Progress , slow , but progress all the same.
As with most of what we have been doing this year we tend to be re-making things we have already made at least once before .Sounds terribly inefficient doesn't it? Well, not having much to compare to and sticking firmly to my doctrine of "I'd rather make one badly myself that does the job than pay for one that doesn't' and the other firmly held belief that it's "more fun making it than working to pay for it " ( I can hear a few saying "Hallelujah Brother" ! there) we are getting closer to a car that we'll feel comfortable standing next to , while people pore over it and say things like " Yeah , 200 mile an hour you reckon? , do you think it's safe?"
It's sort of like packing a car for a holiday , we're trying to cram a lot of stuff in and each time we think we've done well we realize that we've left out the this or the that and it all comes out again and we manage to jam another piece of gear in there and hopefully make things work a little better.
I'd made the brake pedal and master cylinder set-up over a year ago and it had been put in position and been working though I hadn't been really happy with it .In the mean time a few things down at the drivers feet had changed a bit and the job of "just bolting the brake pedal in" got pushed aside.The pedal pivot had been a little sloppy so last week I made a new one which was a tighter fit and was hollow with a grease nipple and a series of holes around it, this was a great improvement .When we started on the job of installing it it didn't seem right , we ain't too proud to change or admit that our previous flashes of genius might have been more delusions of grandeur and so the back yard is the resting place for many pieces that have taken pride of place in the car only to be replaced when good sense or skill of manufacture prevailed.The clutch and throttle pedal are both foot shaped rocker pedals .This allows one to rest on the clutch by pressing toe down or release by pressing heel down , there is very little other room to put your left foot anywhere so a pedestal pedal was out of the question .The rocker throttle pedal means it works push-pull.These two pedals pivot on a piece of 2 inch angle which sits over the tie rods and pitman ( which is a dual eye number from a Kombi)as they run through the nose of the car , you don't want something getting mixed up with them during a run or worse still during an "upset".
The brake pedal arrangement was designed to pivot from the floor which at that point is angling steeply upwards.The problem with that is that the top of the master cylinder was very close to the pitman arm and when I looked at it I couldn't get the pedal far enough away from the driver ( for me , and the Rev struggles even more in the confined space
), not how I wanted it.Each of the versions of this pedal I've made have been done so I could flip the master cylinder in order to pivot from below or above and that's what we decided to do.Fortunately there was enough room next to the steering box, beside the knuckle, under the top frame rail and above the tie rod cover to fit the requisite pieces in. In the end the mount for the cylinder ,the pedal pivot I'd made that week and , um , nothing else remained from what was the "final design" .....the neat looking pedal box was hacked away , a new pedal arm was fabbed and the link position for the push rod was changed .....never say never I say!!!
While this was going on The Rev was busy trying to work out where we would mount the cockpit switch-bay.Now ,no amount of good ideas , experience or sense was gonna change how this went because it had to be where we could reach it with arm straps on, and where it would fit.That turned out to be at shoulder height behind the front hoop .The Rev spent a bit of time mocking up a floor console because one place we have got room is under our knees when strapped in and I figured while sitting in the car that it was probably safer down there and easy to reach , not for the Rev , I trusted his word that he "couldn't see what was going on down there"
Last week we made a bit of progress down the back with the fuel tank , fuel pump , fuel lines and keeping heat away from the above.We made a sandwich out of two sheets of polished Al with a piece of cement sheet between to sit over the rear exhaust collector , the fuel tank sits an inch above this and radiated heat was a great concern here as we are intent on having the exhaust route out the rear of the car rather than running zoomies or side-winders.I made a mounting clamp for the fuel pump out of a piece of 2 inch exhaust tube with a pinch bolt and a bit of angle so it bolts nicely to the rear bulkhead under the fuel tank We had already installed steel lines tightly clipped along the outside of the frame but when we looked at it all we figured that when things got hot in the car we'd have hot fuel too.We have run rubber lines inside fibreglass sleeve with foil braid along the side of the water tank as it is the best combo of avoiding the scatter shield and all the "hot-spots" to be found along the way.
Colonel Grumm got the linkage on the dual throttle body manifold working , nicely too .He said "you're gonna have to weld that up again coz it leaks like crazy"......" how did you work that out " I asked ....."well when I pulled it out of my parts washer there was fluid pissing out everywhere!".............."Oh"
He also made a neat cable arrangement that will replace the Hillbilly one that a certain Doctor made, hey , it worked!
I'll have a fast net-connection next week so I might even post some photo's...
Be good everyone