Let The Parts Fit The Car..Not The Car Fit The Parts..Latest Adventure

[slow&rusty]

Many decades ago I coined this phrase:
"Let the Parts Fit the Car..Not the Car Fit the Parts"


Especially when I saw my friends cut up their lovely cars to fit all kinds of go-fast parts (turbos, superchargers etc) during the crazy tuner times of the '90s and 2000s.

I've always had a pretty good mind where I can visualize a bracket from flat stock and can cut it, shape it, bend it to whatever and then support it using ONLY the factory holes or mounting points on the car. I never drill a hole let alone take an angle grinder to the car..once that's done it is near impossible to reverse (the damage is done!).

I'm sure many of you are the same and have better talent but I do enjoy this type of work and fabrication. I really enjoy working aluminum and stainless. I've helped lots of friends over the years making these widgets for them and it has been fun. So thought I would share.

My latest project is a BMW Dinan turbo sharknose (E24) project I won off BaT last year (over-represented by the seller) and I'm in the process of making it cool again.

I always start with cardboard and then go from there.

Here are some pictures:

Lower Intercooler bracket (completely missing when I bought the car):




Brackets to support the AFM (when I bought the car the AFM was flopping around and poorly supported):



A bracket with some neat geometry to protect the front sway bar bushing from exhaust heat:




And some brackets I made up to properly support the aftermarket plug wires using the valve cover bolts:



Cheers!
Yasin

[wdfifteen]

Nice work!

[GH85Carrera]

When I converted my El Camino to throttle body fuel injection and threw out the carburetor I had to spend most of a day figuring out a new bracket for the throttle pedal and the transmission TV cable. It took a lot of making templates, and welding together parts and cutting up parts of the old bracket to make it all bolt up to the factory holes and make it all work.

You have a lot of talent to make those brackets. Good work.

[911 Rod]

Mmmm brackets.
CAD Cardboard Aided Design

[masraum]

Originally Posted by 911 Rod

Mmmm brackets.
CAD Cardboard Aided Design

LOL!

The guys building Binky did a lot of cool work with cardboard.

[herr_oberst]

Very nice bracketry. You deserve the bracketry merit badge. Keep those pics coming - I love this stuff. I like how you spend the extra time to radius the corners and deburr the edges. I'm surprised you don't add lightness with some carefully placed drillium - you've obviously got the talent!

[slow&rusty]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

Nice work!

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

You have a lot of talent to make those brackets. Good work.

Thank-you! I appreciate it.

Originally Posted by 911 Rod

Mmmm brackets.
CAD Cardboard Aided Design

Laughing out Loud. I'm actually not bad on CAD / Solid Works but not needed on this, maybe if I had a CNC to play with...now that would be cool.

Originally Posted by masraum

LOL!

The guys building Binky did a lot of cool work with cardboard.

Can't beat the cereal boxes!

Originally Posted by herr_oberst

Very nice bracketry. You deserve the bracketry merit badge. Keep those pics coming - I love this stuff. I like how you spend the extra time to radius the corners and deburr the edges. I'm surprised you don't add lightness with some carefully placed drillium - you've obviously got the talent!

Thank-you! Yes, radiusing the corners and de-burring is big part of the "finishing step", also polishing. On stainless I typically will drill holes to reduce weight, these aluminum brackets are so light as is, I elected to keep them intact and to also keep the strength.

[Rusty Heap]

Here's my contribution to bending tin for custom mounts.

I have a Kawasaki KRX1000 side by side, and wanted back up lights to come on automatically when shifted into reverse. I wired up a whisker switch to rub on the transmission shifter lever. Used some carboard to rough in this multi-angle piece of bent galvy tin and its mounted via existing side case bolts.

Works Great.

[herr_oberst]

Originally Posted by Rusty Heap

Here's my contribution to bending tin for custom mounts.


Works Great.

Lightening holes ftw!
Heck, an entrepreneur would put a patent on that and sell it to all the SXS owners!

That's very clever. I bet that would take me two or three tries to get right and even then I wouldn't be satisfied.

[cstreit]

Originally Posted by 911 Rod

Mmmm brackets.
CAD Cardboard Aided Design

Brilliant!

[porsche930dude]

When you do things right, people wont be sure you've done anything at all. Brackets that bolt on are pretty easy to do because factory brackets are always pretty ugly anyway. And you can make them out of whatever material you want because they are small simple bolt on parts that dont need to be integrated into anything. Making a lightweight bracket out of aluminum that once was steel or iron is pretty rewarding but you really dont get that opportunity very often on a car where the gains are worth the amount of work to make a new part.

[BwshGulbleSheep]