There comes a time in any project – usually somewhere between the second mug of tea going cold and the first moment of self-doubt – when you stop and ask yourself: am I actually making this better, or simply reenacting an episode of Scrapheap Challenge while wearing distorted spectacles and shouting at inanimate objects? For me, that time was yesterday.
The task: fabricate a pair of 2mm steel reinforcement plates to the GT6 chassis rails to take the Mazda MX-5 engine mounts. Easy enough on paper. Measure twice, scribe once, bend to 90°, test fit, crack open a beer and admire your handiwork. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, let’s start with the metal bender. A tool, in theory, designed to bend metal. In practice, it looked at my 2mm plate and, after a brief whimper and some superficial creaking, gave up entirely – like a hungover teenager asked to mow a lawn. The handle flexed, the vice groaned, and what I got was not so much a bend as a gentle shudder of suggestion. Nothing crisp, nothing sharp – just a half-arsed arc that could have come from leaving the plate in the sun for a fortnight. I could have persevered with heat from a gar torch, but couldn't be arsed.
So I reverted to the Old Ways: vice, hammer, swearing. The bend came eventually, but of course, being 2mm mild steel, it came with baggage – a nice fat radius and enough spring-back to make a coiled mattress jealous. And that’s when my varifocals decided to join in the sabotage.
You see, varifocals aren’t so much corrective eyewear as they are a visual prank. The top of the lens is for distance. The bottom is for close work. And the bit in between? That’s for confusion, mistrust, and the creeping belief that all your chassis rails are somehow widening as they descend. I’d checked my work with a set square – perfect. But when viewed through the lower half of my glasses, the panel looked like it flared at the bottom, like a 1950s skirt caught in a breeze. I re-checked. Still square. But my eyes insisted it was all wrong.
And so began the self-doubt spiral. Was my measurement off? Did I bend it too far? Had I cut the piece slightly skewed? No, no, and no – it was simply optical gaslighting, courtesy of Glasses Direct lenses and ageing eyeballs.
But that wasn’t the only hiccup. The bend radius meant the flange sat 1 to 2mm proud of the lower chassis rail – enough to bugger the welding, throw off the alignment, and make me question whether I'd be better off taking up needlepoint.
And here, at last, came the revelation: I should have allowed for an overhang. Just a few extra centimetres of steel beyond the lower end, to account for radius, spring-back, and general mischief. That way, once clamped in position, I could trim it back with the slitting disc for a perfect fit.
And that’s exactly what I did.
The result? Well, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves – but suffice to say, it fits. It sits tight, flush, and purposeful. No gaps, no flare, no perceptible lean. The overhang was trimmed back neatly. The bends, while not press-shop sharp, have a decent line and a firm grip on the rail. The notches are clean, the angles are true, and the whole thing – despite being born of brute force and optical betrayal – looks rather good.
One for the other side, just to bring both sides to the same level. It didn't need to be as big, as it wasn't covering a rebate in the chassis rail.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say it looks factory-adjacent. Both are adapted so as to not obstruct the wishbone nut.
Ready to weld into position.
And while I was riding this unexpected wave of competence, I thought I’d get ahead of the game and plan for removing the tub at some point in the future. I needed to brace the door apertures and add a cross brace across the cabin to stop the thing folding like a cheap deckchair once it’s unbolted. So I had a look on eBay (or E-Thief, as it’s better known), where some chancer wanted £100 for five bits of 1-inch box section that probably fell off the back of his uncle’s garage.
Instead, I did something radical. I walked half a mile down the road to the local fabrication shop, where a proper bloke with a tape measure, a bandsaw, and no pretensions cut me exactly what I needed – to length, no fuss – for £25.
No extortion, no delay, no drama.
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