More cardboard cutting.
May 16th, 2012Not much done tonight but I did play with the cockpit lines a little more and cut out the shape. I went for a simple straight behind the seats line for now as I couldn’t get a larger ‘S’ curve between the seats to look right.
I do like the look in this rear 3/4 view.
More cardboard and springs.
May 15th, 2012Evenings, when I come home from work, I like to do a little on the car if I can. So this week I was out putting cardboard on the near side of the car. I couldn’t roll her outside since it was often pouring down but I got some pictures inside.
She’s very narrow!
I also started playing with the line around the cockpit. Joss had drawn a sweeping curve behind the passenger side but I can’t seem to make that work. I’ve played with different lines quickly tonight. It’s a bit rough but just to get some idea of different looks.
I probably need to actually cut out the cardboard to really see what’s going on. The lower green line is the top of the boot hatch.
Tonight I also went to collect my springs that were reset by Bob the spring man. He did an excellent, fast and reasonably priced job. He said he liked doing them as they were a challenge. I do need to replace the pin that holds the rear springs together though. As well as the main bolt that goes through the spring and bolts it to the chassis rails there is a pin that passes through all the leaves. The top and bottom leaves are countersunk and this pin peened in place. To get the leaves apart for resetting you must remove the pin by drilling then punching it out. I believe the purpose of it is to just hold the leaves in alignment whilst you insert them into the chassis. He didn’t have anything to replace the pins with but I happened to get some 8mm diameter steel rod (the pin will be 5/16ths of an inch being British) which I can turn down to use to replace them. I will also clean them and lightly paint then grease them.
Reset springs.
I had 2 inches taken out of each. To reset them they are taken apart (carefully so as not to break the clips) and then the main leaf reset. To do this it is heated in a forge to a specific temperature then re-bent. The other leaves are then heated and bent to match. On the front spring the reshaping must be done carefully so that the two sides of the spring are equal. Bob says the springs shouldn’t settle more than a few mm over time if they’ve been heated to the right temperature for resetting. These were reset with an allowance for having weight on them and a little settling.
Bottom line.
May 13th, 2012Last weekend Joss popped in to help me with working out the bottom line. We re-cardboarded the car, wheeled her outside and drew on what looked about right. We also drew in the cut out for the cockpit based on where your arm and elbow goes when you are in the car. You need it low enough to move about but now so low that you look like a Noddy sitting on and not in the car.
Cardboard car again.
With the line sorted out I had to make up the bottom tube to follow it. That I did this weekend.
First thing Saturday I was up early and off to get more steel and then to visit Bob, the spring man. He is going to reset my springs for me.
Once home again I started with the part above the rear axle and spring. I was messing about with that when Joss popped in. I was being far too particular again so he showed me the right way. Bend some tubes, whack them with a hammer when they aren’t right and generally just get them into shape. It isn’t an exact science. You just do what seems right. And they don’t have to be perfect. Especially the ones in places you won’t even see anyway.
We made up the both sides of those parts then I started on the for and aft sections. Each bottom rail is made from three pieces. The rear section, the piece over the spring and axle then the front.
Today I got up early and went off to Bunnings. I picked up a roll of packing cardboard which is much wider than the roll I have been using. I then set about bending the tubes.
The tube is curved in several directions but that isn’t really two curves, just one curve turned in relation to the car. It took literally hours of tweaking to get it all right. The tube goes on and off the car many times. Eventually I got the offside done though. It was easier to lift the rear axle up onto a stand and remove the rear wheel.
Bottom rail in place.
With that side done I covered it in my new cardboard. I was able to do one strip to cover the entire side and the good thing was it went on smoothly meaning the curves should be quite natural.
Offside.
I took the car outside again to check how it looked.
Car outside again.
I decided that looked OK so set about making the near side. Basically a mirror image of the other side. Of course it was a bit tricky measuring that side since some idiot had covered it in cardboard! But I managed it (being careful to measure everything several times).
The near side is now in place and it seems to match the opposite side pretty well. Of course it doesn’t really need too since you can never see both sides of the car at the same time anyway. A little difference won’t matter. And since I have staggered seats the two halves of the car are different anyway. Might need a bit more tweaking still I think.
Nearside.
Notice it is dark in that picture. Doing those two rails took all day. Next I cover the rest of the car in the cardboard and work out where the cockpit hole will go.
Progress again.
April 29th, 2012Saturday was spent doing chores and fiddling with my Arduino so no car work although Joss did pop in and we discussed what to do next. Today though, I got stuck in.
First I went under the house to see if I could find anything suitable to wrap over the frame to make sure it was all in the right place. What you need is some large flat but bendy piece of card or wood. By curving it to the body you can see where the frame is out of place. You want the material to take a natural curve and the frame to match. Under my house I unfortunately didn’t find any long stored Bugatti. I did find an old real estate sign though. I vaguely knew it was there but never really paid attention to it. So I pulled it out.
Sold!
One bedroom and a study apparently according to the sign. Turns out to be the sign for my house! Not from when I bought it though so it must have been under there at least 15 years now from the previous owners. I cleaned it up and trimmed the rough edges off and it works a treat.
Checking curves.
Now the plan has always been to lower the car. Up until now it’s been on the original Ruby springs which are way too high. It is quite hard to imagine what it will look lowered like but luckily Joss came up with a set of flattened springs. The springs Joss has are much flatter than mine. Both front and the rears are completely flat. No camber at all. That’s about 2 inches difference on the front and about 3 on the rear.
3 inch difference.
