Seam Welding

[wwinstanley]

Hi all,


About to start seam welding my replacement rally shell after crashing the old one, and have been looking at threads on here. What is the purpose of lifting out the cross member inside (just in front of the seats)? is it as simple as to weld a seam and paint underneath or is there another reason i cant figure out?

Cheers

[brainsnova]

It's to fit bucket seat subframes

[dgbnova#1]

Plus weight as ure addition tubes make it redundant

[wwinstanley]

Ah i see, wondered if that was it, just my previous rally car had the seat tubes in and the cross member was left in too.
Thanks for the info!

[Iain]

Probably preferable leaving it in if your new seat rails don't interfere with it, can't do any harm strength wise.

[wwinstanley]

Probably preferable leaving it in if your new seat rails don't interfere with it, can't do any harm strength wise.

Was thinking that, can only make it stronger. Plus my handheld fire extinguisher mounts from it!

[_Jake]

Ive left mine in and seam welded it, ive taken the view that it may help to stop the floor pan flexing/twisting

[tomfromdelmonte]

If you are going to be building a rally shell make sure you put pics up on the projects thread!!!! love seeing a nova rally build. I just finished sem welding my shell, if i learned anything its that you have to get the surface super-clean before welding it or your welds will just be ****. If there is ANY seam sealer inthen the weld just pops and spatters and generally looks very poor. I used a wire brush and a gas/propane blowtorch to burn out the old seam sealer (it melts like buter and burshes off easily when its host). This gives u a really nice surface to weld to.

[mk1nova_rich]

I definitely wouldn't remove it an uncaged shell or one with a basic 6 point cage...even in a shell with a multipoint weld-in job is there that much to be gained in terms of weight loss to outweight the potential for increased shell flex