I recently had the front suspension off my car so I thought it would be a good time to make a front strut brace. Even though the Pantera doesn't have struts.… I don't know if this is going to make an appreciable difference to the handling, but making the car more riged can only help.
I wanted to connect the shock mounts together. In order to get the brackets in exactly the right place, I drilled the holes from the wheel house. I made a sheet metal jig to guide the drill bit for accuracy.
I have had some exotic materials lying around my workshop for some time, and I have been itching to use them. The carbon fibre bar has a wall thickness of 3mm (1/8"). This is much thicker than is needed, but it's all I had, 1.5mm would have been more than strong enough. I cut this to length on the band saw. It took longer to cut than steel. I turned down the aluminium ends and bonded them into the tube with Araldite (press fit). As this bar is only working in compression, this does not really matter. I then used some gorgeous titanium rod ends, to attach it to my pig iron brackets to bolt it to the pig iron car.
This camber bar weighs 200 grams with the rod ends. Not sure what that is in imperial? Approximately bugger all. I am very pleased with the results. I like carbon fibre... but not the splinters.
Johnny
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