Brabham BT19

During the assembly of the frame I realised that the layout - i.e. both axles in line with the frame section did not lend itself to low slung lines of the Brabham. To remedy this I decided to drop the frame by 100mm below the axle plane. This was done by installing a couple of standoff brackets between the frame and front end, with a short section of REO as extra support: 

And a couple of 100 x 50 mm sections between the frame and the rear bearings.

Giving a better ground hugging profile:

Once the frame was established the motor mount sections could be assembled, leaving a void for the torque converter to sit slightly lower than the frame.

Moving on to the nose section, I found some stainless steel spa pipes, cut down their length and joined together with a short steel inner steel pipe section.

A couple of notches were made on the "back" of the ring to allow all three pieces to be welded together.

The nose ring was attached to the front end using lengths of REO:

This is now the base that the side frames and body will be attached to.

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To allow cross sectional strength to the steel subframe, and provide a base for the aluminium side walls, an aluminium ladder is mounted between the steel rails.

Two rungs are then removed to make driver seating space into the floor pan area to be created later. 

A steel threaded rod is passed through the rails and the remaining rungs to tie the sections together-

with a square section of dowel drilled to act as  bushes to prevent metal to metal vibration. These are epoxied in

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The body of the kart will be constructed of a 3 part aluminium frame on top of a 50mm x 20mm subframe for strength. The steel subframe is welded to the newly widened Drift 2 front end, with a 50 x 20 cross member at the rear of the frame and two tringular brace pieces welded in to prevent diagonal movement. 

The body will be based around a Drift 2 go kart front end to utilise the swing arm assembly similar to the original. The front end had a wheel centre distance of 700mm which did not fit my scale dimension of the original car, which was 1000mm wheel centre to centre. to remedy this I decided to cut the assembly down the middle and insert the necessery 300mm sections with extension tubes. While doing this I was able to dial in some camber and caster which my very knowledgable welder, Damien Newton (NBMW), was able to recommend. 

This project requires a body design to meet the racing lines of the 60's. A search for similar existing karts  found Steve Vinson in the USA and his sharknose Ferrari. I purchased a set of his plans and this kart will be based around his dimensions. I recommend Steve's You Tube instructional videos and Etsy page as a great source of information. I have adopted the original BT19 ratios to suit the resulting frame dimensions.

The intention will be to use an aluminium frame internally with a minimal steel subframe, This will be for two reasons:

1) to keep weight to a minimum, and 

2) my welding skills are less than adequate. 

Once the chassis is complete I will add a fiberglass body over the top.