Christmas Holiday Projects - Body Support Frame

Despite being a bit behind with cleaning and painting the donor parts, with the AK body and chassis arriving early in the New Year I needed to get the garage ready to receive the kit.

My plan was to build a timber frame to store the body over the chassis; the idea being that the body/frame can be moved out of the garage to allow work on the chassis to proceed.  The idea came from another AK owner - Stuart Holden - and I have basically taken his frame layout as per the plans on his blog (although I did change some of the dimensions having taken my own measurements of the frame AK use to support their bodies in the factory).

General layout of body frame - courtesy of Stuart Holden

The AK body is supported at the front under the footwells and the kick-up at the rear sits under the boot floor.  The whole frame is wide enough to span over the chassis and sits on casters to allow it to be moved out over the chassis to allow working space.

I bought fourteen 2.4m lengths of 38mm by 63mm timber studding from Wickes, M8 coach bolts, coach screws (80mm and 60mm length) and washers from Namrick and some heavy duty casters from Screwfix.

Christmas Holiday project materials!

Timber cut to size

Fixings 

I started by making the two end frames.  All joints were bolted and glued for strength.  I then joined the added the sides and the diagonals - again all bolted and glued for strength.

I recommend checking constantly that all the elements are square and true (check once, check twice and check again) before and after fixing!.  Despite all my careful measuring and marking I did have to refix one of the diagonal bracings on the front frame, as although I checked the squareness several times before fixing, after fixing, one vertical was clearly out of plumb by a significant margin!! 

Front sub-frame completed...

...and rear sub-frame completed

Subframes joined, braced and casters fitted

The finished frame is nice and solid and hopefully be fit for the intended task (time will tell).  It does look suspiciously like a double bed frame - a point which my missus remarked upon and that it would be quite useful with all the time I would be spending in the garage...not sure what she is getting at!

It is a slightly snugger fit in the garage than I was hoping for so I will need to do a bit more rearranging to give a bit more room down the sides of the frame.  But a days work well spent I think!

Bit tight down the sides......