Engine mount progress

Well, I managed to get to a point where I can get some metal cut. I still don't know whether I'll be able to get some welding gas, so there is a good chance I'll get halfway through this job and have to stop again.

At least for now I've got things started on the front engine mounts. I stuck to the design I had put together in Fusion 360, and the 3d print has been extremely useful. Especially as it's exactly 50% of the original, I can actually use it for measurements.

So here are all the bars, plates and fillets cut and mostly shaped;

The two bars are the front have been shaped to fit the engine mount which is a rectangular bowl shape. The two plates are 3mm steel, as are the four fillets.

For measuring I bolted the two engine mounts together (top right). This meant that I could position the weldable part at the right angle for both sides. So far I've been cutting against one side and measuring against the other, and it looks pretty good. The engine mounts will go together like this;

The shaping of the bar ends is a bit clearer here. Then they fit to the mount like this;

The whole plate + bar + fillet goes up about an inch or so, so the build will be much more central to the mount dish. It also allows the engine to sit lower in the chassis. I can't show that here because it's all flat on the workbench.

Oh yeah, the workbench.... new surface, courtesy of some very generous wood donation. It's tougher than the MDF that came on the bench before so should be a nice work surface for a while. Of course, it shows the weakness in the workbench metal, but hey I can't have everything!!

So a bit more profiling for the second pair of bars, a trim of the fillets then weld them all together. Then on to the gearbox mount (which is basically just a plate although I'll do some reinforcement there).