Nope, no video has surfaced yet.:rolleyes: If there was I would like to see it, too. I would especially like to see the look on the announcer's face. That had to be very close to a "brown shorts" episode for him; it was pretty close for me!:o
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Nope, no video has surfaced yet.:rolleyes: If there was I would like to see it, too. I would especially like to see the look on the announcer's face. That had to be very close to a "brown shorts" episode for him; it was pretty close for me!:o
Well, about a week ago I finally tore into repairing the damage caused by my little mishap. When I put the car up on my frame jig I discovered more damage than was first apparent.:( The bottom left frame tube was bent up slightly right under the seat area. The right end of the front axle was pushed back about 1.5 inches and up about 3/8 inch which also increased the negative camber by about 3 extra degrees.
I straightened the lower frame rail first by removing the left side body panel and using a piece of heavy angle iron and a series of c-clamps. After that, I clamped the car down to the frame jig and used ratchet straps to pull the front axle back forward. To pull the axle end down and regain the proper 7 degrees of negative camber, I used a bar-clamp to apply tension and then rapped the top of the kingpin with a dead-blow hammer; three applications got it right. With everything straightened, I next built a complete new nose for the car. I made this one 2.5 inches longer to improve driver comfort. One last thing I did for driver comfort (that had nothing to do with my crash) was widen the front hoop of the roll cage 2 inches.:HMMM:
Yesterday (Saturday, Jan 11) my son, Jim Jr, and I went racing and had a great day! I took my newly repaired #94 car and my son drove his faithful black #13. I won the first race of the day over Jim Jr. by one lap and two laps over Rodney Schreck in 3rd place. In the second race, our finishing order was reversed (Rodney, Jim Jr, me), but we were all on the same lap. When all the laps were totaled up for the day I won, Jim Jr. was 2nd and Rodney was 3rd. If I'm gloating a little here it's because I also built Rodney's car, so that means Robinson cars made a clean sweep!:D:D:D
Interestingly, my ammeter was not working all day (Electrathon racers normally live or die by our ammeters), so I was driving by "feel" and sound in both races...:cool:
Congrats Jim, :) Post some pics of the new and improved 94 car.
Steve - The only discernable difference in appearance is the number on the nose is smaller. I'm hoping some of the folks in attendance yesterday will post some photos of it in action on the Electrathon page. If they do, I'll pirate a pic or two and repost them here.:3dSMILE:
Tech - That's an excellent idea I hadn't thought of. The local ACE Hardware has them in many different sizes. I look right at them when I'm getting hitch clips for the spindle nuts and it never occurred to me to use them for this. DUH!:rolleyes: Thanks for the suggestion!:cool:
I've been very remiss in my reporting since my victory at Hillsborough Community College. The next race was at Wharton High School in Tampa on January 25th. The course was not to my liking. It was a very tight parking lot course, which is OK, but there were a couple of islands with concrete curbs surrounding them. When we were running in a counter-clockwise pattern around the track, it wasn't too bad. For the second race of the day the direction was reversed and there is a concrete curb at the exit of the "chicane" that is just too close for comfort. My right front wheel was running within about 3 inches of that curb on corner exit. A blown tire in that area of the track would have been disasterous. It's hard to explain without detailed pictures; suffice it to say that if they run that race in the same configuration next year I'll stay home. Anyway, I took it easy in that area and ended up with a 3rd place overall finish for the day in my red #94.:3dSMILE:
My son wasn't available on that day, so my black #13 car was being driven by an old friend and former IKF karting champion from Indiana. With only 3 minutes to go in the first race, the right front tire popped and he hit a curb as he was exiting onto the main straight. The right end of the front axle was pushed back about 3 inches and the normal 7 degrees of negative camber and 7 degrees of positive caster were now about 2 degrees positive and 1 degree negative, respectively:eek::eek:. He thought he was finished for the day, but we went to work and, with the help of a couple of hard-working high school guys and Rodney Schreck's welder, we got the car back in shape to run the second race. The faithful old #13 ended up 4th overall for the day!:D
The next race on the schedule was at University of South Florida (USF) on February 22nd. The local weather folks and weather.com were both predicting about 80% chance of rain and it was already raining here on Friday evening when it was time to load up. My son and I decided to stay home - we didn't want to waste a 2-hour drive each way (Titusville to Tampa and back) just to get rained out.:( It rained all day Saturday... in Titusville. In Tampa all they got was a light sprinkle once and the races ran on time with no problems! Oh well...:rolleyes:
On March 22nd my son and I trekked to Tampa Bay Technical High School for the last event in the Tampa area this season. This course was set up similar to the one at Wharton, but it's larger and there are no islands with curbs to crash against. In the first race I started in the rear of the field, ran a steady pace, took the lead with 3 minutes to go, and won by 3 seconds over Rodney Schreck from Miami.:3dSMILE: My son finished 16 seconds back in 3rd place. I started on the front row for the second race, so took advantage of the situation and jumped out to an early lead. I set the pace and led every lap for the first 54 minutes. Occasionally, late in the race entering the hairpin turn after the long straight, I would hear a loud "POP" from the rear of the car. At first I thought the chain was trying to jump off the sprocket; the rear wheel must be loose and is running out of alignment as I'm entering that turn...:confused: I was wrong. The "POP" I was hearing was spokes breaking under side stress; the rear wheel came apart and knocked the chain off with 6 minutes to go!:eek: I coasted to the pits and my son won the race over Rodney Schreck. When the laps and times were totaled up for the day, my son got 1st overall, Rodney was 2nd, and I completed enough laps to take 3rd.:cool:
There are two races scheduled in April, but I won't be attending either of them. One is in Pensacola, Florida (9 hours away) and the other one is at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama (12 hours away). My next race will be at Florida Solar Energy Center in Cocoa on May 3rd and then I'll finish the season at Quitman, Georgia on May 10th.;)
Not bad Jim, You guys are giving the competition some stress! Sorry to hear about the spokes failing, but nice that you still came in in the top 3! Thanks for the update!
Good results Jim, thanks for coming back on and giving us an update! This Schreck guy from Miami probably added you and your son to his hate list, every time he raced one of you beat him!!!!
Thanks, guys. I should have checked the spokes in the rear wheel between races; if I had I may have discovered the problem before it became catastrophic.:( Anyway, I have replaced those frail little 14-gauge spokes with some nice beefy 11-gauge.:3dSMILE:
Not to worry, Dave. I don't think Rodney Schreck is too upset. He consistently stomped my ass repeatedly for the first 5 or 6 years I was racing in Electrathon. Then I and some others finally started beating him pretty regularly. This year he is running a car that I built for him! He's won with it twice and is consistently running in the top 3 again.:D He loves the car so much he has mentioned having me build him a spare!:rolleyes:
Jim,did Rodney ever tell ya why he couldn't use or drive Rolling Thunder? I even gave him the aero body plans I never added. He drove it around my block about 5 times ,said "wow" I like it,and then payed me for it,never herd from him again. And I've never seen it show up again,was most likely the highist tech chassie car there back then, with old motor ect. from you . I do keep a eye on what your doing,looking good Jim.:D
Hi Bat. Sorry it took me so long to reply; I didn't do it right away and forgot about it until just now...:rolleyes:
I honestly don't know why Rodney hasn't run your old car. I suppose it's probably because it doesn't have a body on it yet (now required by the rules to protect the driver's legs) and he just hasn't got around to putting one on it. Right now he's been running the car I built for him and he's having good success with it. Our season will conclude next week with the race in Quitman, Georgia. Maybe he'll have time to work on it then...:whacked:
Thanks for the compliment. I'm still having fun, but getting old; I don't know how much longer I'll keep doing this...:cool:
Final update for this season... The May 3rd race at the Florida Solar Energy Center got rained out.:CRY: I had the cars ready to go, but the weather didn't cooperate. May 10th I went to Quitman, Georgia for the final race of the season. They had a great turnout this year with 14 cars. Rodney Schreck from Miami and I dominated both races, handily beating the other Open Class cars and the closest finishing high school team by over 20 laps. When the day's results were totaled, I beat Schreck by one lap and brought home the first-place trophy.:D
At the first annual awards banquet on May 17, the points championship for the season went to Rodney Schreck and I was second. Even if I hadn't skipped the USF race in February, I would still have finished second in points because of my crash and subsequent bad finish at the opening race.:rolleyes: All in all it was a pretty good season. We get a rest now until October and then it starts again; I'll be ready...:cool:
Very cool! Thanks for posting your results!
good job Jim. Now you can work on the track style T!
Congrats on the effort Jim! It was a good season for you!
Thats a super job and great driving,happy for you and thanks again for all the help you passed our way back years ago,sure did add to the fun.
Thank you all for the compliments. It was a fun season except for the crash at the beginning.
Steve - I have the Track-T on jackstands, stripped down, and am prepping it for paint. You can see the results on my other thread in a few days.
