Great photos Dave, thanks for these. This helps others seeking to get ideas and that is always a big help.
Anyway, slow going for me but have the side bars and body mount plate installed.

To make for easier and stronger supports, you can drill small holes into the side "frame" rails. I measure and mark with a Sharpie where I want them and then drill.

The size you use is up to you. I felt the 3/64th was a good call. Could have went a little larger I suppose but it looks ok. I used needle nose pliers to make the bends and then I trimmed the tops to a level appearance using side cutters. I finally filed the tops of the rods flat to allow the horizontal bar a cleaner mount surface and soldered in place.

Nothing fancy. Simple design.


The neat thing about these bars mounted like in this fashion is that they sort of double as body mounts. Take your needle nose and you can bend them up and down to raise/lower the body to get the rake/stance you want. Creating small notches in the body help keep it aligned and make is easier for you to make your main body mount.

So with the body supported by the bars, it was easy to measure/cut/install the mounting plate up front. I cut the plate so it just touched the inside of the body. I then placed the body back on the chassis, and using some scrap rod I pushed the plate in place so it sat flush on the brass mount plate. I used a toothpick and put some Testors model glue on the end and applied it on the edges of the plate and body. Once it was dry I removed the body and flowed some hot glue over the tops to really hold it while I marked and drilled the holes.

How it sits now.

I measured the side bars to make the sides pretty much flush with the outside sidewalls. Not perfect by a long shot, but it will do :)

So not much, but closer.