Firstly the tube was fitted to the rest of the frame.
The tube was then drilled to accept a short bit of 12mm bar that would form the crush tube. Once this was welded in, an 8mm hole was drilled through it. The completed tube was then welded into the frame.
So now the main frame was complete, it was on with the diagonal brace bars. These are simple enough to do once the frame is solid, as you can just hold the new tube against the frame and mark off where the cuts need to be. The frame has three diagonals in it.
Fitting these proved to be harder than I had thought, as getting good access to some of the welds was difficult. There was one or two where I could only just see what I was doing. Because of this, I will try to make the other side of the frame off the car so I can turn it round and see what I'm up to next time. But once I'd ground the facing welds flat, that was this side of the frame done! I'm really pleased with how it looks, and I at some point I will need to decide which seats I'll be fitting. Not that I have much choice, as the space is now even more limited than usual!
The other side was the next step, and lots of measuring was needed first. Since I had cut the cross member and floor to be roughly right, I needed to cut it back to be exactly right so it didn't underhang the frame. Thankfully, I was only 5mm out with my original cuts. The rear bulkhead was also marked out.
Once cut back and cleaned up, I could then cap the cross member before making a start on the frame. Once the welds were cleaned back, I had to re-do a tiny bit as I'd missed the edge of the panel slightly.
As with the first side, I started with the front section of the frame to give me something square to go from. I also hammered the floor section under the rail closed and welded that up whilst I was there.
The next tube was the lower rail, but it seems I had twisted the floor slightly when welding the first side of the frame in. I know it wasn't flat to start with, but I think I've made it worse. So I had to stand on the tube when putting the first welds in to keep it square. Since I've been thinking about fitting a floor under the engine bay, I may cut the centre of the floor out yet and replace it with ally sheet.
The only other thing to report is that I am now minus my favourite kneeling pad. It turns out that I really should have looked under the car before responding to my neighbour's call over the fence, as I had managed to set the pad, and then a bit of carpet on fire!
The best bit is that it wasn't even me that spotted it, but my 21 month old son Noah who was busy pointing and shouting at me! If he hadn't seen it, I'm not sure what would have happened. So a lesson learnt there!!
