EV1 Frame Front Cross Bar

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Upon acquisition, the collection's first EV1 was missing much
of its front frame structure and several components 
had to be remanufactured from various pictures and drawings
as available.  This page displays the process of beginning to determine
what options we had to recreate the missing components. 

With no parts available for comparision we developed the forward cross
bar from scratch with historical drawings and
photographs, mostly from the EV1 manuals.  In the case of 
the cross bar, the EV1 Body manual was especially helpful with 
a detailed repair procedure to referance.  Here are
a few pictures of the results including some of the original OEM
body repair manual schematics.

===

The EV1's front cross bar supports the forward suspension cradle, 
motor, gear case, PIM, and holds the forward parallel frame
members rigid.  The OEM parts we had originally obtained were so
heavily damaged they were simply beyond any
possible restoration.

We also wanted to build this area a bit heavier then GM's 
original intention.  Weight is always an issue but security was 
more important to us in this area so we 
proceded to beef the system up.

We began by examining OEM manuals and pulled 
the images below from several sources.

As mentioned, we built the cross bar from 1/4" box material, utilized
16mm diameter bolts on the cradle couplings and an 18mm
bolt for the central forward motor mount.  We also inserted rigid 
blocks shown below for additional support in all
three mounting areas.  Each of these choices was intended to
strenghten the entire system.