Wednesday May 20th, 2008

After the previous attempt at a pedal box and steering column mount I went back to the PC and had another go at the exercise.

I was able to move the pedals up 50mm, forward and to the outside of the vehicle by 40mm, the master cylinders may be too close to the windscreen in this position but they can be spaced back from the pedal box if required.

In the new position the brake and clutch pedals have 7″ of travel which should be more than sufficient.

You’ll note compared to the previous example this version has no lightening holes and is only tack welded in at this stage. This is just in case a Mk III version turns out to be required.

The steel required for the new arrangement is actually a bit less than the previous version so the weight is about the same even without all the holes. the old version is shown below…

Next on the list of things to do was make a mock-up seat to use until I buy some real ones, this has helped in getting comfortable about what it actually feels like in the car and where various bits need to go as a results.

I’ve also started the radiator support frame, Initially this was in 25 x 1.2mm EA which just felt too flimsy as part of the function of the thing will be to support the front of the body of the car, so going for the next available material meant 25 x 3mm EA which probably is over the top.

One other valuable lesson to come out of this was TIG welding galvanised steel apart from being bad for your health, is more or less impossible, the galv pops and splatters contaminating the Tungsten almost immediately.