9. Bracings and gusset plates

I had a lot of talks to my friends about the reinforcement of the frame.
The opinions about that task are relly different: from "Why?" to "Absolut neccessary !"

So, its up to me to take the decission what to do:

1. As the main force is taken by the 1.5" tubes, the bracings and gussets only have to stop the movements of the instable 90° corners of the main tubes.
2. That means, they do not need the same size. 20x20x2mm will be enough.
3. In corners, special bent 1mm sheet metal as gusset plates is enough.

 I  found ~ 40 important positions for installing a gusset plate or a brace.

The gusset plates  can be prepared really easy. Have a look:

Cut out from a sheet of metal and set marks for drilling

Drill 12mm holes

Use a hand-lever press to deep draw the holes to 20mm diameter

See the radius on the top side

and the collar on the bottom.

Bend the long side twice to make it stiffer

Gusset plates at the front

and here at the rear area of the frame.

All of them have to be adjusted with the angle grinder and then spot welded to the frame.

To cut the braces of the square tubes 20x20x2mm  in the correct angles is much more work.

This is a job for the next few weeks...

At the weekend I staied for two half days in the garage and managed it to adjust 25 braces. The most effort is  thinking about how I have to fix the tube so that I can mark the right angles without measuring them. 

Parallel shift the tube, fix it with clamps and mark it. One side needs this effort, the other side is only a mirrored twin of it.

The result of the weekend

To have a anit-rust protection of the inside of the new tubes I put them for some hours in a bath with special phosphoric acid for rust removal. After that the surface is comlete cleand from rust and has a thin coating on it.

The longer braces are a little bit tricky, but I will try seal one end with wax and fill them with acid.
Lets try...

A close up after the bath...