Hot Rods Elliptical Tubing for Frame Rails

Could you add a piece of heavier round tube inside of the .049 you have found, to give the .049 more structure?
You could more or less use the oval tubing to sleeve the heavy wall round, then do a series of plug welds along the inner and outer walls. Would provide the look you are after and still have the structure?

 

https://www.timelesstube.com/tube-sizes/oval

If stainless steel is ok, check out this site in the UK.
The 92mm x 56mm x 3mm is probably exactly what you need.

 

The link to the chart for the vendor in the UK https://proformancemetals.co.uk/oval-tube-size/

 

I’m gonna check with them, I would prefer not to use stainless , but if they can shape stainless they can shape 1018 or 4130. Their site says you can bring your own sourced tubing and they will shape it. I just need to see if they’ll do a small run in steel and be willing to ship to the US. Thanks for the info. It’s disappointing for sure there should be a dozen places in the US that can do this but they’re all gone now….

 

Did you check Louisiana Steel? According to them, they stock a lot of sizes.

 

Yes, helpful, good guys, They don’t stock any but can make it. They have an $3000 tool up fee and 10 weeks out on delivery.

 

Did you inquire at Coremark metals in Minneapolis? They advertise manufacturing abilities.

https://www.coremarkmetals.com/forming

 

https://tex-tube.com/elliptical/

 

I have some PBY and many other types of struts. I left you my phone number. Sometimes I can’t remember my password to get back on the hamb .

 

just idle curiosity --how long have you hoarded those?---hens teeth in this day and age!...

 

cattle rail.. moooo !

 

Cattle rail is flat-sided oval, not elliptical.

 

it is..
but look again... the rails in the op's second pic aint elliptical either !

 

They are Elliptical, that is the angle of photo. Car used PBY wings struts, you can see the shape in these Ken Crawford photos.


These photos of the Carrillo roadster chassis give a better look of the PBY struts

 

Wouldn’t you be giving up some lateral strength with an oval…might be ok in an airplane, but doesn’t make sense in a car, unless maybe in a single purpose drag car.

 

well there you go !.. I stand corrected..
sandshoe for the pics.

 

@Russco If you are on Instagram check out steveshepard. He just posted using a pullmax to reshape round tube into a more oval shape.

 

Thanks for the heads up I’m on IG but not very often, I found his post and Holy Shit! That’s damn near perfect for what I need I responded to his post and ask if he would be interested in making a couple sticks up for me. Hopefully he will and that will be that. Luckily I live near Stan Fulton who was a Pull Max Guru and made all kinds of great tooling and stuff for them, I understand he is still tinkering around with them. I have not got much actual building done yet but did gather a few more vintage parts. This tubing is really holding the whole build up.

 

I left you a message and my phone number a while back

 

Yeah , sorry, I did get yourDM. I’ll give you a call. Here is where it takes another weird turn,
I know in a few of the magazines it mentions PBYwing struts, in one article it just says “tubing used to make wing struts” so I was finally able to talk to a guy here in the Midwest with a PBY plane on hand, and got some pictures and measurements of the wing struts on that PBY from him. The wing struts on this PBY were much larger dimensionally (about 8” on the large axis) than what the tubing is on this chassis, he suggested maybe it’s the tubing that was used to make the structure on the drop down pontoons possibly, but said the structures on the planes aren’t long enough themselves to use like that. Can you measure that strut you have pictured? The size on the original chassis I believe to be about 3-4” on the larger axis and about 2-2.5”on the smaller axis. There doesn’t seem to be any question that all 3 cars came out of the same circle of guys in so Cal. And the tubing on all 3 cars was purchased as military surplus there, but something isn’t matching up??? I know there were like 6 variations of the PBY plane, maybe some versions had different struts??? Either way, after speaking with that guy, who also said it would be highly unlikely to find any used ones that weren’t significantly rotted away on the inside, so, I kind of gave up on finding viable wing struts and now am just trying to find new tubing that’s close to the size and shape I need.

 

Ok I’ll send measurements!

 

@Russco those 8 inch ones, were they aluminium? Ones in Cali ain't gunna be F'ked like Midwest & more likely NOS or near to.

The ones Joe have are the same used on the Carrillo, Schiefer and Scott roadsters. You can contact Rich Venza or Frank Morawski to see if they have dimensions of the PBY tubing on the Carrillo roadster, but is the same.