My large not so scale project

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Well I didn't manage to do as much as I wanted to do today but I still did something lol. Added bracing to the lower wish bones and mocked them up on the chassis ready for when I make the upper wish bone mounts. I think I'll simply make two plates, pot rivet each of them to the outsides of the cross members and brace them in between. Not very clear but you'll understand once it's done. I'll definitely have all wish bones in a mock up state by tomorrow. Here's a pic of the lower wish bones attached to the chassis20150714_163009.webp
 
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The thought of not accomplishing what I set out to do today was bugging me so I went back out to do it lol 20150714_195335.webp

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Using rivets is definitely the way to go with this build. So long as I don't rivet anything that's load bearing then they should hold just fine and once the upper wish bone mounting plates are adequately braced I can't imagine why they wouldn't remain tight and secure for a great deal of time.

I'll be working on it again tomorrow so I'll post more pics if there's anything to see :).
 
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Small update today, I trimmed back any metal that would potentially bind or get in the way of the suspension movement from the wish bone pivot points, cross members and upper wish bone mounting plates. I cut a trampoline spring in half and used the two pieces to make the front springs and installed them where I think is going to be their permanent position.

I then put the front wheels on to see what kind of ride height I had plus to see how the suspension moved. I would've liked to have a lower ride height as at the moment it sits about 4 inches with no sag, once I start adding more weight however it will sit lower and sag into its travel. My gas springs got delivered today, they're 50 nm which is about 1.5kg force. They're not particularly strong force wise and should provide adequate dampening if installed in the right place.

Apologies for no pictures, my phone ran out of charge again which didn't put me in a good mood to say the least lol. I'll post some tomorrow though.
 
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Here's what I did yesterday 20150716_164921.webp it doesn't look like I did a lot but I had to make sure I was cutting all non essential metal away.

These are the springs, one trampoline spring cut in half, looks rough but works really well. I'll tidy it up later20150716_164937.webp

This is what I did today, I concentrated on the rear wheels and hub carriers. I made the hub carriers by cutting the hubs out of two of the discarded wheels I used from the previous model. These are ideal because they incorporate two bearings per hub and there's also a flange in which to attach the swing arms to.
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This is one of the rear wheels, I have chosen to attach half of the drive shaft to them to provide easy installation20150716_165258.webp
 
And here is one of the 4 gas struts that I'll be adding to provide some dampening and hopefully eliminate any pogoing that might occur20150716_164952.webp

Like I've said, my intention is to have double wish bones up front (which I've done) and some kind of VW beetle rear swing arm arrangement at the rear but the design will be different. I refer it as a VW beetle style because how they will move will be essentially be the same. I opted for this because I'm on a limited budget and this allows me to keep things as light as possible. More to come.....
 
I managed to do a bit more today. 20150718_185646.webp This is one of the rear swing arms, it's not quite finished yet and I plan to replace the bolts with rivets but I'm not sure yet.

I figured a way to lock the drive shaft to the wheel, seems to work just fine 20150718_171949.webp

That's it until tomorrow. I'll be making the other swing arm and some other bits.
 
Did a bit more today, made the other swing arm and fitted the first of two cross members for the swing arms. I measured a length for the wheelbase but given the size of the wheels I don't know if it'll look right or not. I don't want it too long but at the same time I don't want the wheelbase to be such that it looks like a toy lol. Hopefully by the end of tomorrow I should have the rear swing arms installed so I can fit the wheels to see what it looks like but it also means I'll have a rolling chassis of sorts too :). More to come
 
I haven't been able to do anything these past two days but here's a pic of the new diff gears 20150721_192221.webp I have two sets of these and hopefully I'll be able to fabricate a new diff cage to accommodate them sometime soon.
 
The universal joints came today, they definitely look and feel the part. 20150722_140515.webp
Dimensions as follows
Diameter: 10mm x 10mm
OD: 20mm
Length: 42mm

What I would like to do is make or buy some kind of rubber gaiter to protect them. Would those for the hpi Baja be big enough? If not does anyone know of something else that would work?
 
If anyone can help with above question then that'd be great.

Did a little bit more today, sorry no pics but I'll post some tomorrow. Both rear cross members are on and rear swing arms are mocked up. Started to rebuild the diff with the new gears, nearly finished that :). I might have to redo the front upper wish bone mounting plates, the alignment of the wish bones are off but we're fine when I first made them, no idea what's happened there lol. More to come ;).
 
And now I have a working diff 20150724_193134.webp I'm going to replace the aluminum tube with steel bar stock when it arrives and I'm going to make a two piece cover for the gears out of aluminum plate, not only will it keep dirt out the gears but will also provide rigidity. The cover will be in two pieces and I'll pack the gears with grease before I put the second half on. I'll have to drill a hole in the casting of each of the pillow blocks, tap them and install grub screws to keep the bearings in place as they are self aligning. More to come...
 
Hi everyone, progressed a little more today. I only did a little bit because I borrowed a press drill off of my friend and had to spend time setting it up. I have I press drill but it's starting to trip the electric in the house for some reason, don't know why.

