Rear clevis welding started

Today we started welding the clevises for the rear suspension onto the frame. Four of the clevises have been tacked on already and are awaiting the final weld.

Primary frame welding complete

Today we finished welding all the primary parts of the frame. The only remaining things are clevises and other secondary parts that mount to the frame.

Rear engine bracing members machined

Today we machined the two rear engine bracing members and they are now ready to be welded. We are also almost done with welding the entire frame, only a few members remain at this point.

Rear upright profiles finished

Today we finished machining the profile for the second rear upright. The initial bearing hole has also been drilled and the uprights are now ready to be faced to their final sizing.

Rear upright profile machined

Today we machined the profile for one of the rear uprights. We have also test fitted in the rodends to ensure that they will function correctly.

Our frame is also about 90% done with welding. We plan to have the frame fully completed by the end of this year.

Upright holes drilled

Today we drilled holes into the aluminum stock for the rear uprights and machined their thicknesses closer to the desired thickness.

We have also drawn onto the stock the general shape for the uprights and they are now ready to be profiled.

Machining the uprights

Due to a sudden change in our CNC options, we are now deciding to machine the uprights, kingpins, and hubs manually ourselves. We have already machined the two aluminum blocks for the uprights to the desired thicknesses. We are hoping to have a functional upright machined and ready by the end of this year!

Suspension end caps machined

Today we machined most of the suspension end caps. These will be welded onto the ends of our suspension links and hold our rodends in place.

SIMs complete

Today we finished machining the side impact member supports. They are now ready to be welded onto the frame.

In addition, we are preparing our car from last year for testing this Saturday. We hope to give our new potential drivers a chance to get familiar with a driving a Baja vehicle. Hopefully our new car will be finished soon and we can start testing it soon!

Welding started

Today we started the process of welding the frame together. Prior to this we had only been tack welding, but now that the frame is mostly complete, we are starting to fully weld the frame together.

In addition, we have cut members out for the rear suspension and are in the progress of machining them into shape and the threaded plugs that will hold the rod ends that interface with the frame.

Front SIM bracing members complete

Today we completed the front SIM bracing members. Remaining are the back SIM bracing members.


In addition, we have also built a jig for the rear uprights in preparation for machining the rear suspension members.

Lots of tack welding

Today we tack welded our side impact members, and re-tack welded our front bracing members.

Unfortunately, as a result of gaps between members that arose during machining, our tack welds were not the best. However, we believe that these problems will be eliminated when we move on to the final welding.

Both left and right SIMs machined

Today we machined the left and right side impact members. They are now ready to be tack welded to the rest of the frame.

Lots of tack welding done

Today we tack welded the front bracing members and the rear of our frame. In addition, we have also machined the cross member for the front bracing members and that piece is now ready to be tacked on.

Left FBM done

Today we finished up the left front bracing member. Now that both of the front bracing members are complete, we can proceed with tack welding together more of the frame.

With more of the frame assembled, it is a lot easier for us to visualize the amount of room we have. This will help us a lot as we design the internal components of the car.

Front footwell and right FBM done

Today we tack welded together the front footwell members of our frame. Thanks to one of our new members, who had prior welding experience and practiced on pieces of scrap metal, we were able to finish up the footwell area and progress with the overall baja frame.


In addition, we have also finished up the right front bracing member. The frame is coming along nicely!

Front bracing member jig built

Today we built a jig for our front bracing memebers. We reused the design from the front top plane jig to build these. Our jig basically consists of two boards attached with wooden blocks along its center and two blocks with slots milled in them to hold the metal tubing.

We have also discovered a way to help align our endmill and tubing when fishmouthing. The flutes on the endmill tends to distort the size of the endmill, so we wrapped a piece of paper around the endmill to give it a more smooth shape. We can then align this with our scale fishmouth cut diagrams to increase our fishmouth accuracy.

In addition to building the jigs for the front bracing members, we have also redone the right engine side member. The back of the car is now ready to be tack welded.

Solidworks crash course

Today we held a crash course in Solidworks for all the new people interested in joining Baja.

A lot of people showed up, and we hope that they continue to practice with Solidworks in their free time and eventually be able to design parts for our car using Solidworks!

Front footwell jig remade

Today we rebuilt the jig for the front footwell area. Our old jig was not stable enough and would tend to deflect or not hold the front top plane securely. As a result, we modeled a jig in Solidworks and then cut out a board of wood to spec.

We printed out scale drawings of the footwell jig in order to get correct hole sizes and then cut out the holes using the band saw.


Afterwards, it was only a matter of assembling the jig. We first attached the two main planes together with blocks of wood, then we screwed on the side control blocks of the jig.


The new jig is much more stable than the old jig and holds the front top plane much better. This will give us better results when we ultimately weld the footwell members to the front top and bottom planes.

ECST Welcome Back BBQ

Today we participated in the ECST Welcome Back BBQ held at the engineering courtyard. We took our car from the 2013 competition and drove it up into the courtyard to give the attendees a hands on demonstration of what it is that Baja does.


We met lots of people interested in Baja SAE and explained to them what it is our team does. We hope to see lots of new Baja members soon!

Remaking the aft bracing members

As a result of our aft bracing member fishmouths being fairly rough and gaps being present, we have decided to remachine the two aft bracing members. Tubing was bought at a local dealer and cut to appropriate lengths before we put it into the mill and started fishmouthing.

There were still some gaps between the members, so we used a grindstone to grind the fishmouths into the correct shape.

Front top plane jig rebuilt

Today we rebuilt the jig for the front top plane. This time we utilized levels and clamps to accurately build and hold the jig. In addition, we also put a cross member in place to support the jig and prevent it from moving.