Raging. Inferno?

I had one of those days on Saturday where I felt like setting fire to the whole thing. The issue? Mostly my welding. I wanted to take-on such an extensive project as I didn't want to entertain some of the compromises that I felt came with most kits.  Today it feels like I am at risk of making compromises due to my own lack of skill.  Not good.

Anyway, the pedal box is welded in place, except for one run that I'll do when the chassis is next inverted.  

 This is the front-side.  A tidy enough weld here, I hope you'll agree.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said about the back-side.  I seem to have a mental block with welding in the centre of any angle less than about 80degrees.  After lots of wire and lots of grinder I got to this stage, or at least sort of.

Let me first say that in terms of weld integrity I have no fear.  It's not coming-off, even if I stamp on the brake pedal.  However, from an aesthetic perspective it is just plain 'You-Gee-Ell-Wye.'  It is so bad that I was considering starting again but that would be a hell of a job and I don't really want to spend a load of cash on another pedal box.  So, in a last-ditch attempt to convince myself that I'd live with it, I painted it to see if the powdercoat will do it any favours.  The answer?  Ish.  Perhaps of more consequence than the way it looks is the fact that I've probably added 500grams to the chassis that a better welder wouldn't have.  Ho-hum.

When positioning the pedal box, I wasn't able to consider it in isolation.  The steering column needs to thread its way between the pedals so I needed to hash something up to check everything.  I borrowed an old Triumph column to assist.  I'm going to have to change the shape of the clutch pedal to avoid interference but that's not the end of the world - a standard Escort brake pedal may actually just do the job.

The oiled chassis seems to be resisting rust well.

As suggested in the last post, I'd asked Dave at Track Developments to tig weld the top engine mounts, which he's done.  Given my welding issues, there may be a bit more work coming his way.

I have just realised that last Thursday marked 5-years of this blog.  There have been over 10,000 page views in that time.  I'm not convinced that I have any regular readers as such, but hopefully things will get a bit more interesting later in the year when I get back racing.  Incidentally, with this in mind I've renewed my license, rejoined the 750 Motor Club and registered for the RGB Championship.  I was able to secure No.41 which is good news.

TC

A little photographic evidence of a little progress.

I've managed a couple of hours in the workshop this week.  I've realised that the current situation is nice in that I can move to something else once I get bored of a particular task and go back to it later; but also frustrating in that nothing is complete.  Obviously getting the chassis ready to powdercoat is the big task, but I reckon that is about 6-weeks off given the current rate of progress.  I'm therefore going to try to get the axle finished along with the front uprights in the mean time - mostly by farming some blasting and painting work out.

Anyway, I did say that the upper engine mounts were progressing.  The blurry photo below provides some evidence.  If you squint a bit.

If you look really closely you'll see several new tubes, and a couple of tabs, all of which have been shown in previous posts.  In addition, there are four threaded top-hat bushes waiting to be tig-welded into place.

I've also done some work on the roll-cage mounts.  The rear mounting plates are pretty conventional.  In mounting these I've discovered the benefit of decent drill-bits.  Having become frustrated by the amount of time that it was taking a couple of 10mm Erbauer drills to cut through what is admittedly some very thick plate, I visited my local tool shop and spent £10 on a single drill bit.  I can't recall the brand (helpful eh?) but it made an enormous difference.  Lesson learnt:  Avoid cheap shit from Tool Station.

The mounts for the front hoop have required a fair amount more thought.  The chassis wasn't really designed to take a front hoop so I've had to weigh-up various possible mounting points.  As I believe I've mentioned before, the cage needs to be removable to allow the bodywork to be fitted so this has added further complications.  I came-up with a final plan when lying on a sun lounger in Majorca - proof that the project is frequently on my mind!  I'm actually really happy with the solution that I've come-up with.

The L-shaped section has been folded, welded and drilled to my design, albeit a flawed design as I'd read an angle straight off my inclinometer without realising that it was the difference between the displayed value and 180degrees that I really needed.  Thankfully Joe, who was making the parts, spotted the error.   The folded L-Shaped part sits atop a simple folded plate designed to help spread any load put through the front legs of the cage.  I think of it as a 'striker plate' which bridges over the welded join.  At the side of the tube beneath the L-shape, turned top-hats like those in the foreground will be welded in place to avoid tube crush and generally help to provide strength.  The difficulty in fitting this lot is getting everything nicely lined-up for drilling.  I'm a third of the way through the first side.  Even with one makeshift bolt in place it feels pretty sturdy however.  The front hoop will be cut in such a way that it can be welded to both legs of the L-shape.

