The area of greatest stress in the tunnel is the upper curved section, and
the bottom flat section. If you remove metal in those areas, the structure
will be weakened far more than if you remove metal in the vertical sides of
the tunnel. The vertical sections of the tunnel resist twist, and the most
important part of the car vis-a-vis twist is the sill sections. The curved
upper part of the tunnel, in combination with the flat bottom, resist
bending ("banana-ing" of the car).
Since you only install the driveshaft to the tranny infrequently, why not
learn how to do it easily by using little tricks like wrapping the u-joint
with masking tape, rather than cutting the car? On my race car, I install
the tranny and driveshaft as a unit, then install the engine after they're
in place.
Brian
At 09:57 AM 12/24/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Need some advice:
>
>Haiving installed the Datsun 5-speed kit, which is
>truly a great upgrade, I would like to improve access
>to the back end of the transmission and the front U joint.
>
>Rather than trying to make an access panel in the bottom
>plate of the tunnel, under the transmission, which looks
>like it might weaken the structure, why could I not cut
>the top of the tunnel (what we kids in the 50's called
>"the hump"). I could get some galvanized sheet metal to
>form a piece that would wrap around the hump and attach
>to the sides with sheet-metal screws. Then I could just
>remove the screws to access the tunnel.
>
>Question: How much strength is supplied by the belly plate,
>and how much is supplied by the "hump?"
>
>chuck
>
>
>--
>=====================================================
>
>chuck ciaffone chuckc@ibm.net
>
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