Bat - You're welcome. I wish you and Lance were still involved; I might finally be some competition for you now... I've been following your roadster on your thread; it's lookin' good and I really love your interior work! If we lived closer I'd be on your doorstep with my door panels...
I don't know if anyone has been accessing this thread recently, but if so you may have noticed the pictures were missing! A couple of weeks ago all the pictures on my threads and many others suddenly disappeared. Brent has apparently found and fixed the problem because they're all back. HOORAY and THANK YOU BRENT. Long live Club Hotrod!!!:D:D:D
Jim, you apparently missed the announcement :D:D - http://www.clubhotrod.com/hot-rod-ta...tml?highlight=
Not only is a least one person accessing this thread.... Your build was enough of an incentive to get me started in the sport!
I am a little overwhelmed getting my mind wrapped around all the wheel options. Back on post #55 of this thread you mentioned you made a custom setup based on mountain bike hubs which acept disk rotors and double wall alloy rims.
I was wondering if you could share more info about the brand of hubs and rims you are using on your wheels.
Thanks
David
Hi David, and welcome to Electrathon. Yes, I am happy to help anyone get going in this sport. The wheels that I currently use are a hybrid combination of components that have proven themselves to be pretty reliable. I have experimented with different pieces over the years and the following is what my combination has evolved into...:)
I start with a 20 inch Weinmann DM30 double wall alloy rim with 36 spoke holes. I usually just go on Amazon and search for the best price and availability. I'm sure that there are other rims that are good, too, but I've had pretty good luck with these and they are reasonably priced, so I've stuck with them.:rolleyes:
Next, I look for a 36-hole hub that has sealed bearings and the six-hole flange for mounting the brake disc. I have found them that accommodate 20mm and 15mm thru-axles. The 20mm ones can be used on a 1/2 inch diameter spindle with bronze bushings available at ACE Hardware (3/4" o.d. with 1/2" hole). The 15mm ones can be used on 9/16" diameter spindles. Right now I am using the 15mm hubs on the cars that I build, but I have used both in the past and both are equally good. I don't have a brand name on these and they are unmarked; I will try to find the e-mail address of the supplier and post it later. Anyway, they are just some hubs I found on Ebay or Amazon and not horribly expensive.;)
The final component is the spokes. Conventional bicycle wheels use 14 gauge spokes; they are good for one race. At the second race they start breaking in the corners. I once had a front wheel that broke so many spokes it started wobbling visibly. I got black-flagged while running in second place with less than 4 minutes to go. When I got to the pits I counted 13 broken spokes on that wheel! After that I bought 12 gauge spokes and re-laced all my wheels with them. Now I usually break one or two spokes per race meet and I've not had any major problems. I would use 10 gauge spokes if I could, but nobody makes them in the correct length (7 1/4 inch or 184mm). Also, I check spoke tension and wheel trueness after every race. Our events here in Florida usually are comprised of two 1-hour races; I check spoke tension and wheel trueness between races - it's that important.:HMMM:
In order to put all these things together you will have to drill out the spoke holes in the hubs to 1/8 inch and the nipple holes in the rims to 3/16 inch. Also, check the valve stem hole in the rim to make sure it fits the stem on whatever brand of inner tubes you are using. If you need help on learning to lace rims, there are several videos on Youtube. After the first few you'll get faster at it.:cool:
Where are you located? Where will you be racing?
David - Here is a link to the hubs:
http://www.amazon.com/Wheel-Master-T...icycle+hub+36h
and the spokes:
Amazon.com : SPOKES ACTION 12G 184MM 7-1/4 72PC SILVER : Bike Spokes And Accessories : Sports & Outdoors
That's the only place I've found the spokes. There are enough in a package to do two wheels. They aren't always in stock, so buy enough so you'll have spares to replace broken ones.
Just ordered 5 rims, 3 front hubs, 2 rear hubs, and enough spokes for 6 wheels.
I think I will tackle rotor disks and brakes next. There seems to be a lot of good information floating around.