One purchase to arrive this week was the gear that will sit between the prop-adaptor and propshaft as part of the reverse mechanism.  This, it has to be said, is a real case of 'Me Too Engineering.'  I've blatantly copied what Dan Bromilow has done, albeit I'm planning to use a pre-engaged starter motor to act upon this gear, rather like Austen Greenway has done.  The only problem with this is that the pre-engaged starter is bulkier than Dan's Fireblade starter, meaning that I can't get the standard starter gear onto the prop-gear without the body of the starter clashing with the propshaft.  The proposed solution, in fact the route I'm taking, is to replace the starter-motor gear with a larger diameter one.  This is a little easier said than done - I've already chopped bits off the starter motor with a hacksaw and the Dremmel.  I'll no doubt return to this in due course - I need to get the engine mounts finished before I can determine how big the smaller gear needs to be.  Incidentally, my prop-gear is ever so slightly (one tooth) larger than Dan's as I'm trying to keep the torque-relationship as close as is possible to those of proven systems (i.e. Dan's.)

The above photo simply shows the prop flange sat atop the gear sat atop the prop adaptor.  The gear now needs to be machined to sandwich neatly between these parts. Yet another job for Dave and his lathe.

TC

  

No Camera.

I forgot to take the camera to the workshop this weekend.  I've made further progress with the engine mounts.  The position of the motor is now decided and fixed; my welding is still unbelievably hit-and-miss but at least I'm having a go!  It seems robust enough though - I can't seem to break it so that's a start.

I'll try to remember the camera soon.

TC

Operation Swiss Cheese

The time spent on the car has been minimal this week.  Only a tiny amount of progress has been made on the engine mounts. That said, Dave at Track Developments has produced most of the turned parts to fabricate the upper mountings.

I should have had the pedal box welded in place by now but it occurred to me that I might be able to lose some more weight from it, so it's been attacked with a selection of hole saws.  

The holes now need finishing and I will then get it blasted this week ready for fitting next weekend.

TC

A good start to the New Year.

I spent a couple more hours on the car yesterday.  It was time well spent.  I took the starter for the reverse mechanism apart to try to find a way forward.  I think I have a plan.  More shortly.

I also sat in the chassis for the first time to see where I'd want the pedals; more good news.  They fit beautifully where I need them and will need next to no fabrication to get them fitted.  I have a couple of mods to make to the main box and will then be getting it blasted so it's nice and clean for me to weld in place.  Cripes, that'll be a good test for me and the Cebora!

Pics soon. 

TC

Arse-end...

A little more progress was made yesterday - not as much as I'd have liked but there you go.

The reinforced back-end which is necessitated by the MSA requirement to have roll-bar back-stays is now almost fully welded.  I say almost as there are some weld-runs that I need to do once the chassis has been inverted.

The strips of white tape are reminders that there are welds that need finishing once upside-down.  This chassis mod took me ages.  Cutting the angles on the horizontal(ish) tubes proved a little problematic.  Some of my welding was then utter dog-sh*t so I ended up grinding it back and having another go.  

I will not be welding the roll-cage and may even leave the engine mounts to someone better than I!  Ah yes, the engine mounts.  What was going to be square is now round. I realised that I had some nice water-cut brackets left over from the aborted se7en project that would do the job quite nicely.  I was also worried that the tube that's been lying around various garages for almost two years might be fubared but it's minty-clean inside so we'll run with it.

As, usual, ignore the improvised spacers on the overly-long bolt.  I am going to see if I can get the original bolts on a lathe to get the thread cut to length to reuse them.  We'll see.

The last 45mins of the 'garage-time' yesterday was spent looking at the possibilities for fitting a reverse.  I have no real idea what I'm going to do yet - not good!

Happy New Year by the way.

TC

Poly go me

I'd love to report that there has been lots of progress on the chassis.  However, when your success rate of cutting tubes with awkward and opposed angles is about 1-in-5, it does tend to slow you down.  At least I'm not making my own chassis from scratch!

Some items have arrived, notably the plates to mount the main roll hoop, a pillow block bearing that isn't suitable for the intended job and a set of four poly bushes, crush tubes and housings.  

The vast majority of the suspension joints on the car are to be rose jointed; the front can be seen here.  In fact the only exceptions are the axle-end joints on the trailing arms.  My thinking is that the 5-link live axle set-up will probably benefit from an element of 'compliance' (read 'squish.')  As such the bushes I've gone for are at the lower-middle end of the hardness scale at Shore A = 80.  My experience is that anything harder than this defeats the object and doesn't really do the job that I want it to do.  My experience is also that these, whatever the hardness rating, need to be very carefully matched to the accepting clevis so I think I'll be calling on Dave at Track Developments and his lathe to get them right.

Anyway, I'm sure that this will be my last post this side of Christmas so may I take this opportunity to wish you Nadolig Llawen

TC