196 replies to this topic

[LukeH]

** Disclaimer ** 

 

I'm conscious that some people might look at my project thread and copy the design or notice some faults with how I've approached things. I would like to state that I am not an engineer, I'm not a mechanic and I have no formal training doing this stuff (I sit a desk 7 hours a day) so proceed at your own risk 

Edited by LukeH, 29 February 2016 - 01:36 PM.

[LukeH]

I managed to grab a couple of hours in the garage tonight.

I adjusted the diff hanger length by grinding the tack welds on the laser cut brackets so I could shorten the box section. The diff now hangs in a better position giving more adjustability from the top rose joint link.

Next, what do you get when you have some 20mm box section, a grinder, a dremel, a drill press and a metal chop saw....custom made rose joint mounts.



These took me ages to make but I'm happy with the end result and they should be a lot stronger than two separate bits of flat bar.









Only another two, possibly four to make.

The one pictured with the long bolt plus one more once I've made it will attach to the bearing blocks through the holes that were pre-drilled creating the bottom diff support/adjuster arms.

[LukeH]

Got a bit more work done on the bottom diff link.



I'm happy with the mounts but I'll be changing the link bar to a male and female rose joint. I won't be able to adjust the lenght without releasing one side of the joint but I shouldn't need to do this once the diff is in the right place.

It was one step forward one step backward. Having got one of lower mounts sorted I realised the upper won't work they way I have it. The double rose joints allow the entire diff to move upwards which will slacken the chain and affect the driveshafts.

So I had a rethink and decided I would have a fixed upper mount with a long bolt. It's hard to describe so I'll keep adding photos as I make progress.

[LukeH]

A little more progress has been made. Nothing major on the engine cradle so I will add that when it's worth talking about.

 

I have been thinking about the gear shift paddles and R1 clock mounting position again. Initially I was going to have the paddles mounted with the steering wheel so they turn with the wheel however, I've now decided against that to avoid the problems with cable routing. I'm really not keen on having a curly flex cable visible as I don't think it will suit the look of the car and the alternative is using a rotatory coupler but I don't want to mess around with the original lucas item I already have. They are stupidly expensive to replace.

 

I have decided to go with column mounted paddles that stay in a fixed position, much like the indicator/wiper stalks. I started out by making a carboard template that uses the same mounting holes as the lucas rotatory coupler. This will be installed inside the column surround and hidden. I will need to cut a couple of notches in the surround but that shouldn't be too difficult with a dremel.

 

 

 

Next I drew them in CAD ready to be laser cut. I've removed the top tab seen on the cardboard template which was going to be the mount point for the R1 clocks. I'm now going to have a separate mount for this as the clocks would have been too close to the back of the steering wheel.

 

 

I have also drawn a separate arm in CAD that will connect the paddles to the column mount. The position will be adjustable using the slotted holes on the column mount.

 

 

On to the R1 clocks. I want to have them mounted on the steering column so that they are visible through the steering wheel. The new mini is like this and works really well in my opinion. I am also running a centre speedo so I don't have anywhere else to mount it. The back of the clocks already have three rubber mounting points plus the cable connector.

 

 

Back over to CAD to draw a mounting plate. I will use another arm the same as the paddle arms to mount to the steering column.

 

 

I will probably get these cut in 2mm steel which should be plenty strong enough and it will allow me to easily adapt them and weld bits on if required.

 

 

[racerlike]

Nice work. The paddles will be a good touch

[LukeH]

Nice work. The paddles will be a good touch

 

Cheers. I'm still planning on having a manual shifter mounted on the floor. The electronic shift is tricky to find neutral and I want a backup in case of electronics failure.

[LukeH]

Behold chain tension system mk2!

I managed to grab an hour in the garage tonight so I got stuck into the new chain tensioner.

The large bolt passes through the mount which is a drilled out m10 weld-in insert. The height is adjusted by turning the two nuts which also serve to lock the position once found.

The rod end is going to be replaced with a female version. I'm using a male and another weld insert for mocking up.



Slightly closer view. The wood was used to align front and rear sprockets during tack welding.

[LukeH]

More progress today. I removed the cradle from the engine and tried it in the subframe with the differential fitted to check chain clearance. I had to trim a bit more from the rear of the subframe but looking good otherwise.

The new chain tensioner works well. I've got the alignment correct so I'm going to stick with it and make the final lower mount.

