Building my first Streamliner

[kustombrad]

Had and hr. and a half to kill this afternoon, so I whipped up the throttle pedal. Thought it came out cool for one piece of aluminum! Need to finish welding the bottom spacers then put bushings in. One more thing out of the way.

 

 

[Koncretekid]

What grade of aluminum are you using?  Are you normalizing it (heating it to take the temper out of it) before you're bending it?
Tom

[kustombrad]

1/4" 5052... It's about the only one you can bend without it cracking or breaking. I'll build stops on both of those pedals so I don't kill them by pushing down too hard. It takes quite a bit to bend it, but it does very nicely.

[tauruck]

By the look of your liner you've killed a lot of hours.

Nice work Brad.

[Koncretekid]

1/4" 5052... It's about the only one you can bend without it cracking or breaking. I'll build stops on both of those pedals so I don't kill them by pushing down too hard. It takes quite a bit to bend it, but it does very nicely.

Thanks. I did a little research on the alloys of Aluminum and found a good summary on MetalsOnline.com.  The 5052 they sell is H32 treated which is "Strain hardened and stabilized by low temperature heating to 1/4 hard"  It has a yield strength of about 28,000 psi compared to 6061-T6, which has a yield strength of about 40,000 psi.  I know that 6061-T6 can be cold bent carefully around a radius, but not sharply. I have successfully bent 1/8" thick flat bar around a 1" diameter mandrel, and 1/4" around a 4" mandrel, but trying to bend it sharply, as in a vise, will crack or break it.  It can be annealed (I said "normalized" in my above question, but that apparently only applies to carbon steel) by heating to the correct temperature, even after cooling, for bending more sharply.  I believe it will air harden in time, but I'm not sure if it will attain the same strength. 

I had not tried 5052, but you have shown it can be bent more easily than the more common 6061. The article also mentioned that 6061 can be annodized, but it didn't mention annodizing 5052. 

[kustombrad]

Hey Koncrete! You did way more research than I did! I knew that 6061 didn't bend without cracking/breaking and 5052 had no issues, so I went with that. I'm not too sure about anodizing, but since it's aluminum I don't see why it wouldn't work!

[manta22]

Brad;

You can bend any aluminum alloy, it's just a matter of how big a radius you need. The most common 6061-T6 is bendable but you need a much greater radius than lower strength stuff like 5052, 3003, etc.

If you want an alloy that is super tough, use 2024-T3 or 7075-T6. They need such a large bending radius and so much force to bend that they are used mostly in flat sheet applications.

Bending radius charts can be found with Google.

Regards, Neil  Tucson, AZ

[Finallygotit]

Subscribing to this thread.  Good job Brad! 

[kustombrad]

Wow, you guys are on it! I knew enough to sort of keep myself out of trouble but I never really seriously researched aluminum and what it's bending/breaking point was. I knew I could use the 5052 for making my handles, pedals and a few other miscellaneous parts. I have 7075 for my rear bearing carriers, hubs and knew that's  what we're cutting the front wheels out of. I figured the interior would be 3003, but not sure what I'm making my tanks out of yet. My welder friend makes aluminum aircraft tanks for a living so I figured I'd go with what he tells me.

[Podunk]

Since we are talking about aluminum. What grade & what rod can be welded & polished with little color difference? Low stress apps like valve covers.

[kustombrad]

Just got my front arms back from Mike the welder, they look awesome!

 

 

When I get my spindle supports back from him Tuesday,  I'll finish my steering up! In the meantime, I'm doing the rear swing arm brackets and mounts. Hopefully this thing's a roller before long!

[kustombrad]

I'm pretty sure all aluminum can be polished. As far as trying to "match" it up to cast, I would imagine it's all going to be a little off as far as a color difference.

[kustombrad]

Worked on steering the last few days and holy crap, what a pain!!! This was kind of like painting myself into a corner except worse! I'm always trying to think 10 moves ahead to save myself lots of headaches down the road and this was no exception. This whole suspension/steering deal is in a 9 1/2" wide area (measure that out and you'll realize how crazy it is) and it had to work smoothly and minimal to no bumpsteer. I made a little jig to build my steering arms to. They had to be 7" centers to match the suspension arms that way they are in the same plane.



 I also had to trim and bend the spindle arm.

 

After making some pieces up to keep everything square and parallel with the bottom rails, I made my steering mounts.

 


 

 

So far so good!
 

[Peter Jack]

I'm impressed, maybe even dazzled with this build. Keep up the great work. My mental filing cabinet is being replenished! 

Pete

[tauruck]

You said it Pete.