Elio Type Vehicle Resurection --- AKA the BEX

[JEBar]

Per Mark BEX ....

I thought up, designed, lasered and folded the new rear swingarm in a half day today, quite happy how it turned out too.
It's a simple 'tophat' fold, with the tube nuts and tube holes lasered out so it just all fits together in minutes, and gets welded.

Note it is quite wider than the roll bars, intentional to help stop it progressing forward into the cabin in a rear accident.
For those wondering, yes, it will be triangulated later.

[JEBar]

Per Mark BEX ...

Finished the basic swingarm today, a few minor dimensional modifications are needed, but not to the basic design itself. I'll add a triangulation later, first make sure everything is going to clear everything.

One side is prettier than the other side, so I'll show that side ...

Was a bit of effort to clean the old brackets off the old rear suspension tube, I hope the manufacturer will sell me the tubes raw, if not, I will have to find an alternate tube to weld to the stub axle, just way too much time, noise and cost in cleaning the old brackets off.

I also mucked up something in the height, the 4 holes I lasered were way too low, circled in red below, so I had to hand drill 4 new ones, but that's cool, makes the brackets shorter, stronger and cheaper.

I am so used to laser cutting everything now, it was a shock to drill them by hand, along with grinding off the brackets, it was almost like work!

[JEBar]

Per Mark BEX ....

Will be a couple of quiet days now while designing.. I am very happy with the front subframe assembly, quite close to production worthy after a few touchups here and there, and I am now integrating it into the rollcage, main chassis rails etc, first in CAD, then for real. Not that far away from having a rolling chassis number 000.

[JEBar]

Per Mark BEX ....

Still designing, have found a couple of major tricks to improve production speed, increase simplification, and less material, i.e. cheaper. Mostly for the "B Pillars' and side bar intrusion protection. Ahh if I only could see these things sooner.

211204 001 latest frame 001.jpg (18.86 KiB) Viewed 1224 times

[JEBar]

Per Mark BEX ....

Well the new chassis is going to be put together step by step these days, the difference from before is I think this will be a production chassis completion, or one that will only require minor modifications from here on in. (picture 1)

The new design B Pillars are being laser cut, and folded tomorrow I hope. (picture 2)

Part of the reason is to incorporate side intrusion bars (picture above)

Also, I've also been experimenting with the rear seat setup, you Ladies can tell your husbands that they are going to be very comfortable back there ...

[JEBar]

my wife is delighted to see Mark say this .... the last time we drove to an Elio show was in early March of 2016 .... the picture below shows us sitting in the one on display .... with its single door, she was very uneasy and lost a good bit of enthusiasm about getting one

[JEBar]

Per Mark BEX ....

B Pillar was laser cut today, I took it to get folded, and started to look at the setup for issues.

You can see the jigging plate being used to line it up, using the door hinge holes, and I sat the side protection bars in looking for issues ... so far none.

As you will recall I had steel tube before, but this created alignment headaches, every bend can not be perfect, just a tenth of a degree difference in each of the total 10 bends in the 3 main roll hoops, and it ends up out of alignment very quickly.

The laser'ed parts are super accurate, and this makes the 2 main longitunal bars easier to be consistently placed accurately.

[JEBar]

Per Mark BEX ----

While quite happy with the B pillar design, as you can see with the red arrows, I can and will widen the top more to tuck it in closer to the bodywork. My fault, I played it too safe, worried about clearance issues, but pretty good overall first a first attempt, and you can see the lower half tucks in very nicely.

The panel with the yellow arrow, is an alignment jig, it doesn't stay there. It is the same alignment jig I use for the front firewall as well

You can see the side impact bars here, they are in their final position.

[markiver54]

Wow!
That thing is really coming along!

[JEBar]

Wow!
That thing is really coming along!

that it is .... Mark is a remarkable person .... he's doing almost everything from design to building himself .... I no longer have any doubt that he will get it to market and we are looking forward to having one