Advice on tubing bender

[roadcow]

Building back half of a lakester and need to know what type of manual tubing bender to buy. Don't have my rulebook handy but don't think it will see anything past 250mph.
Thanks for any suggestions.

[manta22]

I doubt that you can manually bend the tubing that is required in your chassis/roll cage.

[Peter Jack]

Actually, I can remember using three guys on the arm of a Hossfeld bender to do the job and several of the commercially available hot rod type benders use a system that generates lots of leverage. It is a lot of work though. There are also simple hydraulic jack powered units that take lots of pumping but do the job if you're just doing a one off. I haven't looked at the market for a long time and I've had my Hossfeld for a long time so I'm not current on what's available. The Hossfeld can be converted to either manual hydraulic or a powered hydraulic system.

Pete

[Stan Back]

Maybe you don't need to buy a bender.  A friend of mine has been building dragster chassis(es?) for years and uses Doug Robinson (owner of SCTA multi record-holders) at Horsepower Engineering in Pasadena for the cage.  I don't know where you're located, but it might be worth your while to talk to him.

[floydjer]

+1 on the Hossfeld#2 bender. Mine makes short work of .125 wall tubing.

[floydjer]

Or you could go all Kent Fuller on it and pack the tube with sand and fire up the rosebud tipped torch.

[jimmy six]

roadcow is in Calaveras county in north central Ca Jumping frog and all that. He should be able to find someone in his area to do it but sounds like he wants to buy his own tooling. Buy it once have it forever.
If your not doing a cage but need off sets in some long rails stuff like that; I bought one those pipe benders from HF and added back straps to fix my sons dirt track car and used it more times than I can count. I learned quickly how to not flat or kink tubing; its just like doing electrical rigid conduit by using it segmentally. Saved me a lot of time and money once I figured it out. Ive even done a few 90 degree but normally dont need too. Just an option..
There are bending machines that bolt to the floor and use a ratcheting handle the are on line even Eastwood sells them.

[salt27]

If you know an electrician with a Greenlee Sidewinder or 555, the 1-1/4" emt shoe works on 1-5/8" dom as does the 1-1/2" emt on 1-3/4" dom.
The rigid shoes don't match up has to be emt shoes.

  Don

[ronnieroadster]

We did all the pipe work on our car using a JD Squared tubing bender. They have the correct size you need 1-5/8 diameter using that bender on the 1/8 wall thickness mild steel tubing was easy.  Their drawn over mandrel system eliminates the tubing coming out looking like an  exhaust tubing bender was used.  You know the flattened oval shaped stuff. They offer it manual power or they also have a hydraulic ram that certainly makes it much easier.
 Ronnieroadster

[roadcow]

Thanks for all of the helpful replies. I've  moved, now in Klamath Falls, Oregon area. I can go hydroluc if necessary,  just trying to keep costs down. The cage and chassis is already built, just need the back half done, engine and trans carriers and chute attachments etc.

[Stainless1]

My guess is you don't need a tube bender... does your back-half require 6 inch radius bends... or just some curves? I did the back of mine with a bender like JD described... just took a little light rolling to curve the tubes.  The roll cage was the only part that needed a bender.   I don't remember if I took pics of that part but if I did, Bockscar 2.0 build diary.
 

[deepindebt]

I know your area,check with some 4x4 shops like WFO and Ruff stuff,they build cages for lots of rigs in the area

[floydjer]

Well heck...If you are just making low crown sweeps for/aft..One of those tube rollers from Horror Fright would work great. Carry on. JB

[manta22]

When I built my roll cage I needed a front and rear hoop bent to a particular shape so I made a template for each one out of Masonite and took it to a local 4x4 fab shop that had a 1 3/4" hydraulic bender shoe and he made the pieces by bending the 0.120" wall tube slightly, moving it a few inches, bending it again, and so on until it matched my template. These were the only bends I needed so it cost a lot less than buying my own bender. My total cost was about $60.

[roadcow]

I know your area,check with some 4x4 shops like WFO and Ruff stuff,they build cages for lots of rigs in the area

Thank you sir!