Thursday 19th February 2004

Today or rather tonight, I was around Tim's  garage.  Tim  is a fellow CAM7ner who is also building a RGB racer for the 750MC series, although he is building a Fury powered by a Fireblade engine and will run in class C. I was there to return his engine hoist and help him to fit his drive shafts into the Freelander diff on the Fury. Tim's only had his Fury chassis for about two weeks and he's already nearly at rolling chassis stage,  I've had my rolling chassis for nearly two months and I seem to making very very slow progress, a salutary lesson in "get ya finger out" for me and a great achievement for him.

Anyway on the plus side I did manage to have a squint a Tim's Fireblade exhaust clamps.  Tim Pell supplied me with an exhaust with my car the but the clamps which hold the headers into the ports on the cylinder head were missing.  It turns out that these things are quite difficult to source because on the original bike down pipes they are integral to the unit, or at least can't be removed without cutting up the pipes. 

Therefore bike breakers won't cut up a good set of pipes so that I can have the clamps, but if the pipes are damaged they just get stuck in a skip.  Either way I can't have the clamps.  I've been having such problems that I'd even started to produce a DXF drawing so I could get some laser cut by a local engineering shop.  Well I took the opportunity to measure the  clamps on Tim's exhaust and it turns out that a Fireblade's exhaust mounts are identical to those on a ZX12R. So I've placed an order with Martin at the Kitcarworkshop and hopefully I can start thinking about fitting the exhaust next week.

Also today I received the entry forms for all the RGB races this year from the 750 Motor club.... now it's really starting to hit home  I'm going racing!

Friday 20th February 2004

Today was an expensive day.  

OZ Racing Superleggara wheels are the thing to have in the RGB series because they are extremely strong and amazingly light, coming in at under 5 Kilos per wheel. Unfortunately they are also very rare in 15inch sizes, I have heard horror stories of people waiting for 6-9 months for a set. 

It appears OZ have decided to make a wheel that is very desirable for club racers but only to make reasonable quantities of the 16 inch and above sizes which are too big for club racing.... typical.   While chatting to Tim Pell I asked where he had sourced his wheels and he  recommended Motorsport Wheels.  So on the off chance I rang them and gave them my required size 15x7 Ford PCD ET42 offset, and miracle of miracles they had a set on the shelf in Anthracite colour.  Needless to say I bit their hands off and ordered them on the spot, they even very kindly gave me a 20% discount.  I had previously planned to leave the purchase to the end of the build  but a bird in the hand etc.    They should arrive on Monday.

The total still came to £450+....Gulp!

Now fired with a passion for all things round I thought I ought to get some rubber sorted out for these shiny new rims.  The RGB series mandates the use of Yokohama A048Rs and guess what...... these are rarer than unobtainium too.  In fact there has been an ongoing discussion on the RGB racers website on the subject, so it was with some trepidation that I rang George Polley motorsport.

Well it looks like the rubber famine is over, George can get me 4 195/55/15 A048Rs for next week.  So again more biting of hands followed and my wallet was another 350 quid lighter.   I think I need a lie down,  but by next weekend the car will be rolling on it's own wheels. I just hope I get the car finished in time to use them in action this year

Saturday 21st February 2004

Well having invested in a new can of Tetraclene I set about cleaning up the last 20% of the car,  This basically meant the rear suspension, the rear half of the engine bay and the diff carrier, all of which were covered in a thick layer of lithium grease and chain lube.  The car came up very nicely.   However I was having difficulty getting at the areas around the diff and chain wheel carrier, so I decided to remove the entire unit from the car.  This was a fairly radical decision, as it meant removing the drive shafts from the diff, and If I had a problem I wouldn't be able to roll the car back in the garage very easily, but taking the diff out has a number of advantages.

1. I'll learn how the drive train is put together,  nothing teaches you this better than a disassemble\reassemble cycle.
2. I'll also learn how to remove the drive shafts and how the rear suspension goes together.
3. It will give me a chance to check and paint the diff carrier, fit the handbrake calliper, and lubricate the Quaiffe ATB diff unit in the centre of it all.  And I get to do all this at a comfortable bench height.

All good reasons to bite the bullet, besides as I'm used to car diffs with crown wheels, pinions and oil baths I was intrigued by how the unit went together when the drive was provided by a chain rather than a propshaft.

So first job was to remove the drive shafts,  I guessed that it should be possible to withdraw them if the wheels were released from just the top wishbones,  the wheels are mounted using a spherical bearing and a top hat threaded bush which pass into the top of the wish bone.  These were easy to undo and the wheel could be swung away from the car at quite a sharp angle.  But as usual all this does is pull the cv joints apart not withdraw the joints from the diff.  At this stage I did notice one of the CV joint boots has a small split in it which probably accounts for all the lithium grease I've been cleaning off, that'll need replacing during reassembly.

The inner CV joint is held into the splines in the diff by a circlip. These are usually really really difficult to get out, because normally when your doing it access is extremely restricted.  However in this case I had good access and using a large "Gorrilla Bar" crow bar I applied a little side was pressure  between the CV joint and the diff and both joints popped out in seconds.   Blimey!

So after a bit of manoeuvring and removal of some six mounting bolts and spacers I had the Diff carrier on the bench (or rather the top of the freezer).

In the picture left the unit is orientated as it is in the car.  The front of unit is towards the viewer.

