In an effort to get the ol' chikken kooop on the road next year, I'm trying to take care of all the little details. The funky ol' headlights I bought years ago at a swapmeet looked a little too high in the air. So I built a headlight bar dropping jig. The ones I had seen in my research left a little too much to chance. The bending end only has one of the bending mandrels in place to begin as I wasn't sure where the second one should go yet The other end will be unbolted from the jig when the heating and bending starts. You can see that I've etched some measurement increments in the jig for reference.
The cloth you see taped onto the bar is to protect the stainless centre section from getting discolored with heat. This spacer will ride under the headlight mounting cup so that bar doesn't droop with heat. The angle on the spacer matches the angle of the cup so that I can easily check that angles don't change either. Bring on the heat...... .....and pull .... and pull more and before I go crazy and pull too much or too close to the mounting pad, I'd better check that those goofy bend mounting bolts can still be installed. It was too easy so I made an adjustment to move the mandrel closer to the pad. And bend again When I was sure it was bent far enough, I measured the other end to the jig so I could have a ballpark target to shoot for on side B. Setting up the second mandrel The bars I've looked at have a tighter radiused bend near the mounting pad and a more gradual radius near the headlight, hence two different sized mandrels
Drilling a hole through the mandrel base into the jig so it can be bolted into position. and heat and rather than pull, I push now to get the bar back onto the jig My measurements etched into the jig told me my first attempt was a 2 1/2 inch drop. But looking at the centre line of the bar and the centre line of the jig told me I had actually stretched the length of the bar by a healthy 1/4". Not cool. So, I slotted the second mandrel and removed it for a sec while I made the initial bend a little tighter. repeat the second bend and I now had a true 3" drop and.... the centre hole lined up. the non-business end is right on 3" below where it started and the bolt centrelines are where they should be.
On to side B, which required a different spacer for the cup to ride on to avoid the dreaded heat droop. And when I finished to heat and bend routine as before, the mounting bolt holes can very close to being spot on. I did have to install a little cheater to make it perfect though. Once I had the tension on and the non-business end bolts in place, I re-applied the heat to the business side to help it relax and keep its proper length and shape. LIke a kid Christmas morning, I had to see if my efforts would pay off..... It's official, I'm in love!! Thanks for looking in.....
Looks Great, Next might try what I did: I cut right at the holes that holds headlite, and put the short pieces on the opposite fenders, then bent them down, and welded back to cross bar. "More than one way to skin a cat, no matter, the Cat won't like it."
The Jalopy Journal
