[hgs_notes]

Progress has been slow. Since late April when I last posted it finally started to warm up around here and there was a lot of things around the compound that I was waiting for the thaw so I could get going. I was mainly working on the frame for the seats. A couple weeks ago I got the rear bar fitted in.


Nothing fancy, just a 1-1/4" tube with a 90 on each end to weld to the cage. The front part was more challenging. The seat brackets are 16" front to back. My die has a 5" radius and I measured an earlier bend for reference marks so I knew about where to put the first bend. Turned out fine. I've also been measuring the angle after the bend and where the ram is at in relation to a mark I made on the bender frame so I have an idea of how far to go.


I'm shooting for a 16-1/2" space between the front and rear tubes. Room for 1/8" plates to be welded to the tubes and bolted to the seat brackets. This 90 was the easy part. Next is bending a section that connects to the door tube and drops down to the correct height, which is tricky because the door tube is at a 20* angle so any movement front and back changes the height and the angle that the bend hits that tube is different depending on where it's cut. They meet in the middle of the bend. I only tossed one piece into the scrap pile so not bad. I wasn't going to try and make this in one piece, my math skills are ok, but not that good. I used 1-1/2' tube with 1/8" wall to fit over the 2 pieces.


I did try notching the tube in the bend area but it really didn't work well. I ended up just using a flapper disc on an angle grinder to form the notch. It's not that hard but I'm glad I have the notcher rig anyway. Like my wire brush shims?


So far so good. The passenger side is tacked in place. I am fabbing a little support that will bolt into one of the original seat holes and hold the front inside corner. And I need to cut and drill the plates that will hold the seat brackets. Almost done with the driver side also. Maybe next weekend the seat frame will be done minus the finish welds.