

[Rune]

For me begin to look like a car I would like to drive.

 

[Rune]

More pict.

 

[Rune]

As oone can see ,this the benefit from long time hard work .

 

[Rune]

Some more

 

[Gsmits]

how many of those things are you building? :stunned:

 

[Rune]

Im just building one for me , but goran Olsson is building alot of them .I'm only a lucky guy that have got the possibility to do the work in his factory, and work with using the original drawings and his well equiped workshop to make me own monocoque.

 

[Rune]

When I was building my experimental aircrafts , I came over a company that went out of business and they sold me all their bolts and nuts, washers, dzus fastners, split pins etc. Everything needed for repair aircrafts. This was in mid 80's and the parts was made in mid 60's It was aprox 1500 kg of steel total .Now I'm happy for not quitting this things when I was done with the aircrafts.
All the bolts & nuts etc. was UNF and UNC aircraft grade . The gt40 drawings asked for exact that kind of bolts and nuts.
Never trow away something You might need at a later occation

 

[Rune]

Here are my two roof parts beeing produced in a huge press tool, + some spares for other monocoques.