There are a bunch of brake options to choose from, so as usual, I try to pick something that fits the pocketbook and still works good. MTB makes a good quality disc brake, but they are difficult to adjust. When I got them so they were effective enough, they created some slight drag on the rotors (a definite no-no in Electrathon where friction is a detriment); when I adjusted out all the drag they didn't work to my (or the tech inspector's) satisfaction. For the last few cars I've built I used Bengal brakes. They are price comparable to the MTBs. They have a different leverage ratio built into them, so they run without drag and still stop the car efficiently. I buy them on Ebay. If you buy them in pairs it saves a few dollars.:HMMM:
What did you get for rear hubs? I usually buy a 48 spoke BMX wheel for the rear with the 14mm axle and the threads for the screw-on sprocket cassette. I run them until they break a couple of spokes and then re-lace them with the 12 gauge spokes. I get the sprocket hub from Rodney Schreck in Miami. It's made to accept a standard go-kart sprocket and I use an aluminum sprocket for #40 chain.;)
Thanks Jim,
Sorry it looks like the moderator ate my reply from yesterday. Maybe because I am new and I used a link to an external site :(
In summary... I am from Western Wisconsin, along the Mississippi river. Our state organization holds four events each spring which lean heavily towards high school students. That should give me 6 months to get something going :)
For a rear hub, I went with a Wheel Master Rear Hub Freewheel - 36H Bolt-on Black 135mm O.L.D. 6/7 . It was pretty cheap, enabled me to use the same rims and spokes as the front wheels. If they show sign of failure, I am not out much and can reuse the rims as spare fronts. It seems to have standard threading for a bicycle freewheel.
I was planning on not thinking too much about the drive-train except for size and weight constraints until after the frame is nearly done. Otherwise I get too many variables floating around. Right now my primary goal is to establish the wheel geometry so I can use the front spindles and rear dropouts as the starting point for the frame.
I guess I should get the brakes pretty soon as they will have a significant effect on how the front wheel mounts are designed.
David
Sounds like you're on the right track. For when you're ready, here is the link to the rear sprockets I use:
Racing Sprockets for Larger Chain Sizes
I get my motor sprockets, chain, and master links from Robot Marketplace.:3dSMILE:
A lot of teams like to use #35 chain, but I have had some bad experiences with it. If you have any frame flex or if the motor or rear wheel get knocked just a little out of alignment, the chain pops off.:mad: I switched to #40 chain about 6 years ago and virtually ended my chain related failures. It has to be seriously out of alignment to come off.:cool:
Just a quick update.
Most of this week was spent on the basics. I tried to start each day in the shop by spending 10-15 minutes per day practicing welding beads on 20 Gauge sheet metal. I figure that practice will come in handy when I start welding the .060 round tubing I intend to use for the frame. Next I practiced notching 6 inch segments of the 3/4 and 1 inch round tubing. When I feel more confident in my welding, I'll use the notched tube segments for practice and then destructively test them.
Inside I tried to spend an hour or two learning solidworks. Not sure if that is strictly necessary, but I would like to eventually be able to run some analysis on frame designs.
The wheel components arrived today. Going to start assembling them this weekend.
Next weeks project looks to be a continuation of the basics while designing and fabricating a prototype of the steering system. I have worked on and raced bikes of various sorts, but have never really looked at two steering systems.
If you have looked at the wheel lacing videos on Youtube, you know they recommend weaving the spokes. You won't be able to do that with 12 gauge spokes without bending them like pretzels, so don't bother. After your wheels are laced and trued, use small zip-ties to tie the spokes together where they cross. This helps strengthen the wheels and also keeps any broken spokes from whipping around and getting tangled where they shouldn't.:HMMM:
You haven't said, but I assume you are building a cycle-car design (two wheels in front, one in the rear). If so, study some go-kart steering (also look at pics in this thread). It's simple and direct and is basically what most of us use. You can go high-tech and buy a rack & pinion unit, but they really have no competitive advantage so, for me, it's hard to justify spending the money.:rolleyes:
I am reverse engineering your design from this thread. I like your functional approach. Nothing is more complicated than it needs to be. You provided enough information that I am not totally lost on my first build.... While leaving enough off that it does not feel like a paint by numbers project.
I went with a cycle-car design. I figured it was more common and well documented. I'll start experimenting more on my next build.
I spent last night making cardboard mock ups of various of various steering knuckle designs (starting with yours on this thread) to get a better feel for how steering geometry affects the wheel as it moves though full right, straight, and full left turn.
Do you have a favorite online bearing vendor? I have looked around locally and none of the hardware stores seems to have much selection so I will have to go online. Interestingly, a local Custom Fab and Welding Shop will sell me steel at cost for this project to help kick off a local team.
