Thread: Electrathon - A Different Kind of "Hotrod"

Tweet

The car was brought to me Sunday afternoon shortly after 1:00 PM. The big rush is because the USF team members all either work or were having exams this week and they are scheduled to leave Friday for two big races in Alabama (next Saturday and Monday).

The canopy (shown in the first "before wreck" picture) got about the rear 1/3 broken off when the body was pushed up. There isn't time to order a new one from Oregon, so we cut the back off straight and sanded the edge.

Ditto on the rear body panels - not time enough to make new ones, so we took the remains off and cut off the support tubing underneath. the big mess was the upper frame tubes and the front axle. We used a hydraulic jack to push the upper frame rail back out where it was crushed in near the front axle right side. Fortunately none of the lower frame tubes were bent or twisted. I used a piece of 1 x 4 lumber and a 2-pound Compothane hammer to straighten the upper rails; they were pushed out slightly.

Finally, I cut the right end of the axle off, fabricated a new section and grafted it on. The original spindle and brake were not damaged, so we were able to reuse them.

It took three of us about 5 hours to make all the repairs. It ain't as pretty as it once was, but at least it's raceable again.