Mission Creep

The camber plates are shaping up - they are not the smartest design in terms of bolt loadings - they sit on top of the towers and all the tension loads for the front struts to the body go through the nuts and thread lands (i.e. bolt is in tension - with reversing loads) so the holes are being reamed 5/16 and and close tolerance AN5-10 bolts being used with aircraft lock nuts and nordlock washers. I will lock the bolt heads in place - somehow

 

that's the good bit - the bad bit is that due to some project cost overruns in real life the roll cage is back on the deferred list - if I can sell a spare Volvo and probably my Mi16 Peugeot I f can get back into things but not right at the moment

 

work will continue on body prep - throttle pedal fabrication - steering shaft fabrication fuel tank location and set up plus resolving the flare issue. I will also need wheel studs and wheel bearings solid suspension bushes - steering pinion machining and brake calliper tidy up etc.....

 

T minus 3 weeks and holding

 

blast

w

 

concrete dust

no real progress on the car - apart from finally getting the tie rod ends off the steering rack.... woohoo
I did however get my machine room linked to my vehicle bay (garage) via a nifty piece of controlled violence and a big hammer via the use of an even bigger grinder....
NB - for anyone contemplating cutting concrete without a water cooled blade - don't

it took 3 hours to clean the dust and rubble out of the sheds - the stuff gets every where..... abrasive crap

now have enough room and work flow to do things like fabricate parts without going outside to change my mind... this is important as it hasn't stopped raining since then! (5 days)

finished the cage concept drawings - this is not a simple one and will require a serious reality check by the cage builder - but once you start hanging the seat mounts off the cage tubes and then triangulate stuff to induce the stiffest and safest structure then things tend to get a bit complex - add steering column mounts and stuff like that and its a bit of mish...

next week - more sanding and seam sealing

3 weeks

Update - 12 months and counting

well it has been a year - one year since I said it would be 3 - 6 months until the car would be ready
one year - and its still not done
hmmmmmm

so - warwick - what has happened this week? I hear my loyal readers ask.......
Strut tops made - 8mm mild steel - now drilled ready for bolt fitting - just gotta work out what bolts are going into them - and I am really glad I am not welding the suckers on
Steering column extended - but not welded yet - will finalise that when we do the seat fitting part - thick walled 4130 with the std shite mild steel Fiat shaft machined down to fit its about 400mm longer then it was but that will reduce once we see where things sit

Stuff to do prior to cage
sand and seam seal the bits that will be impossible to get to once there is a jungle gym in place
find some tube to fit the Fiat Nydella rubberised bearings for the steering shaft and come up with picture to give the cage builder for the struts to mount it to the das bar of the new cage
Give the car a complete clean and blow off and send it on its way...

4 weeks to go

w

sticky

so how do you remove 30 year old glue from the cabin roof of a Fiat 128?

 

1 x angle grinder

1 x twisted wire cup brush (the real heavy duty ones)

1 x idiot

 

The idiot then dresses in full environmental exclusion clothing including woollen beanie and proceeds to spend an hour on a hot autumn day holding the angle grinder above his head and aersoling copious amounts of (probably) toxic crud - again - moron

Cabin roof is now pretty clever and ready for paint - yay

spent a bit more time sanding the interior and acid etching minor surface corrosion patches

Made templates of the front and rear quarters/wheel arch areas so I send them off to some fibreglass guys to find some flares that work... thinking Toyota TRD KP60/61 Starlet wide body ones - available and they are from the correct period.

 

Just need to sort out the camber plate/strut tower plates now...

 

Next week more sanding and then some seam sealing

 

booked in for the roll cage in 5 weeks (count them)

w

progress skewed

Well - things are happening slowly... but happening none the less.

• Pedal box tray welded in
• Fuel cell tray welded in
• patch in floor welded in
• started sanding the engine bay with the aim of prep sanding all the interior to the cage going in
• massaged left rear turret for coil-over install - right rear still to do

The pedal box tray got installed slightly off centre...by about 5mm (at the most)  pure un-mitigated operator error - this will annoy me but will have no functional impact. Installed M8 Rivnuts for the willwoods to bolt up to.... had to fab up a tool as I was not going to pay $170 for a proper installer - mine was free.... and pulled the inserts up perfectly...

 

I will plod on with the various finishing - sanding - grinding - seam sealing and bashing things with a large hammer tasks (racing is such a precision sport) I *think* I have finished welding for now - yeah right

 

new email address for those who care - god does anyone read this stuff???

 

warwick dot gilchrist at xtra dot co dot nz

 

Smoke and Flames

Spent a Saturday afternoon creating dust and smoke - welded in a patch in the left front dash panel area and ground flat - removed the last roll cage footing from the old main hoop - need to patch a couple of holes from the previous welding efforts in this area.

Cut the boot floor out completely to allow the fitting of an 8 gallon fuel cell (small - but we only plan to run sprints/hill climbs and sprint circuit stuff - if we run enduros we just get to fill up lots!)

Chucked some zinc based primer on the front floor area and generally measured up for the pedal box mounts and fuel cell tray....

played chief timing manager for the Taranaki rally - lost a days fabrication and gained some good contacts - not a bad deal... good rally too

 

laters

w

 

oh

you know, if you looked really carefully you could say something might have happened..... maybe.....

 

okay I welded a wee patch into the dash area on the left hand side (its on the lis, so tick one more thing off)

 

then burnt a hole in my hand

 

and kicked the sharp end of the trolley

 

- while not wearing gloves but while wearing my best safety jandals

 

so one hole patched on the car and two patched on me....

 

more this weekend - hopefully no blood this time

 

W