My neighbors must think I'm nuts... but their kids dig me ;) While rolling the latest project into the shop, some neighbors who drove by did the double take and head shake while their kids thought I was building the coolest go cart in the world.
The latest project is another Formula Ford from St. Louis' favorite Topeka resident. A 70's Royale RP-24. The chassis has seen a number of repairs and tweaks over the years. After a pretty bad off last season, Bryan decided that a rebuild was in order along with a few improvements to some of the suspension mounting points as well as the front hoop.
Pics will be coming soon as work progresses (or if it stays as cold as it has been!).
The chassis showed up completely stripped (except for a mockup block and transaxle since the drivetrain serves as a structural member) and sand blasted. Several main tubes on the right rear of the chassis were tweaked, had been rapaired poorly or were cracked. The majority of the Royales chassis joints are brazed. The factory brazes are truly works of art. Oddly enough, some componants are TIG welded, some joints have a combo of braze and TIG... some have both on the same weld bead!
As of today, all of the damaged rear frame tubes have already been replaced, with some of the areas TIG welded into place. A specific rod has been ordered to duplicate (as close as possible) the original welds. Once a section of metal has been brazed, it's difficult to get it clean enough to MIG or TIG... which is one reason why we're sticking with the braze. In my internet research on brazing of formula car chassis', it's thought that the chassis' were brazed to make at track repairs simpler and that the brazing spread the load over a larger weld and that the heat effect on the tubing was much less than with MIG or TIG.
While I'm waiting on the rod to show up, the front hoop needs updating. I just received the 1 3/8" die set today from Hossfeld so I'll have plenty to do. The current front hoop is 7/8" tube with a single spear... er... brace running to the center of the bend.
Pics soon
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