This is my attempt to make fixings for the Ricambi-Weiss DR122 bellypan. I'm certainly no expert on working with metal and I've tried to keep it neat and effective with limited tools and skills. I'm pleased with it but I'm sure that anyone who works with metal will be horrified.
So please be gentle with feedback. Here's how I did it.
Idiots guide to making brackets for Ricambi-Weiss DR122 boxercup replica belly pan.
Part 1 – Front Bracket
This is the belly pan
And these are the brackets that come with it. They are of no use as they come but don’t throw them away as you can use them with some adaptation.
I used the following tools.
Bench vice, hammer, punch, electric drill and bits, hacksaw, file, spanners, allen keys and a tape measure.
Materials you will need. Some of these I had and some I bought. All can be found at B&Q. for around £12
Flat steel bar 20mm wide x 2mm thick x 900mm long.
M10 threaded rod 900mm long
M10 nuts
M10 nylon locking nuts
M10 Spring washers
32 mm diameter repair washers
Pop rivets & washers
The dimensions for the front bracket that worked for me are shown below. You need to check these for your circumstances as the mouldings may vary.
Cut minimum 250mm length of steel bar for hanger 1 and 230mm for hanger 2. These dimensions are longer than required to allow for bending and adjustments. Also cut 160mm for the bottom rail.
Clamp the bar in a vice and bend by using the vice as an anvil and tap with a hammer to bend to the required dimensions. Take it easy and don’t hit too hard otherwise you will stress the metal and possibly snap it. When you have finished one or both ends of each hanger will be slightly over length. You may find this is not a problem but if it is trim the ends to the dimensions shown. You will then have this
The brackets that come with the bellypan have a neat allen key fixing and I wanted to use these. So I took two of these brackets, cut about 15mm of one end and then bent them as shown below. Original is shown on top.
This bracket now fits inside the hanger and you can mark and drill the 8mm hole like so
You can then repeat for the other hanger and drill the two 10mm holes at the other end of each hanger. You can now drill and pop rivet the bottom rail to the two hangers. Make sure that you have the dimension between the two hangers correct and that the overall width does not exceed the space between the fixing points on the inside of the bellypan (mine was 320mm). Cut 115mm length of the threaded rod, take two washers, two spring washers, two nuts and two nylon lock nuts and assemble as shown
Now you can bolt the hangers into place here. The original brackets just act as a nut and I tried to drill them so that I could rivet them to the hangers but they were so hard I wrecked two drill bits and gave up. The grey tape you can see isn’t really necessary but just stops them rotating when tightening the fixing.
Drill an 8mm hole in the fixing positions either side of the belly pan and you can now try the bellypan in place before moving on to the rear fixings.
If you have access to a welder then you can obviously make a better job than by using pop rivets. I’ll give the brackets a good coat or two of black hammerite before finally fixing in place.
I’ll get the next part on the site as soon as possible
Hope this helps someone
Cheers
Nick
