Scaffolding poles + old VW bits + Rotary engine....

[IroningMan]

Of course.

[PhillipM]

It's not dead, honest!

We're just slower than a dead tortoise with 3 legs:





Well, that and I need to go through every since image on all these pages and replace the PB links and it's hard to work up the motivation
Although, they do seem to be up and working again at the moment.

Edited by PhillipM on Monday 11th June 00:49

[Zombie]

If you Insert “~original” after the .JPG bit of your photobucket picture, then that'll fix the dead images.

[PhillipM]

Thanks, they seem to be working at the moment but if they die again I'll try that.

[MB140]

Photobucket have had a change of boss and he he has change of mind after seeing that virtually nobody took them up on their generous offer to rip every one off and has reinstated the off site links again.

Whist they are working at the minute they could of course change there minds again. Although it would not surprise me if they ceased to exist pretty soon, everybody jumped ship and they are no longer getting as much revenue from the 10,000 adverts per page they used to serve. Adblocker et al are the solution to this problem.

[PhillipM]

So, what have we missed since last time?
Well, obviously the new dashboard, version 3.2.lots



Which meant lots of rewiring fun:



There's also a new gearshift lever, knob and linkage (lighter with less free play than the old one - the knob is hollowed out to ~2mm wall thickness, that was fun to do!)

And because we're running the sensors through the digidash now all the old analogue 1/2 wire sensors had to come out and 3-wire solid-state sensors feeding the ECU went in....so back into the main loom we go...I think this one is V4...



The old bulkhead fitting only goes on and off with the main connector de-pinned and off the loom, which was a pain when trying to alter it, so I printed a two piece on that can go on afterwards and just clips together and bolts in:



Waterpipe no longer needs the fittings for temperature sensors, as it's now read through the 3-pin unit on the CAN to the dashboard - of course this just means you bung the fitting up or leave the old sensor in there to keep it sealed, no way would you remake an entire pipe just because of 50 extra grams.

Anyway, here's the new pipe:



Also, we'd only made two sets of fiddle brakes, can't be having that....here's version 3:



The frame is a little heavier than the original design but we needed to alter and move some stuff on the levers due to it being tight with the seats adjusted forwards - so it just got remade with what was to hand and fast to make.

Then we started bolting the new bits back on:



I did have an alternative seat solution to solve fouling the brake levers slightly, but it required a serious diet plan:



And started on some new door/window frames as the old ones were pretty battered/bent and the polycarb is scratched to hell now:

Edited by PhillipM on Monday 11th June 15:03

[threadlock]

Thanks for bringing this back to the top of my subscribed threads again!
So impressive seeing all these things happening, while I struggled to find the motivation to sharpen one of my chisels at the weekend! Makes me want to go off and find videos of these things racing. Bet they're a riot.

[PhillipM]

Video doesn't do them justice over here, as generally anyone filming only stands in one spot and you don't get a sense for how rough the terrain is, the French video is better as it's generally more open courses so they can film more and over several days.

There's some onboard from one of the latest ones over here, but the sound isn't great due to wind noise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSkD0YxFvU0

And some from a recent French outside (about 9m in for quicker stuff)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EW3txoWoYI

[leglessAlex]

Oh my god. Yes Phillip, this is quite possibly my favourite thread alongside mwstewarts Ferrari thread.

I'm so so so glad this is back. Looking forward to more updates!

[PhillipM]

Oh, and we re-made the front mudguard mounts too, the surplus steel tube is gone, it's now on ally mounts inside the guard instead of those big external mounts - also realigned them as the new suspension and wider track meant they weren't quite right at full bump any more:

:

You can see the other side being mocked up there before the angle grinder chops the steel bit off.

This was before we made the new side panels, obviously....

Edited by PhillipM on Monday 11th June 16:32

[PhillipM]

I also found some switches I wish I'd discovered earlier....



Made some custom sized balljoint boots to use to seal the trailing arm bearings, in polyurethane:





And started making CAD models of various LS diffs to see what we can steal the internals from:

[threadlock]

PhillipM said:

There's some onboard from one of the latest ones over here, but the sound isn't great due to wind noise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSkD0YxFvU0

Sweet! Thanks. There's a trial in July not far from me in Bagshot that I might potter over to, for the craic.

[PhillipM]

There's a Safari in Bagshot in July too, 22nd I think.

[threadlock]

PhillipM said:

There's a Safari in Bagshot in July too, 22nd I think.

Sorry - that's what I meant

[PhillipM]

Yes, friend of mine sorted that one out, it might be a little quiet as it hasn't been run for a while and people remember the old days of 2ft of mud

If you let me know if you're going a little closer to the time I'll see if I can get you a run in a codrivers seat.

Edited by PhillipM on Tuesday 12th June 14:34

[PhillipM]

Also, it's only take two years since I talked about fitting it, but the new PAS steering pump, takes up far less room than the old flat Saxo/106 unit:



It's mounted on rubber bobbins to reduce any pump wear from shock loads/vibration, etc.

[Sf_Manta]

A thought for the bulkhead connection with the loom, have you considered looking somehting like this?

http://uk.farnell.com/deutsch/hd34-24-31pe-059/cir...



It's something i've used many times before in industry, IP68 rated so should handle everything you can throw at it. Would also mean you can disconnect the engine and lift it out with the loom implace without fighting with it.

[PhillipM]

There's already an ITT Cannon on the engine side for pulling the engine out on it's own with loom left on if need be, you can see it a few photo's up.
Dashboard is seperate too.

[PhillipM]

Oh, I forgot this years must-have-accessory!
Colour-coded brake pads, worth at least 10bhp:

[threadlock]

PhillipM said:

If you let me know if you're going a little closer to the time I'll see if I can get you a run in a codrivers seat.

Thanks! Will do. That'd be great! I'd also love to get my XC90 round the course (slowly) but I imagine it's fairly restricted by all the motorsport regs. That's one of the problems living in Sussex - there's not much open land to play on.
Appreciate the offer