Brooklands Bentley

Had a fairly productive day today. After Tim Wheater's suggestions on the FB group to move the engine forwards, I started the day off with bit of a plan in mind. I decided that I should get the tail section made up and then extend the rear chassis to allow me to move the engine further forwards. Making the tail section would define how much room I had to work with. So I mocked up the footprint of the rear tail section with some plastic extrusion and duct tape until it looked kinda right, and then rolled some RHS curves to match.

After cutting and tacking up the tail frame, I cut out the old rear cross member and extended the chassis rails by 80mm. This was plenty enough room to allow the TAV to be flipped and the engine moved forwards. I also lowered the engine by 20mm, which in turn allowed me to chop the rear hoop by 30mm and still have plenty of clearance above the engine for the body to slope downwards at the rear. I also moved the engine mounting 30mm to the left in the chassis. The reason for this is that now the fuel filler lines up with the centre of the car. I still need to close off the open ends of the chassis extensions, which I will do with some nice rounded off RHS sections, similar to the original, but that will have to wait until another day. I also plan to drop the lower rear tail tube by stepping it just behind the rear chassis member. The plan is to have the entire tail section lift off of the chassis

With the rear hoop chopped, I welded the offcuts on to the dash hoop to bring it up to the same height. I also fabbed up the front grille hoop at the same height as the dash hoop. This really made the outline easier to visualise. It's now much easier to imagine how it will look once it's got some skin on it. It's really starting to take shape.

Moving on to mounting the rear wheels up, I had to draft some plates to fit the outside of the wheels. These act as a reinforcing plate which sandwiches the wheel centre against the rear drive hub and to helps to spread the load of the bolts. This meant drafting up the plates in Fusion360 and then firing up the CNC Plasma. I built this machine over 10 years ago and it's been a pretty handy thing to have. I just need to drill the hubs and plates for he mounting bolts.

With the chassis kinda finished I got a little sidetracked with some accoutrements, which burned up a little time. That and of course the obligatory standing back and staring aimlessly. I managed to reconfigure the handbrake mech that I originally made for my Speedster so that it can be operated from an upright handle. I also dug out a blower casing from the parts bin and mounted that to the front cross member. The grille will wrap around this and I will make up a dummy carburettor and inlet manifold to finish it off.

I didn't get to the steering, but I realised that I need to make a steering wheel before I can get that set up. So tomorrows tasks are make a steering wheel, bend up the wireframe for the cabin and mount the rear wheels. Then with whatever time I have left make a start on the bodywork. Unfortunately I forgot that I have other engagements Friday, so tomorrow is the last hoorah before The Bend. At least it looks kinda car-like.

Ahhh yes. One other very important task for tomorrow. Trial fit it into the trailer. I already know that the Cyclekart is longer than the bed, but that's okay as I can fold the front gate of the trailer down. However I might have to fabricate some kind of transport stand to hold the front wheels up.

Ahh yes, also swapped the engine out for the electric start engine that will be fitted as I needed to make sure that there was enough clearance for the starter

Bit photo heavy this one...