I finally got round to ordering some sheet steel to make the trans tunnel and a few other bits. So with two sheets of 0.9mm at the ready, I set about it. I planned to make a square-ish tunnel as it would be relatively easy to do so folded one up out of cardboard before commiting to metal. With it sat in place, I hated it. More cardboard later, I had one that was angular that I thought would look good and started to fold it up out of steel. Not long into it, I decided I didn’t like that either so that became a pile of spare for patches. At this point I’ve had enough, so decide to close off the edges and make a cone to cover the top. With the big ruler screwed to the bench, I drew out a few cones and picked the one I liked the best. With it cut out of steel, I gently formed it over my leg and the edge of the bench with my hands. It came out really well, so I drilled some holes and cleco’d it to the closeout panels.

I then spent ages trying to get the shape of the top half of the cone plus the tab in one piece. In the end I gave up as the jaw of the shrinker wasn’t deep enough and made the tab with a flange to weld onto the top cone. A few hours of messing about with cardboard and I had the top cone cut out of metal and the whole lot cleco’d together. After marking where it all overlapped, I hammered a small lip on the edge of the cone to make it rigid before re-assembling and putting a few tacks on. A few tweaks, and I set about welding it together with the MIG as I was too lazy to set the TIG up. It all ended up solid, but not the prettiest bit of welding I’ve ever done. It’ll be under a carpet so it’s hardly the end of the world! A few screws to replace the two cleco’s that held it in place and called it a day for now till I can cut the other side of the firewall to suit.