Welcome Back!

Hi all

After a long hiatus from working on the recycled racer project, I’m back! Yahoo! The extended break was actually a very happy one. I Entered and was accepted into the 24Hours of LeMons $500 crap car endurance race. So all of my free time has been devoted to building and driving a race car! Sweet! I ended up driving two different cars on the day of the event. The car I built, the number 47 1993 Toyota MR2 (magnum PI themed), blew a rear main seal two hours into the first day (I wasn’t the one who built the engine . Luckily, I got the first stint in that car and even though the clutch was slipping from all the oil, I had a great time. I also drove the number 9 Acura integra (madagascar themed) and helped it get an 11th spot, and out of 95 cars, that’s pretty danged good!

Here are some pictures from the Buttonwillow-based event. Also check out Jalopnik, Here for a full photo spread.

So back to the project now! After lots of thinking and trying to work out making my Logitech Driving Force Pro work, I think I’m going to spring for the G25. The modular pedal setup will make it so easy to mount and adapt. So there you have it folks. I may wait for the new G27 to come out… decisions, decisions. More to come!

Tom

The Exciting Conclusion! Of this one part!

Hhhhhhokay. So.

I cut the blue angel toilet hinge to the pre-measured(twice) length and found myself with something that resembled a monitor mount! Fancy that! While drilling the holes for the bolts, the bit flexed and the upper hole got a little silly. Yes, even drill presses can make mistakes. No worries, though, I ovaled the holes on bottom and that actually gave me a little tiny bit(~1mm) of adjustment room in case things get a little funky later. Now the monitor mount sits squarely on the cross-member and looks great. One more mock up shows that the screen will be exactly where I want it, with just a touch of space above the steering wheel and my eye line going to the middle of the screen. Thinking swiftly, I ran in the house and made sure the mount cleared the plastic back of the monitor and boy does it just! Whew! After that was determined, the lightening crew came in and drilled holes. Lots of ‘em. They still need to be finished before paint but will look great once they are done. The thing is taking shape! Holy cow!

The last issue is attachment to that cross-member. I’ve thought pretty long and hard about this and the only correct way seems to be TIG welding. While it won’t be holding a ton of weight, I need to to be solid. I don’t feel that brackets or some bolting method will really be sturdy enough and seem like too much of a “fix”. So my new mission is to find either a shop or a friend who knows this craft and who is generous enough to donate their time. Part of the fun!! And listen, if you ask for help and get it, buy the good soul some beer or a box of doughnuts. They’ll be much more willing to help in the future if you throw them a little something.

Welcome back, Racer!

Hey Guys! Everyone here in the United States just had a very nice three day weekend for our national holiday, Memorial Day! I spent my time in northern California visiting my wonderful girlfriend, Barbara, and had a fantastically fun and relaxing weekend. But enough pleasantries! Back to work with ya!

I received a tax return from the federal government a few weeks ago and decided this was perfect for providing me with a new monitor for the rig. Again, not including this in the cost because I easily could have used my existing computer monitor, but this will make the deal a little sweeter. It’s a 24″ wide screen ViewSonic VX2433wm, and is not your standard wide screen. It’s a full high def wide screen and is 1920 x 1080 pixels (instead of 1680 x 1050 for regular wide screen monitors) and is capable of displaying full high def at 1080p and has an HDMI input. It also boasts a 2ms response time and a massive contrast ratio. If that’s all Greek to you, it means it’ll kick some serious booty. And the extra width will look great with racing sims and give a fantastic peripheral feeling without three monitors. Three monitors still isn’t out of the question for the future, by the way

I love this monitor, and I’m using it to write to you right now (I couldn’t resist!!). As I un-boxed the monitor, I noticed the standard wall mounting holes available on the immediate back. Then toward the bottom of the screen I saw that the mount for the stand looked suspiciously mod-able and started unscrewing. For those of you who think I’m proceeding with incredible haste and without proper regard, know that there is always that moment right before you start taking apart that very expensive thing you just bought where you think,”Alright. Don’t screw this up.” Know, also, that if I didn’t know what i was doing, I wouldn’t be doing it. I digress. I discovered that the stand mount was actually a bolt-through metal plate that attached to the plastic stand via three convenient screws! This is a perfect opportunity. I can remove that plate and mount it to my monitor stand and retain monitor angle adjustment while never actually changing any piece of the monitor! Un-harmed original pieces is what i like to see!