The four mounting lugs at the front are where the engine is mounted onto the diff carrier. Behind them is a starter motor, that provides the reverse gear that the RGB series regulations require.  The starter motor drives on the ring gear of a flywheel that is on left of the aluminium chain wheel which, in turn receives it's drive via a bike chain from the engine's output sprocket.

The flywheel also acts as a brake disk, for a Willwood mechanical calliper that provides the handbrake required by the "Must be capable of passing an MOT" part of the regs.  The calliper is missing from the photos.

In the centre of the chain wheel and flywheel is the differential, which is an Automatic Torque Biasing unit from Quaiffe.  The differential is entirely enclosed and does not run in an oil bath like it would do in a car's diff casing,  rather it is lubricated internally by grease.

On either side of the diff are two large aluminium blocks which house the sealed bearings that the output flanges of the diff rotate in.  In this side view you can see the  silver coloured adjustment plates which are bolted to the aluminium bearing carriers  through slots in the diff carrier sides.  These adjuster plates can be moved fore an aft by the adjuster bolt on the far left (there's one on each side), and when the chain is correctly tensioned and the chain wheel is in perfect alignment with the output sprocket the pinch bolts are tightened up.

You can also see the splined socket which the drive shaft's inner CV joint fits into.

I needed to remove the flywheel\chainwheel\ diff unit so that I could lube the diff, so I started by removing the pinchbolts and adjusters and I expected the whole unit to drop from the frame, sadly I was wrong and the diff output sockets are actually a little wider then the frame.  So using the long threaded rod that is part of the mounting hardware I forced the two side plates slightly apart and out came the diff assembly.

Here you can see the removed unit, including the bearing carriers. The bearings were a very very tight fit, and rather than badger something by persisting I decided that caution was the better part of valour. I'll ring Tim Pell on Monday for further instructions on dismantling and lubricating the diff.

In the meantime I can degrease and re paint the diff carrier.  Although that'll have to be tomorrow.  My good lady wife needs to get to the freezer to get tea out :-)

Monday February 22nd 2004

Mr Link Express has just delivered 2 of my Super Leggaras.  Shiny shiny things of beauty they are and not as black as their "Anthracite" name would imply.

They do seem really  very light indeed and the bathroom scales confirm that they come in at between 4 & 5 Kilos per corner. Nice..... very nice indeed.

Thursday February 27th 2004

My other two Superleggies turned up today,  and despite requiring a signature on delivery Mr Link Express just left them parked outside my house (I was doing the school run). Luckily (for him) they were still there when I got home.

Saturday February 28th 2004

Well I've had my shiny new RIMs fitted with the A048rs that are mandatory for the RGB series,   I've gone for 195/55/R15s for the fronts but on the advice of George Polley I've gone for 205/50/R15s for the rears as he thinks that the wider tyre can help counter any tail happiness in the car.   Although as I later found out they also lighten your wallet by an additional £20+ quid per corner :-(.

So in the interests of completeness I've weighed both of the different tyre sizes.

The 195/55/R15s on the left weigh in at 13 Kilos complete, the 205/50/R15s on the right tip the scales at 14 Kilos

Given that the rims weigh in at 5kg each that puts the tyre weights as 8Kg for the 195/55s and 9Kg for the 205/50s.

This is one expensive stack of rubber and alloy.

The other things that arrived today are the conversion studs for the wheel hubs.

One of my pet hates are wheels that are fitted with wheel bolts rather than studs and wheel nuts.  I've trapped my fingers between rims and suspension units more than once while rotating a wheel on the central hub boss trying to line up the bolt holes.

The EVO hubs are designed to take Wheel bolts that screw into threaded holes.  So I've sourced these special conversion studs that screw into the bolt holes and are thread locked in place.  You can then use normal wheel nuts to hold the wheels on, and the wheels sit safely on the studs while you get the nuts started hopefully avoiding trapped fingers.

The Studs are M12x1.5 and are 50mm overall length.  I got them from http://www.trackstore.co.uk and they are 80p each.  They are also available from Demon Tweeks but are 1.60 each.  So now we're ready to sit the EVO on her own wheels and Clam can have his alloys back.  Thanks Clem.

So I sat the car up on the quick lift jack, removed the front offside wheel and started fitting the conversion studs.  Basically I just locked two wheel nuts together  onto the stud, added a generous portion of lock-tight and simply wound the conversion stud into the hub.  The  unthreaded central portion bites into the threads and helps tighten stud.  While I hate wheel bolts, I'm also aware that wheel studs are normally splined into the hub, so I'm a little concerned that the conversion studs may loosen and undo.  I've therefore marked an indelible line across the face of each stud,  the lines all point to the centre, so any loosening will be instantly visible as the lines will move.

Here's a pic of the fitted Superleggara, the wheel studs are sitting about 10mm proud of the nuts because as yet the brake disks aren't fitted.

Next I moved on to the front OS hub and discovered this horror.   The OS hub carrier is cracked :-(.  It looks like the crack has been developing for some time and is circumferential around the outer edge of the bearing housing.  It looks like I'm going to need a new  upright, Ho Hum.  So rather disheartened I fitted the conversion studs and the SuperLeggara.  

Oh I forgot the other thing I managed to do today was degrease and spray paint the diff carrier. 

At this stage I was called to help my friend Duncan fit a new cambelt to his Carlton so there will be no further progress today.