The last couple of days have been a myriad of checking and fine-tuning my 3D printed exhaust pipe bracket mockups, then reprinting those until they were dialed in enough to then plasma cut out of scrap steel.

This effort of course devolved into me organizing the scrap metal area and de-rusting a number of good steel stock that’s been on the shelf for years now in this shop.

Moreover, to use the plasma cutting table I need to feed compressed air to the plasma cutter, and after some assessment and troubleshooting I confirmed that the pressure switch is TU on my shop compressor.  That took another good hour in researching potential sources of supply and prices before pulling the trigger on a still higher rated suitable substitute but at half the cost of original part numbered pressure switch.

As has been my MO this past week or so this blog post covers a couple of days, with the evening of day 1 culminating in the first 2 plasma cutting sessions being quite successful!

Here we have the bottom right exhaust pipe bracket getting plasma cut out of a piece of rusty steel scrap… mainly because I was curious how well it would work on rusty steel!

After removing the bits of dross on the backside of the cut, it only took a few minutes soaking the steel bracket in white vinegar before knocking off the rust with steel wool before it looked presentable and ready to be test mounted, which I did.  I then spent a good 20 minutes fine tuning its fit with my Dremel tool.

And the same story for the top right exhaust pipe steel test fit bracket, cut on the plasma cutting table, cleaned up and then set into place… this is after a number of rounds of dialing it in with the Dremel tool as well.

On day 2, after getting the tweaks from the right side incorporated and another round of test-print mockups 3D printed, I turned my focus onto the left side exhaust pipe brackets, first with a number of rounds of 3D printed test fit mockups, and then finally the scrap steel test brackets.

Here I’m re-cutting the top right exhaust pipe scrap steel test fit bracket.

And round 2 on the bottom right exhaust pipe scrap steel test fit bracket as well.

Here we have the first round for the top left exhaust pipe scrap steel test fit bracket.

And round one on the bottom left one as well.

Finally, here’s the 3D printed test fit bracket mockups as well as the scrap steel test fit bracket for both the left and right sides.  I had a couple of phone calls I needed to take, so that blew my evening’s schedule a bit… it was getting late and I need to clean the dross off the backside of these steel plasma cut brackets before trying out their fit on the engine, which I’ll do tomorrow.

Slowly walking it in . . .