David
Yeah, I like to keep things simple. It makes maintenance faster and easier and makes the racecar more reliable. 50+ years in racing has taught me that reliability and preparedness are the two most important components in any racecar. Let me know if you get stumped anyplace. I can measure one of my cars to get dimensions and you can change or modify to suit your application if needed.;)
I prefer the cycle car configuration. I race against a couple of tricycle cars and they have handling problems on the tight courses. Also, in my 12 years of Electrathon I have seen 4 rollovers - 3 of them were tricycle cars.:eek:
Bearings for what? If you are referring to the rod ends I use in my steering (tie rods), I get them from Speedway Motors online. ACE Hardware also has them, but they are much cheaper from Speedway.:HMMM:
That's good, a vendor who will help you out. I got the local Auto Parts store to sell me my batteries at a discount price, but that's about it.:3dSMILE:
I was thinking about bearings in general. Something like the booklet my steel vendor gave me. ( http://www.centralsteel.com/images/s...odguidepub.pdf ) I spend more hours than I care to admit pouring over that booklet and various Wikipedia articles on steel. :)
Specifically I am looking for bearing for between the kingpin boss and steering knuckle. It appears that you used nylon for the top and a flat bearing for the bottom.
In the end I went with 3/4 and 1 inch OD tubing with a .060 wall thickness. It lined up nicely with your recommendation for using conduit but the wall is slightly thinker... and more forgiving for a new welder.
My current back of the mind issue is battery location. The three general location that seem common are pods beside the drive, behind the drivers seat, and between the driver legs.
-- Pods appear to be very stable by proving ballast low and wide. But the pods add frontal area.
-- Behind the seat enables a narrow profile. But increases the length of the vehicle while shifting the center of gravity towards the single rear wheel.
-- Between the legs seems to provide better weight distribution and stability by provide a heavy ballast low and between the front pair of wheels. Aerodynamically, batteries + legs fit in the 21 inch frame. It also helps keep the wheelbase nice and short.... But I am not sure how happy I am to have 70 lbs of lead acid batteries between my legs :(
thanks again.
David
I finally started building last week! Got two front wheels put together. The first took seven hours and the second took about an hour. Wheel building with short 12 gauge spokes take a bit of planning and finesses:) I hope to do two more this evening; the rear and a spare front. Jim's guidance on drilling out the rim and hub holes worked perfectly.
Later this week I hope to rig up a truing stand from an old set of BMX forks. How high do you tension the spokes? In my limited experience with spokes on a standard bicycle wheel I would just 'pluck' the spokes until they sounded and felt similar to the rest of the spokes on the wheel.
With these short and thick spokes, it feels like the nipples will pull though the rims before I get a nice tone:(
Today's primary goals will be picking out the tires, tubes, brakes, and brake disks. If I recall, hookworms are the preferred tire and you suggested Bengal brakes because they were inexpensive while being good enough.
With regard to bearings. I was thinking about bearings in general. Kind of a one stop shop. Specifically, I was looking for bearings to go between the steering boss and steering knuckle. In my mind, I am thinking something like the upper and lower headset bearings on a bike... but that might be over kill in this application.
Thanks.
David
Sounds like you're off to a good start. The 12 gauge spokes don't "ring" like the smaller ones, so sound probably isn't a good way to gauge their tightness. I use an ordinary screw driver to tighten them when I am lacing a new wheel. I get them so they are really snug, but not so tight that the nipples are hard to turn. I try to get them all as close to the same as I can by "feel". If you have one or two spokes that are overly tight surrounded by others that aren't tight enough, the tight ones will break.:HMMM: One thing to note, a new wheel will stretch the spokes the first time you run it, so be sure to tighten spokes and true the wheel after the very first race (or extended practice session).
Yes, definitely overkill for these light vehicles. I won't go into detail about how I build the spindles because it's covered earlier in this thread, but I don't bother with bearings. I just use a washer at the bottom between the kingpin boss and steering knuckle and keep everything well lubricated. A little slop in the spindles/kingpins is tolerable. When they wear to the point where I think they're too loose I get bronze bushings from ACE Hardware, trim them to length, and bore the spindles out to accept them. It's tedious, but easier than building new spindles.:rolleyes:
What I found works pretty well for these stiff spokes is to grab the parallel set of spokes and squeeze really hard. An example is at "How to True a Bicycle Wheel - YouTube by Donswoodshop" starting about minute 10. ( Sorry, I can't add link directly or my posts seem to get stuck in moderators queue)
I started by tightening the nipple until I could only see on thread on each spoke. Then I went around the wheel squeezing each set of parallel spokes follow by going around the wheel tightening each spoke 1/2 turn.
