Building a Haynes book frame

The basic book frame is built from 25×25 square steel tubing. The book uses a thickness of 1,6 mm since I’m using a heavier and more powerfull engine than the books Ford Sierra engine my frame is made with 2 mm thick tubes. Early April had 48 meters of square tubing arrive and also 12 meters of 25×3 seamless tube for the suspension arms.

First base layer of tubes being layed out and tacked together.

Having use of a powerfull chop saw sure made cutting the tubes much easier. The only limitation was that the angle setting only went up to 45 degrees. Any cuts with larger angles had to be made with a cutting disc in the angle grinder.

After the base layer was layed out and tacked up it was time for the vertical pieces and then onto attaching the front frame and then building rearwards towards where the seats will go.

After that it was time to add the diagonal bracing to the sides and then build up the rear framework that will house the Sierra differential and serve as attachment points for the rear suspension.

Once most of the tubes was in place I used a long weekend to trailer the frame to my work and borrowed a welding booth and started fully welding all the tacked up tubes. Took around twenty hours included a few short breaks for food.

After that it was time to start fitting the suspension brackets. The wider ones marked AA is for the suspension arms and the narrower ones marked SA is for the shock absorbers.