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The Orange Cake


altezzaclub

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Arrgh! More distractions...  The Mini is getting welded up, all TiG so very slow, today we had to take the rear windows out to get flanges welded from the main hoop to the B-pillar.

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Buuuut....   an art object in the form of a close-ratio sequential 6-speed gearbox for the tarmac car, the Evo5, turned up a week or two back...  and that needed a new shifter setup through the firewall & new electrics,  so that meant the dash out, and that meant we should move the seat back to where Josh really wanted it, and that meant the brakes should go to twin master cyl so pedal box out and that meant..

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a car that now looks like this!  "How To Build A Racing Car" coming up!  First, a mockup of the driving position to decide where the floor-mounted pedals go, the seat goes and the steering goes. Get all that sorted, clean the shell up and respray it, and then a new cage in. Make a new dash with new looms, fit seats, fire extinguishers, battery and fuel lines, all planned for a  500bhp motor in the future! 

Once the terrible weather is over I'll slip some work in on the CAKE along the way!! 

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  • 3 weeks later...
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We've refurbished the rotisserie Josh's Dad used to build P76s on, and the Evo5 shell was on that this arvo.  Graham & I can start cleaning underside of the shell up and putting seat mounts in, while Josh can get back onto the Mini..  I can tell you, welding on the bottom of a car while its on its side is much much better than above your head on a hoist!!

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Haha  A carpenter.. well why not, it looks like it works well!  We figured out it takes two guys a week to clean and seamweld a shell.  The cleaning is 90% of it, scrapers, hard wire wheels, softer wire wheels to get into the join between the panels, and that's not counting painting afterwards.

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Josh wants it super-clean, and his welding is immaculate.

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I made the mounts for the main hoop today, Graham was making seat mounts and Josh was hitting the Mini with the Tig. We were quite used to stepping through the windscreen with the shell on its side...  This will be the biggest (and hopefully only!) rebuild the Evo5 gets, making it a strong, reliable tarmac car. 

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I'm always amazed how much modern cars rely on the "flexibility of the body itself", to provide a percentage of the ride comfort; & not totally rely on the  suspension entirely.

How much does the stitch welding add to the stiffness of the body total.

I've always been amazed how when you jack a Rolla up on one corner only, so the whole end of the car is off the ground, how much the "unjacked" corner sags. 

It is quite measurable.

Cheers Banjo

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Well, the most extreme case was that Moke. Those simple roll bars took 30mm out of the sag when we jacked it before and after.  Of course we never thought to jack the Evo5 before seam welding it.  Sorting the difference in stresses between the Evo3 on gravel and the Evo5 on tarmac tracks is a real mind exercise.

I dropped into the wrecker on Saturday & he showed me a nice blue slanty KE70 in the workshop. He said he'd sell it to me for $2k, I knew the car & I'd spoken to the owner in the past. Monday I went down to get some photos.. and its sold for $2500!  A bit rusty in the rear arches, otherwise just an average daily. I'll try to find out who bought it and get him on here.

Wrecker's KE70.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Read this interesting article on hybrids entering motorsport next year (2022).

http://www.vicorpower.com/resource-library/case-studies/powering-innovation/delta-motorsport

Are you & Josh going to be lining up, to fit a hybrid, to a motor sport vehicle ?

Bet it has been cold in Blayney this week, & you've both had that wood fired heater running constantly ?

Cheers Banjo

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The usual reaction is... 'over my dead body!'..  But that may change when we're getting beaten by them.

Funnily enough, last Thursday I came up to the farm to fix the blown had gasket on the big 1960s Ford D-series truck.  Then a day or two back Steve sends me a text saying Orange and Blaney have both been locked down!  Funny thing is, although they are both locked down I wouldn't be able to travel between them.

The head gasket blew out in #6 cyl, no sign of burning or any other problems, so 20:1 compression and 30psi on the turbo gives them a hard time.  As it happened, the gasket set from Autosurplus arrived quickly, so I thought I'd stay up and finish the job. Sadly its being done in the dirt-floored truck shed with no doors, and even the dam next door is leaking into it!  When I got the head off it only had one dowell in the block, and as its tilted at 45deg I spent ages making another dowell to hold the gasket in place.  I finally tried it 20minutes ago, and found Durapro don't make allowances for dowells in the head gasket!!  So I've been chopping the side out of two bolt-holes in the head gasket with a grinder!  The head weighs a good 70-80k, a struggle for two guys to get it over the chassis and onto the block, and of course its freezing cold, blowing a gale, and about to rain later this arvo!  Snowed a couple of days back...  too cold for Covid!

