The Hard Part? | Building Your Own Components [TECH TIP]

Building your own components takes time and patience, I quickly learnt that getting tube bent up, notched and tack welded in position seemed to take no time at all, it’s all the parts hanging off this tube that can really test your patience.

86970533 2896927413663371 5035003295110791168 o

Take this simple headlight bracket for the Hilux build, just 2 brackets of probably 250 that are on the car. I didn’t have any fancy machinery at this stage, no CAD, no laser cutting, just a sheet of 1.6mm mild steel, some 1mm clear polycarbonate template material, an angle grinder with a 1mm cut off wheel and a pedestal drill.

86817018 2896927113663401 4270740330376069120 o

Making a template allows you to pick up hole positions and design the brackets to visualise the part before making it in steel. Although it takes a little more time your guaranteed a perfect fit once the parts made in sheet metal.

87042663 2896927300330049 6765430405895028736 o

While my skills and equipment have grown with time, I have still kept these templates along with just about every other bracket template I made for this car, just in case...

C0B12076 BB14 42DB B269 92F9D9A3A867

Want to learn more about Motorsport Fabrication or interested in getting some more inspiration and ideas for your dream project? The Motorsport Fabrication Fundamentals online course will point you in the right direction.

Nigel Petrie's profile image
About the author

Nigel Petrie

Fabrication and Motorsport have always been a passion of mine and over the years I have been more and more interested in sharing this, from forums to blogs, to the fast-paced world of social media.

By creating ETS Motorsport Fab School it begins a new chapter in bringing you the best Motorsport Fabrication knowledge directly from the workshop floor and sharing lessons I've learned building cars, bikes and of course drift utes in the hopes it helps those that are interested in taking on their own projects.

I am really excited to build this school and share with you the knowledge and process of Motorsport Fabrication.

Comments

No one has commented on this page yet.