Now I picked up a piece at Apex that I felt would be a good starting point for a monitor stand. Thick aluminum in construction, of course, it is some sort of something. With it’s coloring, I’d like to imagine it was part of a Blue Angels fighter jet and loaded ordinance. With my luck, it was a fancy toilet seat hinge. Either way, it will make a perfect monitor stand! I mocked up the monitor size in cardboard and spaced it out from the bracket to ensure that it wouldn’t interfere with the steering wheel if mounted on the same cross-member. As you can see, it’s miles away. The monitor needs to come down about three inches from where it was mocked up to allow my line of sight to fall in the center of the screen and so the screen will be just above the steering wheel. The cutting and fab-ing will come in the next post!

I bought the cross-member and a switch/power input unit that I will use for a grand total of $9.83. I love Apex Electronics! Can we also respect the irony of it being named Apex? Thanks. End of bloggity rant.

Part 3: Assembly and Mock-up

Every thing’s dried up now and I’ve put it all back together. And boy does it look great! Aluminum as awesome in every way !! I’m glad I picked that gloss red. It really gets along with the Al.

If you’re paying attention, you’ll notice I flipped the configuration of the pieces from the first picture to the fourth to get the desired angles and wheel placement. I have it adjusted here at it’s lowest extreme just to make sure it can go low enough and BOY does it. If it were that low in the cockpit, it would be resting on my legs. It’s good to have room to work!

Also I first mounted the back-most aluminum cylinder directly to the cross-member, but found that to be incredibly wobbly. The plastic spacer that I cut and used to distribute the force of the nut was giving way and needed to go and round doesn’t play well with flat. The right way to do it is to drill a hole large enough to fit the nut and a washer partly through the cylinder so it has somewhere to perch. Flattening the cylinder on one side also proved very important. Measure very carefully when doing jobs like this. The cylinders needed to be within a half a millimeter of each other to fit properly. Sanding and filing can  help greatly to work that out and make it perfect.  ALWAYS measure twice, cut once. Especially if you’re working with custom parts like this that can’t be reproduced.

For the record, this is being built in my parents backyard (they’re very understanding) as my apartment can’t handle a project of this scale. I took this piece back home (30mi) with me just so i could look at it and handle it every now and then. It’s a really trick lookin’ thing

Part 2: Wash & Wax and Lose That Weight!

The next morning, after about 10 hrs of drying, the masking was removed from the previously rusted objects giving us a glimpse at one of my favorite sights during a build, freshly painted stuff. If you’ve never seen it first hand, it’s a great sight to behold. It’s so very shiny…

Anyway, careful masking had paid off and all of the mating surfaces are clean metal while all of the exposed are painted. Perfecto! I then decided that the 3/4″ chunk of very sturdy aluminum boomerang was a bit overkill and could use some lightening. Thanks to a drill press, it looks almost factory with those holes drilled in it. That boomerang is, so far, my favorite looking thing on this project.

My last decision and project for the day was to scoop the end of the crossmember that will hold this whole assembly up. I did this for a couple reasons. I think it will be easier to fasten the wing bolt through just one layer of that square stock, it will allow for a much nicer bodywork profile, and aesthetically it rocks and doesn’t sacrifice structure. The square stock is so rigid that, when at it’s over 9 foot length, it would only deflect at the middle about 1/16″. Incredible stuff really.

After another 10-14 hrs of drying, the painted parts will have cured and will be ready for installation! Excitement!!!

A new three-part sub-assembly! Part 1: Seek and De-construct

So I was ready to tell you guys that making the steering wheel assembly adjustable in any direction other than forward and back would be too difficult… and then I paid Apex a visit.

I injured my shoulder at work a while ago and am still on a weekly regimen of physical therapy. Every Monday afternoon, I reward myself for getting through an uncomfortable session of physical therapy by going to Apex Electronics just for fun. This particular visit, I found the most amazing and perfect steering wheel mount that I could ever possibly imagine. I believe it used to be a medical device of some sort, though I’m not sure what. Priced by weight, it came to a total of $5 and even came with a great piece of carbon fiber!! Again, I will work it in to the project as it progresses. Along with the medical thing-a-ma-jig I picked up just over 9 feet of aluminum square stock. also $5 by wieght. with the governor invloved, a total of $10.93.

