Post by damien on May 1, 2008 22:39:03 GMT 10
Around 1995 I purchased a Cigweld stick welder with just two controls an on/off switch and a selector for either 2.5mm or 3.2mm ? welding rods, I was at the time attending Bendigo TAFE with my son doing Assoc Diploma Electronics Damien Jnr needed a antenna mast for his Ham radio gear so i obtained a set of TAFE notes for welding trades and taught myself welding it was very successful.
Around that time i got re-interested in club motor sport and had bought a small 1970 Renault 10 that needed to be transport, as i had a small VW Passat road car a light weight trailer was needed that put little weight on the tow bar and to fit Vic roads regs for tow capacity of road car 4 wheel hydraulic braking was needed. I decided on a "Dog" trailer meaning like a truck trailer it has a separable front axle.
So off to local steel merchant for a lot of 3 x 2 box tube and 25mm x 25mm x 3mm angle and 2 packs of 2.5mm rods. And with an idea in my head I started with chalk i marked the frame on the concrete floor of my carport which until the frame was built was my welding bench.
Unfortunately i only have one pic taken just after i got it registered.
here it is.
I used it for 2 years even though it was almost impossible to reverse, all up it weighed in at 360kg i built it light simply because the competition car was only 680kg with me in it.
I got a bigger car and changed it to tandem, i reused the original Passat stub axle assemblies, drum brakes and wheels and removed the steerable axle pivot which was yet another Passat stub axle.
Because there was no suspension on the trailer used 25mm threaded rod to allow height adjustment of the draw bar.
The trailer was sold on ebay in 1994 to a farmer in Shepparton a week later he called me to ask if it was bent in the middle when i sold it to him.
Seems he put 2 tonne of small tractor with a 1 tonne slasher on it and destroyed it. Real glad I had the sale price in my pocket.
My next major build was to Super charge, EFI, Water inject and convert from swing axle rear end to fully independent suspension.
WHY because a car club member said it couldn't be done & made out i'd waste my time trying.
If there's interest i'll post a story and pic's of the build.
While my welding is not real pretty it is functional, and the car passed an engineers inspection for a CAMS log book.
cheers Damien.
Around that time i got re-interested in club motor sport and had bought a small 1970 Renault 10 that needed to be transport, as i had a small VW Passat road car a light weight trailer was needed that put little weight on the tow bar and to fit Vic roads regs for tow capacity of road car 4 wheel hydraulic braking was needed. I decided on a "Dog" trailer meaning like a truck trailer it has a separable front axle.
So off to local steel merchant for a lot of 3 x 2 box tube and 25mm x 25mm x 3mm angle and 2 packs of 2.5mm rods. And with an idea in my head I started with chalk i marked the frame on the concrete floor of my carport which until the frame was built was my welding bench.
Unfortunately i only have one pic taken just after i got it registered.
here it is.
I used it for 2 years even though it was almost impossible to reverse, all up it weighed in at 360kg i built it light simply because the competition car was only 680kg with me in it.
I got a bigger car and changed it to tandem, i reused the original Passat stub axle assemblies, drum brakes and wheels and removed the steerable axle pivot which was yet another Passat stub axle.
Because there was no suspension on the trailer used 25mm threaded rod to allow height adjustment of the draw bar.
The trailer was sold on ebay in 1994 to a farmer in Shepparton a week later he called me to ask if it was bent in the middle when i sold it to him.
Seems he put 2 tonne of small tractor with a 1 tonne slasher on it and destroyed it. Real glad I had the sale price in my pocket.
My next major build was to Super charge, EFI, Water inject and convert from swing axle rear end to fully independent suspension.
WHY because a car club member said it couldn't be done & made out i'd waste my time trying.
If there's interest i'll post a story and pic's of the build.
While my welding is not real pretty it is functional, and the car passed an engineers inspection for a CAMS log book.
cheers Damien.
