We’re back and busy! Our chassis got back about two weeks ago, and so it’s been a matter of chopping out the bits of life that had intruded on the build process. This weekend and past week have been the first opportunities to really get stuck in, and we’ve made some good progress.
The first thing was the chassis and work area. Messy, dirty, dusty. Seems the chassis travelled from Durban on an open trailer, during a storm. More like a mudslide, given the amount of dirt on it. The layer of dust on everything else was evidence of how long it’s been since we did some serious building.
Once we’d given everything a hose down and wipe, we were able to get stuck into the work. The big thing that’s been on the cards is the engine mount brackets. I managed to go to a scrap metal mechant and buy a length of tubing and angle bar. I also got some real insight into where all the bridge railings and street signs are ending up. We already have the upper brackets for LocostSA – they are awesome.
So we just need to construct the lower ones to meet the engine mount at 45 degrees. To achieve a nicely accurate 45 degree angle, the first approach was to use a piece of angle-bar with plate across the hypotenuse. However, we decided that it would be better to construct the whole thing out of plate steel.
So the brackets consist of 3 plates. The base will rest either on the chassis support plate (cut out in the previous post), or a tubular support. The main part of the bracket will be the angled plate, with a groove cut in it for the engine mount bolt to slide through. A similar groove is cut in the vertical plate. To get a neat 45 degree angle, the plate was clamped to a scrap piece of angle bar, lying with its open ends down. The result was reasonably pleasing, although not to watch-maker spec.
We test fitted the engine, partly to see what our options were with the engine mount brackets, and partly to see how well it all fits. There really is not a lot of space in there. Word of advice, remove the throttle support bracket (that piece of pressed plate steel that the throttle cable slots into, it’s attached with Torx-head bolts) before doing this. It really sticks out, and chances are you’ll break it off on something.
Then we fitted the bell-housing, to figure out what bits of it to remove so that the engine sits far enough back. It’s pretty apparent that a couple of spots get in the way, and prevent the engine from sitting nicely back. The angle grinder was used to remove the unwanted bits. We are counting on the bellhousing being over-designed – so that our handiwork doesn’t cause significant structural weakness.
Several months ago we tried removing the oil filter arrangement, so that we could fit a Locost SA remote oil filter. No matter how we tried, one bolt remained unmoving. However, it was a case of the right tool for the job. We tried again using a ring spanner, and managed to crack it. So that’s half the job done – next is fitting the remote filter bracket. We’ll be needing longer bolts for that though.
Starting work again like this was a reminder of how much time even the smallest thing takes. When the chassis arrived back, it had new (customised) wishbones installed. We decided to remove them to clean the chassis. It’s a simple job to unbolt the wishbones, but it takes over half an hour. So although it’s been good, productive and fairly long hours, writing it all down makes it seem so little.
Hopefully we’ll be able to get really busy with the build. More to come!
B