So March came, and March went, and some building happened. It started with the steering column and the bush mounting it to the chassis. The hole that it has to go into is too small, and it’s in some fairly robust steel plate. It’s a fairly hefty job making that bigger with the proper tools and, well,we don’t have the proper tools. So we did what any good boer would, and made a plan (Ons het ‘n plan gemaak). That plan involved a couple of U-shaped pieces of aluminium, which slotted together to make a tight fit around the steering bush. These were then bolted to the original mount point, making a very solid mount for the steering bush. A picture is worth a thousand words (see above). The bolts, as shown in the picture, are arranged in an optimal pattern for strength and stability. The layout was determined using a genetic algorithm on a beowulf cluster with 16453 cores. 😉
The steering linkage needs to be lengthened, so it’s chopped in half first. The steel round-bar is 15mm indiameter, making it perfect for 19mm tubing with a wall thickness of 2mm. This is pretty common stuff, and you’ll need about 500mm. I have 5.5m still available, so let me know if you need a piece.
Below you can see the basic idea of what needs to be done, using a piece of curtain rail to line things up. In case you were wondering, curtain rail is not recommended for your final steering link.
We also upgraded our steering rack mounts. Previously they were simple steel flat-bar brackets and poly-bushings. While this is perfectly adequate ina road car, ours is meant to be a racing car. So we got ourselves a set of the new Locost-supplied aluminium brackets.
These are fairly solid and tight-fitting brackets,and should improve the feel and rigidity of the steering immensely. We’ll also be looking to upgrade the steering column rubber jointing at some stage.
When we were fitting the engine, we chopped quite a lot off the bell-housing. To cover the holes and add a bit of the mechanical strength back, a plate was cut and drilled. This will be attached using 4mm HT bolts. The remaining holes will be filled with fibreglass.
We’ve made some progress on mounting the radiator. First the aluminium edges were reinforced with another strip of aluminium. Then we got our radiator fan; just a simple aftermarket fan from Midas. It fits quite snugly.
Our main concern is that once full of water, the radiator is going to be quite heavy. It is also going to be bumped around a lot, so you want it to be securely mounted.
The chassis already has two mount points welded in place, and it was possible to bend these to be in the right position for the radiator.
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Four small rectangles of steelplate were fashioned, both to mount the fan to and to mount the radiator to the chassis. We still need to weld the upper mount brackets to the chassis to finish off the radiator.
Although the picture above may look like a piece of fine art, it is in fact a fuel-line reducer (thanks Ronnie!). Unfortunately instead of displaying it in aglass case, it’s going to be hidden under the chassis covered in oil and grime.
The fuel pump has been mounted, and now needs to have the piping finalised to complete the fuel line loop. As you can see in the photo above, the various parts were marked to make reassembly easier.
The picture above shows the fuel pump in place, as viewed from below the chassis. The low-pressure filter is included simply to protect the pump from any metal shavings or other rubbish that might exit the fuel tank. The high-pressure fuel filter will be mounted under the bonnet in the engine bay.
Finally we started to mount the bodywork. The nose-cone is mounted with two 6mm bolts on each side. These attach to the chassis using 6mm riv-nuts. The radiator is a tight squeeze inside the nose-cone, but it does fit. It’s amazing how much smaller the car seems once the nose-cone, bonnet and scuttle are in place.
That’s pretty much all the progress to date. Still a lot to do!
B