Repeat until spokes are evenly tightened. Whenever I hit a spoke that felt overly tight next to a loose neighbor, I loosened each spoke on the wheel 1 full turn and went around the wheel squeezing and tightening. After a couple of iteration I had some pretty evenly tightened wheel.
My biggest challenge was that the hub was rotated slightly within the wheel. As a result a pair of spoke pulling in one direction would be tight while the next pair pulling in the other direction would be loose.
Hope this helps someone else learning to build their first vehicle with spoked wheels.
David
That's fairly similar to what I do except for squeezing the parallel pairs. I tighten the nipples until the threads are just covered; that gets them all the same. Then I start going around and around the wheel tightening the spokes with my fingers a couple of turns at a time until there is no slop left. Then I use the screw driver to finish getting the spokes tight and the wheel true. I've done enough of them now that I can drill the rim, drill the hub, and lace the wheel complete in about an hour.
Sorry for the steering bearing tangent. I was looking back over my notes and saw that it was thebat that references steering bearing in post #49. I didn't notice that the post was not written by you and kept looking for other references...
Started welding up some prototypes of steering knuckles, kingpin bosses, and spindles out of scrape. For anyone new to this type of vehicle design, there is nothing like a working prototype to help understand how thing are going to fit together.
Do you have any experience with hydraulic brakes on these vehicles? I found a set of free levers and calipers from a junked bike. I don't want to add too much complexity to save a couple of bucks at this stage. The Bengal brakes you mentioned seem to be about $65 for a pair.
No apology necessary. The Bat and his son won the national competition for human powered vehicles some years ago. I consider him something of a mechanical genius. A few years ago he took a bunch of leftover bicycle parts, a rejected controller from a golf cart, and a worn out Scott 1hp motor and proceeded to stomp the competition in Electrathon for the next two years! Then he went quietly back to building hotrods at his home in Miami.:eek:
I use 1/2 inch o.d. tubing from ACE Hardware to make my kingpin bosses. It has a 3/8 inch i.d. which is perfect for a 3/8" grade 5 bolt that I use for the kingpin. For my steering knuckles I use 1/4" x 1 1/4" flat stock. I tried 3/16" x 1 1/4", but had trouble with it bending under stress on the tight courses. For the spindle shafts I use either 1/2" or 9/16" (depending on which hubs I'm using) grade 8 bolts, 5 inches long. My cars have hit concrete curbs, parking bumpers, and other cars. I have had the front axles bent numerous times and broke or bent rims several times and I am yet to ever break a spindle.:D
I haven't tried the hydraulic brakes because they usually come as a sealed unit (can't bleed them) and the hydraulic lines are either too long or too short. So far, the ones I've seen were too pricey for me to experiment with cutting and splicing lines, trying to bleed them, etc. If you can get some freebies and make them work they should be great.:cool:
Another update for the week....
Spent the early part of the week assembling and disassembling wheels until I was satisfied with 3 fronts and a rear.
For welding practice I tried to run clean beads around a piece of .060 steel tube.
Was a bit overwhelmed by the steering. In the past, I have work on enough bikes and robots that the drive train; controller, motor, and chain/gearing makes sense. After a couple of front end prototypes, I feel much better. I picked up the disks and calipers so I could start thinking how to mount the calipers.
Felt confident enough to order the tube and bar to start working full sized steering mock ups.
Finally, started looking for motors, controllers, and batteries. They won't be needed for quite a while, but I would like to put them on the plywood mock-up I am using the fit the car around the driver. Hopefully I can borrow the bathroom scale and make sure the my math matches reality for the weight distribution calculations:)
Finally, Russ Buddin from Iowa was kind enough to send me a set of OPPD's Powerdrive instructors workshop DVDs. I watched the first over lunch:) good stuff.
I build my frames from 1/2" and 3/4" EMT conduit. Instead of continuous bead welds, I use a series of overlapping tack welds to avoid blowing holes in the conduit tubing.:3dSMILE:
I have attached a couple of pix of front spindles on a bare chassis so you can see the caliper brackets. Notice that the right and left sides are different because of the shape of the calipers. I make a cardboard pattern for each side and then cut them from 16 gauge steel. I fit and install them with the wheel, disc, and caliper all assembled. I tack them in place, then remove the wheel and caliper so I can finish welding.:HMMM:
There are many controllers to choose from and the sky is the limit on prices. My advice is to go as cheaply as possible. I have seen all kinds of controllers from used golf cart units to high tech programmable ones. There is no real advantage on the track. Alltrax and Curtis are my preferred brands because of their simplicity of wiring and reliability.:cool: