Project Car / Motorbike thread. Let's see 'em.

Dales Cannon

lightbrain about 4pm
Staff member
No diff work. #2 can fit the new bearings and he is tied up with end of semester assignments and exams coming up. The dead duratec is providing some material for his stress analysis assignments with main bolts analysis and gearbox shafts.

Raining today so I set about making strut brace. No one makes one that suits the duratec though I was always intending to make my own which will brace strut to strut and also back to the firewall. I will use some cold drawn steel tube either 1" od or 28.something depends on the dies that suit my mate's mandrel bender.

#1 is making a rack for his motorbike so I stole a bit of an offcut off that. 150x75x4 RHS. The other bits were left overs cut to size after I made the anti dive frame.



Hacked the bits off with the cordless bandsaw.



Some more cutting and grinding later. I drilled the holes on size at 8mm and bolted the pieces together and did the grinding thing and then spun one around and did it again so they should be symmetrical.



Welded the tie mounts together 35mm apart which will allow me to put a piece of pipe across the lateral pipe. Probably go to a 12nb pipe and weld that to the ends like a T at each end. Will use an M12 stud and nylock nuts each side for pretty.



And here they are installed.





Thinking of welding some 50x50x4 angle about 150mm long on the scuttle and the vee parts of the brace can bolt on top of that. Anyway ran out of day. The lower hole is just for pretty and is a 1/2" dimple! Quelle surprise!!

And speaking of rain as I was, if it doesn't rain tomorrow I should be able to post up something in what does you day look like...
 
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Dales Cannon

lightbrain about 4pm
Staff member
Back in my uni days I analysed a head bolt from a 917 turbo engine. The mix of magnesium and aluminium alloys meant the barrel/head bolts came loose under load and boost. So Porsche created their own alloy. I found an ASME paper on the issue and solution. Porsche even provided photomicrographs of the heat treated alloy. Amazing stuff for the time.
 

Dales Cannon

lightbrain about 4pm
Staff member
Saving you the tedium of the steps which were pretty much the same as the last instalment except for the brace material which is 31.8 x 15.9 (wonder where they got those measurements???) oval tube 2mm thick. Surprisingly using a little finesse it bends ok to 30 degrees.

Anyway this is where the strut brace is at. Still have to weld the gussets. The wind was getting up and blowing the shielding gas away so as these welds cannot be tidied up with the grinder I called it a day. A compensation plate will be welded onto the firewall and not sure at this stage whether to bolt the centre mount to that in the obvious location or weld it all out. Still a little grinding and despattering to do. Pretty happy with this. The scuttle is a little off centre from the centre of the body as is the scuttle drain. I gave up and just made the brace central to the body/chassis so too bad if someone points out that it is 5mm off centre compared to the scuttle.



And a more flat look at it.



Looks like I am going to have to make another...

I was planning on turning up the crush tubes that the brace is welded to but the lathe wouldn't go around yesterday. Commercial tube is a bit thin and I had already bored the vee brace to 19mm. Bit of investigation found the start capacitor was kaput. Some of the inside was outside which is not where it is meant to be.



$16 later and a new one was installed and some 25mm solid became nice tubes to be welded into the brace.
 

Dales Cannon

lightbrain about 4pm
Staff member
Finished welding the strut brace and compensating plate for the firewall. Was going to TIG the gussets but forgot how to TIG and then after several dead tungstens I got it together and of course there was too much gal left on the gussets and it looked like hairy pus. Anyway I grabbed the MIG and multi spotted them on. Really happy with this. It needs a final sand to get the last of the spatter off and be prepped for painting but that is #2's problem. Bent up another cross section for the my mate's van and will set about making up some carriers for that. Another job off the list.



I will bolt the brace in with M12 stainless studs with nyloc nuts and washers each end so it looks pretty. Stainless will be strong enough. Probably need to shorten the weld in studs on the firewall plate and it will get stainless nylocs too. The firewall is a bit wonky so the larger plate is a good thing.
 

Haakon

Keeps on digging
The Alfa did 6.4 litres per 100 driving to Launceston from Canberra on one tank. Who needs diesel...?

Next few days on back roads in Tassie I hope to significantly increase that number :)
 
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