Elio Type Vehicle Resurection --- AKA the BEX

[JEBar]

when asked ? "What aspect(s) of the BEX build, do you anticipate to be the most challenging?"


Mark BEX responded : "Easy question: Quantities. It is quite difficult to get some hundreds of bespoke parts made when companies expect to makes thousands for you at a time.

Not only is relying on "off the shelf" parts logical for a number of reasons, it also avoids this "quantity" situation, but I can't completely avoid it.

This has always been the biggest headache for me, and others. I have a friend in Australia who at the moment wants 500 bespoke brake calipers, and companies just laugh at him."

[JEBar]

Per Mark BEX --

After a surprising amount of time to 'get it right', I feel I have nailed the side roll bars.

Though they look simple, the design affects related areas, the chassis, front and rear seating, even the fuel tank for which I do not want to make a bespoke fuel tank. The pickup, fuel level sender, pump and electrics all are specific to the engine, so I am very keen to use the original fuel tank.

Very pleased I have taught myself over the years to be able to bend even 100 degree bends in a pipe bender, which many say it can't be done without crushing or wrinkling the tube ...

Because all 3 bends are on the same plane, I can use a little jig to hold a spirit level so all 3 bends really are on the flat plane. I also welded some tabs to a bench, and bolted the bender solid, only took me about 10 years to finally get around to it

[JEBar]

Per Mark BEX ....

I had to lock the rear door into place with a couple of plates and rivets (red arrows), to line up the bodywork.

I am quite surprised how strong it all is, I was still expected flex, but it's remarkably solid considering there is little lateral support.

Roll bars looking good, it actually fits better than I hoped for after I locked the rear door into place, and peripheral items fitting as they should. Very happy about the '3 bends only' aspect of it.

[JEBar]

Per Mark BEX :

I have mentioned it before: Since I was a child helping build race and rally cars with Dad, I have wanted to build my own car, not unusual, thousands of kids have the same
idea, and I have since built quite a few over the years, from race cars to self designed scratchbuilts, but I mean my "own car", as a production brand.

Of course like any young person, I imagined it would be a Supercar to take on Ferrari .... now here I am completely and utterly at the other end of the scale, lol!!

This may not have happened except for my heart failure/stroke/open heart surgery 2 years ago, which I am still frustratingly recovering from, though almost there.

Now it is my priority to get my car brand into history, even if it's not a fire spitting, 200 mph Supercar, but it's still one I mean to be proud of

[JEBar]

Question asked Mark BEX :

if you are using stamped steel, why the roll bar? Just make it a stressed body vehicle like a normal car.


Mark's Response :

because I am doing a space frame that is single skinned, and I want people to be as safe as is practical, both for roll over and side impact. I can not afford to go to proper full unitary construction for such low volume, and mine is a safer method anyway, as well as far cheaper, but too slow if you were making '100s of thousands' of them like GM or Ford. .

[JEBar]

Per Mark BEX :

Wow, these side roll bars really took some effort, yet look very simple, but their importance, and getting them right, is quite important to a number of aspects of the total design.

As you can see I have literally regressed back to where I was a few weeks with the build, but now ready to shoot forward again at rapid speed now that many critical mounting hard points have been simplified.

[JEBar]

Per Mark BEX :

This was a tough one. I fiddled for hours this morning surrounding how I was going to locate the roll bars in place, as they are literally 2 bent poles standing completely unsupported, other than some 2" long larger tubes the ends sit in that are welded to the chassis to locate their 'feet', for want of a better word.

I imagined all sorts of apparatus bolted to the bench, gauged off nodes on the chassis, and then simplicity struck me ...

I made 2 very simple 'floating jigs' from some angle iron that simply clamp to the front downtubes, and rear downtubes, that simply square everything up, took me most of the day to figure out the jigs that only took me a half hour to make, and they work brilliantly


Might be a bit hard to tell what you're looking at here

[JEBar]

Per Mark BEX :

Laser cutting some door hinge mounts tomorrow, trying a system that will self jig their position, and just spent hours doing the nesting, bit like a jigsaw puzzle

[JEBar]

Per Mark BEX --

And a box of laser'ed bits ..

[JEBar]

Per Mark BEX ----

Now let's see if I can explain this:

The upper and lower door hinge mounting flanges, need to be at their respective 'X' heights for the doors to be located at the right heights, to fit and align into the door hole openings, obviously.

So instead of measuring, marking and manually locating where the separate mounting flanges, blue arrows, go on the respective vertical tubes, I have simply laser cut them out in one piece (for front and for rear doors) to automatically determine the heights.

This may have involved too much waste material, green arrows, bu I was quite successful in using most of that waste area for the various mounting brackets and nut flanges as you can see by the shapes that have been cut out of the waste area.

In addition, I also have large gussets, yellow arrow, for the front vertical tubes.

The red arrows indicate where I will cut the waste steel off later, merely leaving the hinge mount flanges at the correct heights and spacings.