Anyway I received the steel bar stock which will be the output shafts from the diff. The fit is very tight on the two large angle grinder gears although the bore is 10mm so I've decided to leave the bar stock and gears as one piece because I'll end up damaging one or the other if I try parting them. I drilled a pilot hole through the rear of each gear and through the bar stock which will be called the shaft from now on lol 20150726_152158.webp
The hole is 3.5mm ready to be threaded with an m4 tap, then I'll install a grub screw into each even though the shaft is such a tight fit it will eventually go loose.

This is where the diff will be 20150726_160917.webp. Offset because of the bell housing of the engine and I don't want to make a lay shaft as it would simply add too much and unneeded weight. Because of the position, this setup calls for three pillow block bearings, one fitted to each chassis rail and one somewhere in the middle to support the longer output shaft.

Cutting the chassis rails would've been, I thought, a waste so I've wrapped them round the rear most cross member to be incorporated into the roll cage20150726_160944.webp. I've rounded off the ends of the cross members and the ends of the swing arms, like I did to the wish bones on the front so they can move. The springs are going to be fitted in a different position to the front because it's a different suspension setup and so will be fitted underneath from the chassis rails to the swing arms. The gas struts on the rear will be fitted somewhere vertical whereas the front ones will be horizontal and kind of hard to explain but you'll understand once I've fitted them. More to come....
 
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Why thank you kind sir, I don't think I'll build anyrhing this big again though lol. Although the nature of it being big means it's a little easier to make, it calls for more custom fabrication and more thinking outside the box, which is a good thing but at the same time can make you want to pull your hair out in frustration as well hahaha.
 
You have shown some Amazing skill in building so far.
I Wish and Hope you get the chance to build an HPI kit Baja, as I am sure you would enjoy it very much, and would also be amazed at the way it all goes together.
 
Thank you for your kind words, I think nothing would make me happier than to build a HPI Baja but it's totally out of the question for me at the moment as my budget simply doesn't stretch that far but I like to think it'll be a possibility in the future. I have had two kyosho madforce nitro trucks which I still have the wheels and axles for because I'm in the middle of another project and they were quite interesting to take apart. I like to think that I'm doing pretty well considering the limited tools that are available to me.

This build is calling for quite a lot of lateral thinking because of the way it's going together and the materials that I have.

Take today as an example, I managed to install the bar stock/drive shafts but it took me almost 2 hours because the shafts were an unbelievably tight fit so it called for a big vice, an even bigger hammer and a suitable amount of swearing to persuade the shafts to comply lol.

Putting the pillow block bearings on at this stage would've been almost impossible without destroying them so I had to fit each shaft into the chuck of the pillar drill, set the drill running, then run an angle grinder up and down the length of the shaft to remove a couple of thou off the overall width. They look far from pretty but the pillar blocks fit now lol.

Spinning the diff I notice that it's slightly off centre, only slightly though, and so long as I leave a little slack in the chain then it shouldn't present a huge problem, I'm also going to fit a spring loaded tensioner so that should help. I'll probably rebuild the diff further down the line but for now it'll do.

My next task is going to be to install the pillow block bearings to the chassis rails but that's for tomorrow and so is installing if the rear springs so stay tuned :)
 
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Well I managed to fit the diff 20150728_175625.webp, i think all the measuring paid off as it wasn't all that hard to line up. There's no longitudinal wobble, as in up and down movement, at the crown wheel but there's a slight wobble latterly but I'm not worried about that. Plus I don't think I'll need a middle bearing as it seems solid as is but I'll fit one if need be.

I didn't realise until I bolted everything to the frame but using self aligning pillow block bearings on both the diff and the chassis, the self aligning feature is cancelled out so I don't thing ill have to install grub screws, I have them just in case though.

This is how it will look with the wheel on 20150728_175933.webp, there isn't a snug fit between the shaft from the diff and the bigger shaft from the wheel but I knew that, I have some thin plate to make a shim once I receive the metal rod. I chose stainless steel for the outer shafts for no other reason than it'll be a better fit than the bar stock so hopefully no hammer will be needed lol.

Right I have a little dilemma, I found these rubber mounts (see under engine) 20150728_183945.webp, good fit and if used would virtually eliminate the possibility of any nuts or bolts shaking loose, but they use very soft rubber and I think there's a chance the engine could twist in such a way that it would allow the chain to slip. I'll be using a spring loaded tensioner on the chain but I'm still not sure if I'll use them. We'll see lol.
 
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I have to take a short break from my build, only until Monday then I'll be back on the case. I do have a little news in that I've decided not to use the engine I intended on using, main reason being that I think it's low on power and probably needs a top end rebuild. Lucky for me then that I already have a brand new mini moto engine that will take it's place, it just means I have to relocate the fuel tank as the carb is gravity fed but no problem.

I'm also pondering where to put the brake, I originally wanted to bolt a 160mm mtb disc to the diff but there's no room for that now so the little break will allow me to think it over.

I'm also thinking about some means to get the buggy to reverse, I don't want to build a gearbox as it will add too much weight so I'll have to think of another way.
 
I have a question to everyone in the know. Can anybody think of any wheels I could get to replace the ones I'm using now in the event I break them? I don't want to go back to the sack barrow wheels because they're simply too heavy. I was thinking of mini moto quad wheels but would they be just as heavy?
 
I like the ones your using
But maybe a set from lawnmower just a thought
Or a set of aluminum rims off go-cart they would be light and easy to come by
 
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