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Update on the front suspension, still have to allow for the shocks. I may modify the Tbird arms for the lower shock point
07/17/09
Been spending some time machining components for the rear axle, this is one of the 2 bearing cups for the rear axle housing. between grinding the rear axle and machining these cups, its been 6 days!
Housing tacked up.
07/22/09
try as i might, i just couldnt get the hub supported on center, and i dont know that i would have wanted to. so i came up with this getup to machine the hub pilot down to fit the wheels. took an hour to set up and 5 minutes to machine...ugh.
Rear swing arm tacked up, have to finish machining the front bushings and weld them in yet. check it for square, and make the gussets.
07/29/09
Rear swing arm fully welded, need to finalize my shock mount design.
chassis with front arms attached, need to made a final decision about shocks, should I use the springs from the Tbird or should i splurge for $300+ worth of coil overs?
scored this unfinished aluminum pulley off of ebay for a decent price, have to machine it down, its just to heavy.
07/30/09
Right side rear arm pivot tacked in place, now for the incredibly exiting chore of alignment. Ooh, almost forgot to mention the usefullness of hard drive magnets, if you've torn apart enough hard drives, they're cheap, disposable and really freaking strong. Disposable is for when you forget to remove them after tacking, heat really turns them into a useless hunk of metal.
Straightened the rear arm tube, welding is wonderful, but sucks at the same time, because of the way the rear arm was constructed, the cross tube warped nearly 3/8 of an inch from side to side. With the help of Pops, a torch, and some threaded rod, we got most of it dialed out, its not perfect, but after seeing 1980's car construction, it's close enough :) you can see the discolored area where we heated it with the torch. Picture doesnt reveal much, maybe I can get another one tomorrow, or later tonight.
07/31/09
After much thought and some reworking, the rear arm is finally "mounted". the mounts still need to be fully welded and i need shock points as well, but this is exciting!
Thats not red paint you see, thats heat! The rework that needed to be done was to put the curve back into the tube (yeah, I know), and take the width error out of the forward stub arms, otherwise my alignment was way to far out of wack, its down to less than 1/4" at the mounts now, good enough!
The curvature in the stub arms was taken out by welding in this "gusset" worked rather well...so far, but I still need to fillet the base weld.
08/11/09
Been a while since the last update, but here is what I've gotten for the front suspension in that time, its a bit complicated and has some issues, not sure about using the spherical rod end for the top pivot, it doesnt appear to have enough range.
08/12/09
mounted up one of the front wheels today to see if i was going to have a clearance issue with the rod end, also to see if i had room for a standard ball joint. not sure on that last part, but i'm unsure if i can get enough travel out of the rod end. or even if its strong enough for that matter, for the most part its in compression along the shaft, but there is also a fore/aft force involved.....I dont know. if you do, write me.
It's late, I'm pooped and the trike has rear suspension!!! here's the lower shock mount. i've drilled the mount and frame to bolt the mount in position, but I have to find a better way, maybe weld it? that complicates changes, but we have grinders and a welder.
upper mount and shock arm. everything is heavily tacked to allow easier changes if needed, but it looks good so far! also need to cap the end of the susp arm tube.
and here's the rear end standing on its own for the first time!!! WOOT!!!!! i even got up there and bounced around on it for a bit. very cool.
08/13/09
Talked the design over with Dan last night, looks like i need to do a complete redesign of the upper suspension, a more traditional A frame arm and traditional inboard adjustments, wow i hate that word. traditional. boring. but it works, good or bad.
08/15/09
OK, so a few hours of work and many of horsing around, and this is a design i think i can build efficiently...well, you know, for me anyhow. this will replace the upper arms and suspension towers i've already created, allowing me to have adjustment and the use of an actual balljoint in place of the rod end i had originally planned on. thanks to ...well... many, suggestions, from my friends, family and the great guys over at diyelectriccar forum.
let me know what you think.
08/19/09
This is the taper bore for the upper balljoint. well...its the second one, I had to adjust for a few thousandths backlash in my mill, cause I'm to cheap to buy a taper reamer for an unreal 80 bucks for 2 holes, we'll see if it works.
This is the beginnings of the new front suspension design, or rather half completed. still dialing in the suspension geaometry and figuring out clamps for the upper pivot.
08/24/09
ok, no pics at the moment, making little parts to catch the chassis up to where it should be at this point. not to mention, i'm really tired of being coverred with cut-off disc grit!
pretty much posting this because i wanted to gripe, and anyone who might be reading this, take it with a grain of salt. what the heck is everone's fascination with the ariel atom? its just another cool idea with a half-assed implementation. maybe its being able to ignore the downfalls in favor of the "cool idea" factor...i guess i can understand that, i also like the idea of the exoskeleton, but why the hell would the imitators copy all the lines of it? why not do an exoskeleton design that looks different from the atom? ah well, i guess i dont understand....and no, i dont think my design is perfect, or that i know what i'm doing so much, but i'm one guy without experience.....
09/02/09
Sorta finalized front suspension.
Tire mounted to check for clearance.
Shes got shoes!!!! it was so exciting to see it roll when I pushed it out the door of the shop. Things must be ok with my caster/camber etc, its got no tierods, but it tracked just fine when free rolling.
Man this was a long time in coming...and so far to go...I say yet again...dont try to build a vehicle by yourself...its a nightmare, but still super cool :)
09/10/09
BEGIN RANT
I'm doing some job searching, whats with large corporations telling how great they are in the beginning of a job description, it drives me nuts, dont tell me how great you are, tell me how great the job is going to be, tell me EXACTLY what the job will be. AND for Gods sake, DON'T tell me you employ 16 gazillion people, you just ended my interest there. Might as well start out with "Except for neglect, you will be forgotten immediatly after hiring." Corporations have enough issues without touting that they're to big to organize or control effectively"
END RANT
03/11/10
OK, should be fairly obvious, but this project is on hold due to financial and temperature issues. Expect more when I get some decent weather and some cash.
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