I swapped the front one over easily. It is no hassle to unbolt the old and blot in the new. That made a massive difference. The front end dropped the 2 inches and totally changed the look of the car.
Original spring.
Flat spring.
I can’t go any lower than a flat spring with a flat axle really. Even this might be too flat. The problem is the radius arms. When you lower the front the radius arms end up sitting closer to the bottom of the chassis rails. On really lowered cars they will bow the front axle so there is room for the spring and also lower the radius arms using a dropped mount on the ends. Joss lent me some examples to look at.
Lower radius arms.
If you’re an Austin 7 person and know the Chris Gould book about building Ulsters these are the radius arms described in there.
The problem is these are the early style arms which are much smaller than the later Ruby style ones I have. The later ones were beefed up and are much thicker and also mount to the front axle in two places instead of just one like the early ones. With the flat spring I have about 1 to 1-1/4 inch clearance between the radius arms and the chassis. And about 2 inches clearance between the axle and spring. Is that enough?
Shortly after lowering the front Joss popped in again. He said I should get the rear springs on before trying to work out the bottom line so after he left I started on that.
Changing the rears is a bit of a pain. You have to remove the rear hubs completely to knock out the spring pin through a hole in the hub. I think on a good axle this isn’t too bad. But on mine with all it’s buggered threads it’s a nightmare. I am on the look out for a good Ruby read end if anyone knows of one! The other problem is the spring itself is held in with a bolt that is sitting underneath the floor! If you’re sensible I guess you drill a hole there to give access to the bolt but I haven’t done that on mine. So the floor had to come off. Which meant the body had to come off.
The other issue with lowering the springs meant the differential would now be higher than the floor lever. So the body had to come off anyway to cut a hole to make room for the rear axle.
Since some of my bracing was right where the hole would be I had to remove some braced and tack weld in other. With that done it was a matter of undoing six bolts to detach the floor from the chassis and also unbolting the firewall. With that done I was able to lift the floor and body off. Tricky by myself. Not because of the weight, it weighs almost nothing. It is just a bit awkward. Especially since the frame is only tacked and not fully welded. I managed it though.
Fitting the flattened springs was a bit tricky. The spring themselves have a hole right though all the leaves for the mounting bolt to go through. On the springs Joss lent me though the longest leaf was loose from the others (which are pinned together). This mean it was tricky to get all the leaves lined up with the hole in the chassis enough to get the bolt through. Eventually I managed it (after much swearing and accidentally hitting my hand with a lump hammer).
Flat rear.
Once that was done I used the jig saw to cut a hole out of the floor for the differential. I simply stood the body up on it’s tail. Amazingly everything held together despite only being tack welded. Only one weld popped during the whole afternoon of messing about.
Hole!
With the hole cut I put the body back on the chassis. It turned out the flattened springs lower it so much I also ended up having to cut away where the axle itself sits.
Rear axle cut out.
I had to do that to get the floor flat on the chassis. Unfortunately the floor at the rear then sagged but it was easy to prop up with an axle stand and once the rear tube is in that won’t be a problem anymore.
When the cut outs made and the floor was flat though what a difference! The car look so much better. Very sporty now and the drooping side line is very apparent.
Sitting in it (it is MUCH easier to get into now – even more so when I do the side cut-outs) the bonnet seems to just stretch out and up into the distance. Is more like being in an aircraft than a car.
Long bonnet.
Instead of a Motometer at the end of the bonnet maybe I need a gun sight!
Next I need to work out the bottom line. Knowing how it sits with these flat springs will make it much easier to specify how much to lower mine when the time comes.
More purchases.
April 25th, 2012Well, not much happening just now. I have however made a few purchases of parts that might be useful in the future. I am trying not to collect too many spare parts but if I see a bargain or something I can use later I will grab it. It is also worth grabbing things that you know you won’t use but that might be handy as swaps with other for other parts later on too.
I bought this nice little Smiths speedo for $35. I am not sure what the standard turns per mile is though for an A7 like mine.
Smiths speedo.
I also got a little AMR 300 supercharger for a very reasonable $151. Supercharging is something I might look at in the future. Will probably need to get the car running on a standard engine to begin with but this was too good to pass up.
AMR 300 blower.
And since I won the blower I also bid on these three old 1.5 inch SU carbs. They are earlier H4 models. If I use the blower I will probably have it sucking through one of these after it is rebuilt. I might rebuild one (between the three I have enough parts to make one good one) for fun anyway since carb rebuilding is a nice little project. All the brass and aluminium can be polished up nicely.
Three H4 SU carbs.
I am also looking now at the bottom line of the car. Joss came over to point em in the right direction so that’s my job for this weekend. We taped come cardboard to the car and rolled it outside to start getting a feel for where the bottom line should go.
Car outside again.
I do worry about having the car outside since I live just down from a busy intersection. When it is outside I notice goobers driving past who then openly gawp at the car instead of focussing on the road ahead! The other thing I must do this weekend is check the alignment of my vertical stations to make sure they line up nicely. To do this I need a nice thin piece of wood or card I can wrap over the steel to make sure it is sitting correctly.
I also need to get a replacement spoke for a broken one on one of my wheels before I can get new tyres. I tried the VAR spares locally. They couldn’t tell me how much they would cost, how many I needed for a minimum order or when they could be done. After a month I hadn’t heard anything so I contacted them and said not to worry, please cancel the order. Apparently they couldn’t do that either since the only contact they have with who was making them was snail mail! I did get an email back today though saying apparently my spokes are 7g (whatever that means?) and he can’t make them anyway.
Will probably get one from the UK or find someone with a duff rim I can steal one off.