1993 Litton Corse I - Strato's Replica

I got to have a go on a mates tig today, first practiced just laying beads accross some 2mm stainless then butt wealding them together, i found controlling the filler rod to be the problem for me. But i did manage to do some good looking wealds, much more practice required.
Dan

I've not done a great deal of TIG, but spent a few hours having a play with a half decent machine zapping some thinner bits of steel together.

I found that with the machine set somewhere near, the ability to gas weld to a good standard made it relatively intuitive to get started on the TIG.
Some decent welds, but more practice needed.

Ginetta G21

The task is to get this to rolling chassis stage over the next few days so stage one was getting some mounts fabricated for the rear coilovers. As usual this takes far longer than I think due to all the calculations necessary for ride height coil over length, bump stop positions, leverage ratio's etc. With my best guess sorted the coil overs required turn out to be only 1/2" shorter than the originals.

The Mazda has a 1.25 leverage ratio, and a 15" shock has 5" of travel, 4" of clear travel then 1" on the bump stop rubber. The 1.25 ratio gives 4 x 1.25 on the wheel travel = 5", then the bump stop. The bump stop will not compress completely so I assume 1/2" compression which = 0.625" wheel travel. So 5.625 total wheel travel. We have a prefered rear ride height of 6" loaded as this car has the exhaust running under the chassis at 2" bore, 2.5" with hangers and clearance to underside. The coilover needed to be positioned for 3" droop and 2.625" of bump. From my calculations on this car it should all work with 225lb springs with a nip of preload. So from my calcs at full bump the exhaust should still have .5" from the road surface.

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All getting very technical - Bricks, blocks and an uneven garage floor

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The new mig - 0.8 wire and 10L/min Argoshiled gas flow setting A Max and a mid point wire feed.

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Well the lad is rolling in silence again - Now, I have seen some damaged wheelbearings but that one was pretty worn and a right pain in the 'arris to change - then again, the smile on his face when returning from his little test drive was worth all the messing about.

Progress was not what it should have been today as a mate came round with his GasGas trials to have a repair done on the exhaust - oh boy, welding an old dirty alloy two stroke exhaust was a challenge and no photo's of that mess at all but a good few lessons learned in how important having clean material is - I guess it's akin to trying to weld rust together with a mig. Upside is that it all fixed and the repair work is out of sight.

Did managed to get the foundation work done on the wishbones so hopefully some pictures tomorrow of the finished articles.

In the week I picked up an LT77 box from a mate of mine for another mate of mine to sit behind a mildly tuned 4.0L V8 - the box was just for spares so we can try and make one good box from two. The reason this was a spares box was that no gears could be selected and it was locked up solid.

The box is a 17A which is a 2600 box, but I have run these behind V8's with reasonable power in the past and never had an issue. First off I drained the oil out, which although dirty was devoid of any lumps and bumps of metal or shiney brass filings, which was a reasonable sign. Next I popped off the rear cover and it was quite clear that 5th was engaged even though the gear selecter shaft was not in 5th! What I should have done is had a look at where the 5th gear selecter location pin was before I removed it to take the rear cover off. I suspect that what had happened is that this pin was removed previously and the gear stick waggled, it had selcted two gears at once and the pin put back in the wrong place locking 5th in place. Anyhow, 5th had also been over thrown and the synchro needed to be reassembled. After that all gears selcted fine, but whilst in there I decided to have a look at the clusters and see what the condition was. All good news eveything looked fine albeit a bit dirty, so, gaskets ordered and then re-assembly.

The lads Polo also needed a look at for an oil leak - Turns out that the oil pressure switch has started to weep, a constant small weep, so a new one will be ordered and fitted in the week.


Ginetta G21

We have a front lower wishbone.







Tomorrow we shall have two, and maybe even a couple of upper wishbones - Again the geometry will need to be looked into as the MX5 uprights are shorter than the Triumph ones so now we have parallel unequal length wishbones and I prefer the geometry to give a bit more camber in roll and a higher front roll centre.

Need it rolling so I can roll it out of the way so I can get on with with the Strato's.. Be nice to start having this tread back with the correct bias.

Ginetta G21

Slightly longer than anticipated but finally completed the wishbones and three have a couple of coats of paint. Still need to round off all the sharp edges on all the brackets but its at a stage where it can roll.
The coilover angle will be improved a little when the upper mount is changed but a bit off ideal.







See how we get on tomorrow with dropping in on the deck


Strato's

I had a bit of a result with selling off the bits of gearbox which has resulted in the Honda Engine IDF Carbs and Manifold all ending up FOC from a bit of graft splitting it all, and I still have a clutch and a radiator to sell off - Plus the extra space comes in handy.

Strato's

Spent quite a lot of time today just staring at this -



- trying to decide on the best method of repair. After a great deal of consideration I took a diversion and fettled the dash.



And then fitted the black stainless bolts into the door cards.



Cutting the lawn and then more sitting staring at the rear subframe pondering on the best way to progress, finally decided that chopping it out in one - four neat cuts - and then build the replacement off the car and then weld it in. Plan decided so execution next.

Strato's

This will be a far easier job than the G15 door bars - a few brackets and mounting spacers should have that seen to, and a darn sight better finish than the dreadful things that were in there previously.



I was not looking forward to the task of grinding back all the shockingly poor weld efforts that were the previous repairs to the lower engine cradle, and I was correct in my assumption that it would be a pretty grim task. Still, it needed to be done as I cannot stand ugly bad work no matter how hidden it may eventually be.

This bit, I knew was going to be particularly difficult to clean up.



And it was.



More cracks starting around the upper wishbone mount. How could it not crack looking at how poor the design is.



And the other naff bit of design. The main crossmember is welded to a 16SWG skin but actually pivots around the lower return.





So the next task is to finalise the design of the repair - Thoughts are to chop out the cracked sections of the main outer chassis rails and let in some large 3.2mm thick sections in this area, a 100% increase in thickness. Between these pads mount a 52mm main chassis rail increasing the section over the existing 38mm crossmember by 37%. Run two 52mm sections back to the main cockpit crossmember. Link the 38mm rear crossmember to the new 52mm main rail with 38mm sections to replace the existing 25mm sections. 50% increase in section. I will also be looking for a better/stronger solution to the use of the 45 degree kink and brackets to provide clearance for the wishbone lower inner mount.

Lots to do.