Today I decided to make a start on the belly pans.
Some may note that Most Bentleys did not have belly pans / rocker trim. They simply ended at the bottom of the chassis rails, with all of the guts beneath on show.
My build is based on 'Old number 1', the Bentley that won Le Mans twice in a row and the Brooklands 500 twice. A car that was modified many times over the years, including the addition of rocker trim that folded under the car to give a more streamlined look.
I decided to try to replicate this look by forming the bottom frame hoops to replicate the rolled rocker look of Old number 1. And so today I attempted to skin them with steel.
I decided on steel for the bottom to give it some strength. Using steel I could weld it directly to the chassis making it nice and solid. Of course it adds a bit of weight, but then the originals were over a ton and a half. I'm not planning on breaking any records. lol.
First of order of business was flipping the car upside down, so I removed the engine and rolled the entire car over to rest on the frame hoops.
After clamping a sheet of steel to the chassis attempting to form it over the rocker hoops two things became clear. The join in the middle of the underneath needed to be reinforced, and the rockers hoops tapered towards the front.
So the solution was to roll the steel the opposite direction - from the bottom to sides. To address the reinforcement issue I decided to weld some additional supports in the centre of the floor between the hoops.
So with the additional supports in place, I could now tack the sheet in position and work my way outwards, forming the sheet as I went.
With the sheet formed around the rocker hoops and clamped in position, I used a straight edge to mark where the sheet needed to be cut. Originally I had hoped that the cut would be underneath, but to get the sheet to follow the rocker hoops I needed to start from the bottom.
After cutting the sheet I tacked the bottom to the frame and formed it around the rockers.
I unfortunately blew a couple of holes, so had to patch those up, which will need dressing back before paint. An unfortunate side effect of welding upside down at arms reach without my glasses on. lol.
The day ended up getting away from me so I only got one side done. Although I did spend some time welding up the frame which was only previously tacked together. The rest of the time was spent looking for an imperial allen key and looking for my old welding helmet, which I never did find. How I can misplace such a thing I don't know. It is something I need to find as I don't want to ruin my TIG helmet with nasty MIG spatter.
So. One side down, one to go. Hopefully the second side will be a bit quicker.
I've only got one day left before the Milang Yesterdays Power Rally, so it's clear that I'm not going to get much more done. but I'm hoping the get the cowl made up, which should be fairly straightforwards. At least then it might look more like a car.
