Muttvette: Toolmaking and tubing

I'm on vacation for the next week, and my primary focus on the car will be to get it to a point that it will fire up. Small matters such as a cooling system, fuel system, and electrical systems need to be finished up. In prep for this, I made a trip to Burns Stainless in Costa Mesa to drool over some headers and pick up some Aluminum maderal bends for the cooling system and for the intake track from the filter to the MAF to the throttle body. I also picked up some 3 1/2 silicon hose to connect part of the track together.

I also made a stop at Mesa Hose to get the AN fittings brazed on my fuel lines for the crossover between the fuel rails and for the supply line. I also had a piece of 1/2 stainless tubing bent to join the two sections. I installed tube nuts and flared that tube myself.

Here's the two radiator lines. The long one is 1 3/8 tube, the 45 is 1 1/2 tube. I cut them to length, then made a bead with my new custom beading tool.

Here's the final section of the intake. Before was a section of steel 3 1/2 tube and a section of hose. I'm replacing that with 3 1/2" aluminum tube and a silicon hose section to join the to the rest of the system.

Here's the rest of the system. The black section and section with the concave portion were from the old system. I trimmed the black piece to get room for the MAF.

Here's the section that will go to the throttle body. It starts with a 4" manderal bend, then goes to the MAF, then to a straight section of 4" tube, then to a 4 to 3 1/2 silicon reducer. The straight section off the MAF had to be expanded to take the transition to the MAF.

Here's my beading tool. I used a couple pieces of angle iron for the swing arm and the base plate. I bolted a couple round sections with grooves for the base. The action part of the tool is a couple washers on a half inch bolt, with a sleeve to space it to the grooves, bolted to the other piece of angle iron.