Check out the bolt pattern on the head-  the tightening sequence is from the middle, along the twin bolts at the top to the front, along the bottom zig-zag to the back, then around the other half of the top. 70lb.ft, 90, then 90deg. The turbo sits tucked into the chassis rail, hopeless to get to.

Ford D block.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Back in Orange last week, the red truck is running fine and working already. I had a panic when it started making a howling like a trombone as the speed built up, but it turned out to be a hose-clamp on the inlet wasn't tight enough and the boost was leaking out past the silicon rubber.

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This week we finished the Mini cage, it goes back today to be prepared for events like the Bathurst 6hr.1128404615_NavroofBsmall.jpg.7e1d0978fb4170587d17b8055c71c3d4.jpg

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I reckon you could throw it down the side of the Mountain and walk away with a bit of luck. 

So, next is a bit of work on the Evo3, there is an invite-only rally sprint in a week and we have an invite. There is a Subaru cage to build, but a mig one not a tig, so a week of hard work should do it, and THEN we can start on KE70s!

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I reckon you could throw it down the side of the Mountain and walk away with a bit of luck. 

OMG !   I don't think the USA Space Shuttle was built as strong as this Mini !   Do you calculate the weight of that  roll cage ?  That's a work of art.

Cheers Banjo

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Came up nice...  About 60kg all up from the amount of pipe that went in. I jacked one rear wheel until both were off the ground and the shell is rigid! Floor joined to B pillars, through the roof bars and joined to A pillar.  I'll jack the KE70 and actually measure the twist before and after a cage. Do that Subbie too.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well... almost!  The Mini has gone back to its owner to be prepared for some Bathurst work.  Josh was asked to do a couple of days driving a gravel truck, but while they were checking it they found cracks in the tailgate hinges. It has unusually long hinge arms that allow the tailgate to swing a long way up, I don't know if that's part of it, but the cracks were along all the horizontal webs, top and bottom,  and there were no vertical gussets.

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So we ground it all out and welded up what we could on the truck to hold it in place, then took the whole tailgate off and laid it flat. (pays to have a bobcat at home!) A sheet of 6mm alloy panel and a few days later it was in much better condition. I was surprised, Josh pointed out that a max tonnage was gravel up about 400mm, and the bin is only full if you carry grain.

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On Friday it was all back together and amazingly the pins went it with no problems.  Next we had the exhaust flexible joint to replace along with the steel angle that carries the fuel line from one side tanks to the other. Something had clouted the steel angle and bent it up to rub the flex apart.

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That left the afternoon to take the Evo3 for a wheel alignment and take out some rear toe-in, but it was beyond adjustment and into modification..  So we slotted holes in the lower control arm and Josh set it up this morning, all set for tomorrow's rally sprint when I get back in the suicide seat after 40years..

Then Gladis locked down all of NSW so that won't happen either!!

Still, we're definitely closer to KE70 work, and the weather is improving so we can drag the CAKE out of the mud and get it up the hill!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, the last pre-CAKE jobs are in the workshop this week. Josh did a driving stint in the Kenworth then got into the ute tray-

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There's still quite a lot of work on this yet.  Its within 1.5mm of dead square in 3 dimensions, I know I wouldn't be that fussy!

Meanwhile I've been making foot-plates for a cage in the Subie.

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They were both waiting for the Mini to finish, so if we can knock them out in the next few weeks its finally CAKE time!  Mind you... sunny spring weather is arriving, and today is footings day for the new workshop extensions..

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  • 2 months later...

Good grief!  November already!  Well, we got sort-of half a cage in each of the Subbie and the Evo5, but decided we needed to get the Evo5 ready for Whiteline. Then Josh had a spell of driving the big Kenworth, and I've only just got back down there this week.

The underside has been cleaned and painted-

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The rear of the cage is finished, it mounts onto the rear suspension towers-

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The front is in place. You can't put your fingers anywhere between the cage and the bodywork, it is jammed in there-

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An hour ago we tweaked the last gussets into place-

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So there's just some welding up of the tacked gussets here and there, and the cage is finally done.  No orders for a MiG cage please!

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The two bars heading forwards go through the firewall and weld onto the front suspension towers, so its end to end..  The car should be stiff!

Then it heads out the back shed for painting while we tackle the Subbie, then get the Evo5 running for Whiteline, and FINALLY back onto the CAKE!

 

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Fond memories of my cromoly, 6 point, non gusseted, bolted in cage in my TA22.

Thankfully it never got tested out.....

Mind it would of been 35yrs ago.

 

We did test out the alloy 6 pointer in my mates Datto 1600 though.  Weirdest feeling trying to work out which way is up

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