I dismantled the steering wheel mount and found rusty bits (go figure) so I wire brushed them and painted them. I also fit the steering wheel to the boomerang-shaped 3/4″ chunk of aluminum and cleaned and bagged the rest of the hardware.

I’ve also decided how I want the whole assembly to move forward and backward. I will be welding nuts to the underside of the side pod in a row and will use a wing bolt through the cross member holding the wheel. I’ll draw a diagram

I found my heaven.

Guys. I found it. I found the place. If you’re in southern California at all, you have to visit. It’s called Apex Electronics. And it has… EVERYTHING. It’s like that place that the Mythbusters go. It’s a salvage/ supply company and it’s massive. It has every motor, every resistor, every capacitor, switch, nut, bolt, bearing, piece of metal, every everything. It’s brilliant. It took me two hours just to walk around and take everything in. Of course I took pictures for you guys.

I walked up to the guy at the front desk about an hour into my wandering and said, “This is the coolest place I’ve ever seen.” He said,” Yeah, we get that about once a day.” Then he informed me that what i was looking at was about a third of what they had and the rest was in the “yard”. He wasn’t kidding about this “yard” thing.

Enjoy!

Apex Electronics

8909 San Fernando Rd

Sun Valley, CA 91352

The Store is This deep…

…and this wide

Cheap aircraft grade aluminum!!!

A 4″x20″ solid block of aluminum :D

BOMBS?!?!?

ROCKET LAUNCHER??? JATO TUBES????

Helecopter cabin!

HUUUUUGE Turbo!

Part 3: All dressed up and no where to go.

The final part of this three part-er to save the chassis from the immediate problem of rust, deals with the sanding and primer-ing. This will not be a final primer, no, just a hail-Mary pass to try and stymie the ridiculous and very hungry rust. I’ve gone ahead and bought the best rust-stopping primer that $8 can buy, and I’ve gone to town with the abrasive pad on the angle grinder. I got most of the bad stuff. Some of what you see in the pictures is just dust from grinding and was wiped off just before paint. I’ll primer this time, see if any rust comes back, go back in, grind and sand some more if necessary and primer again before color goes down. There is also MANY more holes and access ports to be cut and drilled, and this is a perfect time to do it. It’s coming along!

Part 2: Going on a diet…

It’s time to make this thing a whole lot lighter. I did what I intended and cut holes where the aluminum reinforcement goes. This step alone saved 10 or 15lbs off of the chassis. Incredible weight savings for such small pieces. You’ll notice that I stopped short of cutting all the way up the sides of the chassis for the holes in the floor. I did this to save some structure while I am still working on everything. Before i do the final paint step I’ll continue those cuts and make it what it needs to be. Right now the chassis is a flex-o-matic. I need to be careful not to tweak anything and to pick it up squarely.

This strategy works well! It looks like nothing happened once you get the aluminum in place. I can pick it up by myself now with no trouble at all (though after taking the roll bars off i could do that.. its much easier now.)

The next step will be grinding! oh joy… teaser at the end

With/without aluminum

Main Disassembly: Part 1, The Takey-Apartie

Alright guys. Here it is. The big 3 part disassembly and prep for further development. Since i had last worked on the chassis, the rust had gotten worse. That’s a scary thought considering I’m in California, a relatively rust free zone. So I need to get this thing in primer at the very least. I purchased 2 cans of rust stopping automotive primer in the aerosol type container and 5 metal cut-off wheels for my angle grinder (those come into play in part 2).  That’s another $19.50.

I got the aluminum side pods off and discovered that the inner pods were in decent shape. there were some odd rust spots on the left side due to some sort of heating of the steel, perhaps after an accident, that boiled the paint away and allowed rust to move right in. The chassis as a whole is looking like Swiss cheese…

I had an idea for paint. Originally I was just going to paint it with bright colors race car esque and add stickers etc. I’ve noticed that the body is a bit beaten up and I thought it might look interesting if I then distressed the paint, gave a big tire mark on the side, and made it look like it just finished spinning off of the race track. What do you think?

And now, pictures!