I received a couple of bearing carriers in the post today so I started figuring out the manual sequential shifter. I've designed the frame in CAD and I've ordered some more bits and pieces from eBay so I can get it built soon. The shifter is one of the parts I've really been looking forward to building. I've spent countless hours researching them and I'm going to incorporate a number of ideas. Watch this space.

[kevtm49]

Good evening,

That's good, that lead a lot right now, I hurry to see more and photos.

Thank you

[LukeH]

Bit more work done today making the rose joint mounts. Apart from rounding the edges off they are done.



Also made a start on the sequential shifter by cutting some tube and welding a threaded insert in one end. This will allow me to change the gear knob easily although I still line the Copper one pictured. I'm considering a carbon one but will wait until the car is back together to decide.

I'm quite happy with how this turned out once the welds were ground down. I'm just waiting for a couple more parts to arrive before I finialise the housing drawing and get it all laser cut.

[LukeH]

Most of the stuff I ordered has arrived including some heavy duty nylon washers/spacers that were kindly supplied as "samples" despite offering to pay for them - got to love free.

I managed to finish my sequential shifter design last night and draw up in CAD so order was placed today for some laser cut parts. I'm keeping the design under wraps until I can show it assembled which shouldn't be long.

Hopefully be able to get on with stuff over the Easter break and a week is booked off for early April to spend some quality time on the project. I'm lucky to work for a firm that gives unlimited annual leave (within reason) so don't have to worry that much about taking time off.

[LukeH]

A couple more things tackled today.

First up I think I've come up with an ingenious way to mount a switch for the electric reverse motor. This button will enable the reverse circuit also turning the reverse light on. The actual motor control will be a floor mounted push switch.

Anyway, here is my solution. On the gear stick!





I'm really pleased with the smooth welds. It should look factory once it's all filled and painted up.

Next job was starting the reverse motor mount on the cradle which will also serve to stiffen the whole thing.

This was an unavailably difficult thing to work out. The mitres on the square section are all different on each side.

I used a metal ruler taped to the side to help guide the direction. I decided to do too halves to make it easier to work with.

Edited by LukeH, 03 April 2016 - 11:48 AM.

[LukeH]

Hello everyone.

I've got a few updates coming this week as I've taken the week off work to get some work done on the car. Well, I also went to watch the Paris-Rouxbaix bike race in France over the weekend.

First up is the work I have been doing on my new and improved Arduino gear position indicator. I've re-purposed a Smiths gauge to mount a 1.3" OLED in and I've written code for a Arduino Nano. The code has logic built in and debounce to prevent erroneous readings.

So it works like this;

1. On start-up checks to see if car is in Neutral. If not, it displays prompt to select neutral.
2. A trigger of either the up or down switch will increase or decrease the number displayed. I will be using magnetic read switches mounted on my custom gear shifter (update to come on that).
3. It will only display 1st or 6th if another gear shift is attempted once already in that gear.
4. If in neutral it will only display 1st or 2nd.

I spent a lot of time working the debounce stuff out to stop erratic readings. I can now hold the up/down buttons down it will only increase/decrease once until released. This would have been a problem in the car if I hold the gear stick in one position for a while. I also didn't like the size of the font available in the library I used to control the OLED so I created bitmap image files for each number displayed and I use the draw function to display it. I still need to format them a little better.

Anyway, enough rambling on. Here is a video of it in action -

 

 

Luke.

Edited by LukeH, 13 April 2016 - 06:04 PM.

[LukeH]

Here is the other part of the gear shifter I have been working on this week. I came up with the design after many, many hours of looking at really cars, exotic cars, etc...

I initially created a few hand drawn sketches then committed the final design to CAD. The parts were picked up on Wednesday and fabrication could begin.

This picture includes another couple of parts I had made, namely a R1 clock mount and paddle shift mount.



The parts were held together with a welding magbet and tacked into place.



Some solid nylon round barwas cut to length and threads tapped in each end. I split the upper ones in two and joined with some m5 threaded bar to allow the little shocks to be mounted.

The little shocks are oil filled adjustable RC shocks mainly for aesthetics but they also act as centre return springs. The pagano zonda shifter was my inspiration.











Next job was welding a pivot onto the shifter stick I made a little while ago. I cut an m10 bolt for the shaft, drilled a hole in the shifter stick and welded into place. The pivots are some CNC machine bearings I found on eBay.











Staring to come together.



I made up some link mounts. This was the first one that subsequently got changed out when I fitted the electronic shift solenoid.









Almost finished. Need to tweak the solenoid mounting and paint but that's about it. The base plate will get the gear sequence engraved into it before I weld it onto the main structure.

[racerlike]

Very very nice work