anti-crush bushings

 A quick job before going to work today. I have cut and fitted bushings which fit inside my rails to stop the tightening of bolts crushing the rectangular section tube. I haven't welded these in place, so need to bear their presence in mind if I ever remove the fixtures. They are inserted in the ends.

speed indicator

Been thinking that if I drill a hole in the nose of my faux tank I could fit a pitot tube, then run a plastic tube to my dash and have a microlight air speed indicator to act as a speedo! The point is, it doesn't require a friction drive, gears etc. Just air in a tube.

I have one calibrated in MPH

steering

I have been designing and making my steering recently. As mentioned below, my cables are going to be pulled by a chain and sprocket instead of a bobbin, as I think the action will be more direct (less chance of snarling, dragging etc) and I expect the system to be more responsive.

magic trick

The narrow engine frame front has to accommodate my legs and feet rather that a V-twin inline, so needs to be wider than the original. I have been worried about how wrong this will make the front of my car look. It will show most at the top, next to the fuel tank. So I have been playing with various upright arrangements using scrap wood, so that my plan-view engine frame top will be narrower than the chassis rail bottom. And I think I am nearly there. The only trouble is that I will need to cut away some of the verticals, internally. You will see what I mean later

Incidentally, I am not sure how I am making my faux tank yet, but that front dome is the shell of a 2CV headlight and may do the trick.

In other exciting news, Chris Brown very kindly sent me some spare springs left over from his own Morgan sliding pillar suspension experiments, so that I can work out what sizes I will need, which was incredibly generous of him.

Suspension base complete

 Today I finished the base of the suspension nose. I appreciate that at this stage everything still looks a bit agricultural, but it will soon start looking like something beautiful.

Steering lock and cable measurements

I know! Alarming to actually see this steering, isn't it!

But it is what the Bédélia had in 1910, and thousands were produced!

    

Presently, I have 2" of trail. The centre of turn is 2" behind the centre of the axle. But I am going to make this adjustable because I am not sure what is optimum. 

Hesketh's Mick Broom suggested it could be 3".

 

The sprocket and chain arrangement will be between the pillars, 

but above my legs.

More details later

1925 steering ideas

Last night I word-searched all my Light Car and Cyclecar downloads for the word bobbin, to get some more info about wire and bobbin steering design, and I came across this diagram of commonly used steering systems in cyclecars in 1925. The article said that that wire steering is less twitchy than rigid ones and less snatchy and more forgiving if you hit an obstacle; with rigid linkages there was a greater chance of the steering wheel being jerked out of the driver's hands.

I am not for a minute suggesting that wire and bobbin is an ideal, but the point is that it is what Bédélias had originally, so I need to make the most of a difficult situation, for the sake of authenticity. I don't have an awful lot of time for cyclekart builders who put all the latest technology in their builds; what's the point?

I have a lot of aeroplane cable from various projects and I know from packing microlight wings that you really want to avoid tight bends in cable, so the idea of diagram 5 appeals. Wherever possible, would it be better to replace cable on corners with chain? And would a sprocket be easier to manage than a bobbin on the end of the steering column - with less tight winding, less possible tangling, fewer problems with securing ends on the bobbin, etc?

So then it becomes an issue of whether the run I have in mind gives enough room to take up the amount of movement in a steering lock with half the chain (half left/ half right); the advantage the bobbin has over the sprocket is that you can keep turning several turns until full lock. With the chain you can only continue to the chain runs out (with half of it being for the opposite lock).

Incidentally, 5 is a suggestion which combines cables and potentially an Ackerman arrangement. It was proposed by the author who, my research has shown, was a pilot, and he talks about how cable is used for controlling rudders and ailerons etc...and transferring inputs along considerable lengths efficiently. He also says that such cables as he was using could handle a two ton force, so that the buying public need have no worries about them breaking.

I have always had it in mind that if the pivoting axle is quite impossible to handle, I might later make it rigid and put Ackerman linkages on the ends of the axle. If I did so, 5 would make it possible to retain the cable system I devise for the car.

I need to do some experimenting. I will keep you posted.

Progress

 

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nose suspension support

 This morning I have been trying to make an accurate, 
symmetrical support for the front suspension.