June 20, 2020

Carrying on from the last post, this is the radiator to floor brace welded up and bolted in place.

And the splitter braces also.

In the photo above you can see the steering rack emerging from the sides of the car, the sides are paneled over so obviously there’s holes in the side of the car for it to pass through. As this enters into what is effectively the front part of the passenger compartment I want to close the holes off.

To do this I’ve ordered some rubber gaiters large enough to pass over the steering rack gaiters these will attached to the car at one end and the steering tie rod at the other to seal off the outside completely.

The piece required to connect the gaiter to the side of the car is not a straightforward shape, I decided to 3D print this and some other non-structural parts in ABS as the best way (for me at least) to get this done.

ABS is prone to warping and splitting whilst be 3D printed, but this can be mitigated is the printer is enclosed and the part is not submitted to too rapid cooling. Also being able to successfully print ABS which is a cheap filament can be viewed as a step on the learning curve to more advance filaments such as polycarbonate and nylon.

I built a MDF box to put the whole printer in, this keeps the noise of it down also, there’s a hole in the bottom to let cooling air in to the electronics and the exhaust from the electronics cooling fan is ducted out through the side of the box.

The first ABS test print was a Bay Yoda. Part wise this worked but it fused itself too well to the PEI print bed, so had to be cut off and the bed cleaned with acetone to get rid of the remnants.

After some success with the testing the adapters were started, the initial prototypes were done with thin wall as low infill to speed up the process.

From left to tight in the picture below, first left had side prototype, the dimensions needed some adjustment, so then the second prototype, and lastly the final part. Top row, prototype and final part for the right hand side.

A couple of other covers were produced, for the access to the steering intermediate shaft support bearing.

And the for the windscreen wiper motor mechanism.

I’m not that happy with this one as the bolt can be removed from the suspension arm as it is, I think I can make it slimmer, so probably will be redone.