And the first task was to lay the aluminum sheet (.083") on the chassis so that I could trace the frame rails onto the pan.
And here it is with everything traced.
Next, I needed to cut it but before I did I wanted to make sure that the side pod bottoms would fit because the original belly pan was much wider at the back of the car. Here is a pic of the belly pan with the side pod bottoms sitting on it. You will notice that the bottoms have been modified -- that is the subject for the next blog!
I'm actually really glad that I thought of this step because I originally just drew lines that were 1 inch away from the frame rails for the sidepods and found out that the belly pan needed to be wider than that towards the back of the car. Once I had everything re-drawn, I then used a jigsaw to cut the belly pan. Next, I used the old belly pan to mark where the existing holes were in the frame rails that didn't get changed by Eric. This pic shows those holes marked in red but I used a center punch to mark the spots where I would drill the new 5/32nd holes -- those are the small silver dots in the pic.
Once I marked all the holes, it was time to start drilling. In order to extend the life of my bits, I used cutting oil, one drop per hole for the aluminum and two drops (one at the start of the hole and one half way through) for the steel chassis.
Here is a pic of the chassis after the holes were drilled -- 286 of them!! The larger holes are the holes that I didn't use and the reason for the strips welded on the inside of the chassis.
Even with the cutting oil, I used up 5 5/32nd drill bits but the holes actually needed to be about a hundreth bigger for the rivets so I used a number 20 drill bit to widen all the holes just a little bit. A reamer is probably a better choice for this step but I didn't have one the right size. All of the holes then needed to be deburred and the holes on the bottom side of the belly pan needed to be counter sunk.
I then cleaned the belly pan and the bottom of the chassis several times with acetone to get all the oil off. Of course the acetone also removed all the chassis marking lines on the belly pan so after I cleaned it I put the pan back on the chassis and re-traced the chassis onto the pan. In order to help the bonding material (3M Hysol Epoxy) to stick to the aluminum and the steel, I then scuffed both the pan and the chassis with a pneumatic sander.
After cleaning the pan and the chassis with acetone one last time it was finally time to apply the epoxy. My wife, Terry, helped me with this stage. I laid the epoxy with a caulking type gun on both the pan and the chassis and Terry used a small putty knife to spread it. We had 2 hours of working time with this epoxy before it started to harden and this step only took about 20 minutes. We then placed the pan onto the chassis and held it in place with cleco fasteners. It was finally time to start riveting! I used high strength rivets that have a 600 lb tensil strength although the epoxy is really what provides the structural rigidity. Terry placed all of the rivets in the holes and I started riveting. I borrowed a pneumatic rivet gun and this was definitely a life saver!
Here are some pics of the pan installed. I used more acetone to clean up any stray epoxy.
So, that's it!! One of the biggest jobs for the car done!!
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