KLJ895W tinkering...

[Reg]

Wow! ..that looks fantastic! Pure candy for the eyes..

Another vote for a vinyl roof here..

Inspired colour choice..please keep the great updates up.

[lazeruspete]

Thanks all

[Carledo]

That's seriously ............. green! As am I! Hope mine looks half as good when it's painted!

Steve

[lazeruspete]

Good Afternoon All,

Also, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

More progress....

Following the progress with the paintwork i decided that the next step would be to start getting it as a rolling shell.

We started this by removing the subframe and stripping the bits of it. Something tells me that it had never been apart so it took alot of effort.



This subframe has been modified to take the C20XE engine mounts. It's also had a fair amount of strengthening as the welding left alot to be desired! This can be seen on the main fore/aft sections.

To my pleasure the mounting areas are in great condition so i don't expect it to need anything else before being powder coated.

Rear axle....

When my dad purchased his racecar(KPD105W) I sourced a Salisbury LSD from him also.

Being us, we took it apart!



Partly as a learning exercise but also as an exercise to see how it's set up.

This is a spreader that we made ~5 years ago to set up a noisy open diff.



So I have read that the original LSD cars were set up with a "public friendly" diff setting. On mine this was approximately 35Nm. This meant having both drive plates together on either side, with both friction plates next to each other also.



We have now set it up so the order is now drive plate-friction plate-drive plate-friction plate. Interestingly this still gives us a value of ~35Nm. I believe the next step is to try shimming it to increase the torque setting. More to follow!

The chap i acquired it from informed me it had "ST driveshafts" installed. I was intruiged to find out more.....

I didn't realise they would be this big!



Thanks for reading, I am hoping there will be more progress soon after we've had suspension components powder coated etc.

Until next time....

Pete

[Mad Mart]

There are cone plates on the ends which can be turned around to increase the torque. I'll have to have a look at my photos to recall what I did.

[lazeruspete]

There are cone plates on the ends which can be turned around to increase the torque. I'll have to have a look at my photos to recall what I did.

yeah that was the other option.

[lazeruspete]

Hello All!

Well, once again it has been a while. Various different things have happened since we last spoke including a redundancy, a new house, 4 months of unemployment and a new job!

The new job is allowing me progress the car in earnest, which has been a long time coming I must admit.

I have started to fit various bits of trim....











we have also done our own attempt at restoration of the interior wood.....more on this to follow.



We are also working towards getting it into a rolling shell. It is currently sat on a trolley of sorts and is difficult to move.

The axle is being rebuilt by 2Spec Transmissions, based near Kenilworth. He has managed to source me a NOS CW&P, as the one removed from the axle was pitted on two opposite faces. We think this is where the car/axle has been sat in the same place for an extended period of time with little to no oil.





Some components will need powdercoating, obviously. I am looking at going down slightly away from the norm. I have managed to find a company who seem to do a very hard paint-like coating. I am hoping that is of a similar thickness to powder coating. watch this space.













Alan(remember him?) is currently working his magic with the subframe, adding some anti roll bar mounts and developing some drop links. I'm hoping to get this back soon.

That's it for now, I am hoping to update this more regularly now we have forward progress.

As always, I look forward to your comments!

Pete

[GTS290N]

Chitty chitty bang bang springs to mind.
........
......
....
..
.
Scrumptious. Truly truly scrumptious. I like the Stag in the background too.

[lazeruspete]

Chitty chitty bang bang springs to mind.
........
......
....
..
.
Scrumptious. Truly truly scrumptious. I like the Stag in the background too.

Thanks

I don't quite get the Chitty reference though?!

The stag is currently poorly......the casting sand bit hard on that one.

[PollyB]

Don’t worry Pete. I will sing it to you when next we meet.

X

[shaunroche]

Chitty chitty bang bang springs to mind.
........
......
....
..
.
Scrumptious. Truly truly scrumptious..

Thanks

I don't quite get the Chitty reference

Kids eh!

[soe8m]

Are you sure those rear axle modifications will work? The angled reaction rods have to take both axial and radial movement of the axle and a round bush isn't designed for that. The two half donuts make it be able to move and pull in all directions. The more solid round ones will cause a lot of stress on the pick up points not being able to move freely. These rods also aren't moving parallel when the axle moves up and down and when cornering when the body angle's over the axle making an even more out of line suspension arms. The round donut ones making the rods be able to turn and twist in the pick up points as your bush modification cannot only stressing body and axle brackets even more.

These rods are a not ideal contruction acting as axle location all way round in all directions but this way using round bushes something will shear I think. I would keep a close eye on the axle pick up points when going to drive your car.

Jeroen

[lazeruspete]

Are you sure those rear axle modifications will work? The angled reaction rods have to take both axial and radial movement of the axle and a round bush isn't designed for that. The two half donuts make it be able to move and pull in all directions. The more solid round ones will cause a lot of stress on the pick up points not being able to move freely. These rods also aren't moving parallel when the axle moves up and down and when cornering when the body angle's over the axle making an even more out of line suspension arms. The round donut ones making the rods be able to turn and twist in the pick up points as your bush modification cannot only stressing body and axle brackets even more.

These rods are a not ideal contruction acting as axle location all way round in all directions but this way using round bushes something will shear I think. I would keep a close eye on the axle pick up points when going to drive your car.

Jeroen

Hi Jeroen,

At the moment, we think they will work. The idea behind it is to more accurately control both the lateral and suspension movement of the whole assembly, and ultimately to avoid axle tramping.

In the diagram below, the joints circled in green are replaced by spherical bearings/rose joints. The blue circles are still going to be bushes, of exactly what hardness I am not sure yet.



In the ends of the central tie bars there will be a turnbuckle, with which we can adjust the reaction force from the axle in an effort to alleviate axle tramp and increase traction under hard acceleration. The harder mountings will help the whole assembly to not rotate around the middle.

Hope this helps?

Pete

[soe8m]

A few year ago when I worked at Vencer we hired a specialist who set up suspensions for major car manufacturers all over the world. The setup involved many days of testing. During this period I had some interesting conversations with this man and also about dolomites and four link rally systems of the '70s. He said most are not so effective and in those years it was try and error and reverse engineering. Not all used uniballs because some just don't work and would stuck solid. The flex of the bushed made them move. He said build it with lego and when it doesn't move it doesn't work.

Suspension should be able to travel by itself and not be able by flex in bushes.

A std dolomite rear suspension is the type what needs the flex of the bushes because of the angle of the arms.

The axle tramp is mainly caused by the angle of the lower arm. The more the axle is towards the body pivoting point the more axle tramp can happen. So lowering will cause more. The steeper the angle the more the axle want to be pushed under the car during acceleration thus more grip. Some rwd cars lift their back when acceleration and that is good. Others lower their rear during acceleration and that is purely the axle is pushed towards the body and off the road causing less grip.

At a dolomite there's a lot to improve but if you want a more solid rear end using uniballs a parallel link is the thing to start with.

The Dutch racecars of Hans has partly uniballs like your idea and still the angled arms. But those cars have less than 10cm travel and the uniballs just can cope.

Jeroen

[lazeruspete]

Jeroen,

Would the act of us lengthening the upper tie rods not artificially push the axle away from the body?

This would in turn limit the amount the car squats under acceleration?

I take your point about the joints locking up, however how much articulation is there in these arms at the axle end?

In the end, if it doesn't work then we will have to rethink, the shell hasn't been modified for this solution so its relatively simple to go back to a more standard setup.

Pete