Shed build racecar & RX7 update

So onto the brackets then. Peter got out his crayons and Etch-a-Sketch and got to business…

…then promptly let the plasma cutter do all the work…






…and then sent me a proud message about how hard he’d worked…whereas, let’s be honest, he was just suppin’ tea whilst the machine did all the work…slacker…

…but at least the brackets were basically done and dusted (although holes still need to be drilled).

Then Peter was the bearer of bad tidings…the aluminium bracket between engine and chassis was cracked. A small piece with a relatively quick fix, but most spontifuously (new word) irritating of all…it meant splitting the chassis/engine. Sigh. Been there. A lot.

Cars like this don’t have a chassis that the engine sits in. The engine forms a structural part of the chassis, to which it is bolted…and the rear suspension is bolted to the gearbox. This means you can basically split the car into two pieces…which is, as it happens, how I bought it. Knackers…back to square one.

So I promptly spent the good part of a day splitting the two together with another mate of mine who’d stupidly offered to come and help for the day (sucker).


See…that’s it…just this…as good as a days work…stupid thing. If you look carefully you can see the crack under the right hand hole (through which a stud goes).


…and there you have it, even less than we had before 


So whilst we were at it, we might as well get rid of the grotty mashed floor trays


You can just see the end result on the left in this shot of Peter’s workshop (or at least, part of it)…with three large piles of work (none nearing completion any time soon).


There’s not much left now…just a bath tub and a big pile of bits…

Peter was in the meanwhile making up front rockers…here’s the basic form of the shorter side…


…so you weld two together and get this:


…then the same thing with the longer side:


We’re just waiting on some bits in order to get moving further with these, so Peter got on with making up the rear suspension spider, which is a bit of conundrum as it has 3 different planes and when you make a jig you make it for both sides…that will take some puzzling to get right.


One day we’ll get her back in business…

Truck with a box body & tail lift is normally what the race guys go for over here - you convert the tail lift with a pair of hinged extending ramps that the car rolls onto - then just use the tail lift has normal to get the car in / out of the truck body - convert the front section to sleeping accommodation with a diesel night heater + small galley kitchen - rest of the body houses the car / tools / wheels and becomes a mobile workshop



Does not have to be has big or fancy has this

Buy a coach and convert the rear section (remove the seating floor after the rear spring hangers / chassis ends - build a pair of ramps - roller shutter door on the rear end - partition off to form seating & sleeping accommodation at the front - our old converted coach transporter can be seen in the below pic - you can make them has basic or has exotic has you wish



And some racing teams have some very smart outfits



You also have the option of once built - hiring it out to recover some of your costs when you are not using it

You need this (The one at the back)

Ah yes, I've been following that thread...what an utterly cool truck! It'll have to stay on the 'cool' list, though, 'cos it's waaaaay down on the 'practical' list  

Practical is for wimps

Looking forward to the rebuild and the answer to the transporter conundrum.

Update time, it already has been a couple of months when Jon made an attempt to get this threat up to date, I guess it is behind again.  
I will go a deeper into the fabrication details, As I like to read how you guys all conquer your building problems.





As you can see in the photo, the left rear chassis took quite a hit, resulting in a bended gearbox mount and a slightly twisted mounting point in the main tub.




The right side is undamaged, so it would be easier to make a jig for the right side, take measurements and reverse engineer a jig for the left side, or shouldn’t it be that easy ?

Jon was kind enough to dismantle the rear end, so I could get going fixing stuff





the undamaged right side in the jig




 
fired up the lathe and made the necessary bushings , this is for 1 side








 
All tubes notched, this is a time consuming job to get it as neat as possible




 
all welded up

So now we have a spare right hand side ( wich we don’t need )




I took the measurements from this jig, and mirrored it, and made a right hand side jig.

 


 







After welding and relaxing the frame ( heating all the welds again with a blowtorch to get al the tension out of the tubes ) this side was done.

Moment of the truth:




 
Looks good





Or doesn’t it ?



 
That's a fail in my book



I suppose I don't have to tell you that guys, that the neighbors could hear me cursing

Back to the drawing board, I could only think of 1 other options to do it the right way.



So I bolted the main tub to a big flat surface ( a bed of a very big mill )

mounted the undamaged left side, and made a jig.




 


 

 
That's more like it



 
Of course I made 2, so we have a complete spare set, ready to be powder coated



So that's the chassis sorted out then, on to the next part to build

Some things a very easy, but somehow I always find a way to make stuff overcomplicated.

I needed to weld threated bushings in a 19mm tube, as my arms don’t make a 360 degree cirkel, I made a welding manipulator, nothing fancy, just a cheap chinece rpm controller, a 12v wiper motor and a 1:10 tranferbox of chinabay .



A couple of hours later, I had a working welding manipulator. Even painted it green, fits the rest of the machines I have.




 


So these parts were easy to make




I ordered threaded bosses from rallydesign, and the correct size tube, fits like a glove

and 2 sets of tie rods

 





Next on the list, upper wishbones.

They took some time to get the right  .

OMG it has been months since I made an update, sorry guys.



wishbone's was next on the list



The wishbone’s are made from sheet steel folded into a box shape, which makes them light and stiff.

So it was best to copy that design the best I could.



I made a jig from the undamaged side of the car and just flipped the jig to make the left side.

Again I made a double set, so 2 new lefts and 2 new rights upper rear and the same on the front .

So in the end we got a complete set of wishbone’s all round as spare.





The rear jig.



The original was built entirely out of sheet steel, but I found it impossible to get a nice radius bend with the tools I have available so best to keep it within my capabilities.



So the wishbone’s are made out of thin wall chromoly tube covered with thin steel sheet




Made a cardboard template, so I could make a drawing of it and cut it out with the plasma table



Trial fit





Fully welded and ready to be polished.



The front upper wishbone where simpeler to made, being narrow,

so these are exactly the same as the original one’s .








In the jig ready to be fully welded



Made a little press tool to give the bracket the right shape







All done and ready to be nikkelplated


Somewhere around this time I bought a CNC mill ( one can never have to many tools ), witch came in very handy to mill out the bearing pockets ( they where a little distorted from the welding heat )








With all the wishbone’s finished, It was time to make the rear wishbone stay. It is a tubular frame which mounts to the gearbox . Again I first made a jig from the undamaged side and then mirrored it for the other site.




All the mounting bushes were made on the lathe.





tube’s are made from chrome moly tubes, so they are light and strong.






After completion of these cages I mountend them on the car and made them red hot with a torch, so that all the welding tension could escape .
Ready for final polish and nickel plating( al tube’s were polished in the lathe prior to welding ).





Time to do a dry build before plating and painting.




With most of the big things done it was time to start looking at the exhaust. The exhaust fitted on the car wasn’t the original one, 2 of the pipe’s had some big dents in it , so we decided to make a completely new exhaust manifold. but this time inside the body, as per original.



As I have made a couple of exhausts in a trial and error kind of way, I was keen on doing it a smarter way this time. So I bought a 3d printer and had it print exhaust modeling blocks ( free to download on grabcad )for days. With these modeling blocks it is very easy to make and adjust the manifold as you go. After you finalize the design you can easily copy it to mandrel bends by using a band saw and a saw jig.





After an hour of modeling .






slowly transferring it to stainless steel .




exhaust manifold ready for final welding with backing gas.




Next update in a couple of days