246 replies to this topic

[SukiDawg]

Hey,


Yeh - summer i never the season I make most progress in... Been at the lake a lot, plus a shoulder injury (again from the wakeboard) meant using the spot weld drill is a bit tricky so I've eased off. shoulder is about better now however, and I was thinking about going out there tonight though... Maybe I will...

[SukiDawg]

Thought it was about time I did something, so last night (just to break the seal) I fired the lathe up....

[Normsthename]

Nice work SukiDawg
Slightly off topic...
I am in the process of working out how to crowbar an R1 engine into a little Aixam car
They only weigh 350 kg so with the R1 power it should get up the hills
I am doing my design in Solidworks, any chance you could send me the R1 engine model in a suitable 3D format (IGES / SAT etc)
Will save me a few hours with the tape measure

Thanks

Andy

[SukiDawg]

[SukiDawg]

Minor milestone tonight..


Everythin I have done practically speaking so far has either been making good the bodyshell or cutting bits off it for weight reduction.... Today I made my first new bespoke part...

Edited by SukiDawg, 14 August 2011 - 10:02 PM.

[SukiDawg]

[miniblade81]

nice one i have not got Patience for that

[SukiDawg]

Thanks!


spent some time on the car again today.. got the sill reinforcement almost done on the n/s. There is an inner sill strengthener which fits to the existing inner sill, then the full length central stiffener then the outer sill... Might seem like over kill, but the floor will have to support the centre prop mount (or quaife reversing unit if I end up using that), plus with the drive moving to the back of the car etc they need to be up to the job. Added weight, but at at least it's low down....

Inner stiffener (central one on the floor under the car)...




And looking like a skin pin porcupine with the outer sill in place... Will need to order some more skin pins from the bay this week - won't weld any of this up for a while because when I fit the cross-member at the rear of the floorpan (that forms the new rear subframe mount) it will make life loads easier if I can remove these parts...

[SukiDawg]

[Tupers]

I'd be a little worried about how much dead space there will behind the sill strengthener. It might be worth using a hole saw to cut 60MM hole between each sill vent so that you can add some more weld in the centre of the plate.

[cptkirk]

Nice work SukiDawg
Slightly off topic...
I am in the process of working out how to crowbar an R1 engine into a little Aixam car
They only weigh 350 kg so with the R1 power it should get up the hills
I am doing my design in Solidworks, any chance you could send me the R1 engine model in a suitable 3D format (IGES / SAT etc)
Will save me a few hours with the tape measure

Thanks

Andy

Earlier in Sukidawgs thread I posted a link to an iges of an R1 engine, here it is again: http://www.dpcars.net/home/links.htm scroll to the bottom of the page, theres a Busa iges there as well. I cant guarantee that there 100% right but it'll cut down your measuring time if your just checking major dimensions.

[cptkirk]

by the way as always, top work there Dave!!!

[SukiDawg]

Thanks Captain! I had meant to mention the link earlier, had totally splipped my mind to reply. The big problem with anything you get off the internet is knowing if it is accurate or not, so my advice as I've mentioned myself earlier in the thread is to create your own. If you are proficient with the software (which you need to be to amke any use decent of CAD anyway) then you won't actually spend that long in comparison to how long you spend fixing any mistakes that come about from poor data...

I'd be a little worried about how much dead space there will behind the sill strengthener. It might be worth using a hole saw to cut 60MM hole between each sill vent so that you can add some more weld in the centre of the plate.

Worry not! It isn't finished yet.... Just trial fitted....

[SukiDawg]

I thought I would post today, because I noticed that at some point this week this thread went past 25,000 views.. Which I think is a bit awesome considering I only just started the actual build! Thanks everyone - hopefully by the time (if...) 50,000 views comes along I should be a lot closer to a running car. Lets wait and see!

I have been thinking about the many requests that I've had for CAD data during the course of the last couple of years, and although I'm afraid the answer to that is always going to be a polite no, I ought to explain why that is.... Simply speaking I cannot guarantee the accuracy of what I have - it only represents the shell that I have and even then there is a wide tolerance band that I will be fabricating to. Also - once the data is out there its effectively available to everyone and anyone and I don't want something that might not be correct to be spread around as gospel....

Having said that though - I know that going "open source" with the work I have done is going to benefit everyone who's into doing serious mods to Austin and Rover mini's, so I think I've come up with a middle ground. There are lots of sketches and drawings with dimensions that I've done in the course of the project thus far - so if I put those up then people who would benefit from the information are free to check them against their own mini's and can share what they find with me and others. In time therefore we should be able to come up with a definitive source of information about the car

This info is also key to making your own CAD models - the easy bit is driving the software... If we all share knowledge about the dimensional information over time it can only become more accurate. I have had a bit of a scanning session tonight, and below are the sketches I used to develop my CAD data.

I hope this information will help people create their own models, or be useful in creating other modifications or conversions. One of the problems with exporting CAD data from the native package it was created in is that the information becomes fixed and cannot be changed - I hope by putting this info up then it won't be so concrete and unmovable - as people add to it or spot something that maybe isn't exactly dead on we can update...

Anyway - here we go... Hope they are useful....

[SukiDawg]

chop chop...

Measure measure measure

repeat until hungry....