Making Parts

One of my clients (and also a friend...) owns at least 40 cars in a private collection. I think he probably has more that he's not telling me about, but I digress. Most of what he has is British and European. At any rate, He has a 1970 BMW 2800CS and it blew out the rear shock mount, just ripped the metal right out. He asked me to make a repair and while I was back there I also added a rear strut tower brace to help stiffen up the unibody.

Here's the car, a 1970 BMW 2800CS.

Nice lines, the car later become the 6 series.

Here's the broken upper shock mount. My plan is to make a pair of steel caps to weld over the top of the tower.

The outside diameter of the shock tower is oddball, or metric. I took some 4" .090 wall steel tube and added these sections to make the diameter correct.

Next, I made the tops out of cold rolled 3/16 steel plate. Here they are laid out and in the mill for drilling.

Here the caps are made, see how they are not truly round?

The caps welded and sanded from the top side.

I also welded from the bottom for extra strength.

Then I added a pair of tabs on each cap for heim ends.

Next, I cleaned up the torn metal in the original shock tower.

Finally, here's the whole setup ready for final welding in the car. Nice!