S1 Rebuild(s)

[Dave Adams]

some pics of the rebuild process,

the top trailing arm bracket is broke......

the diff is sloping back a little (looking up) so that will need sorting.......

As you can see there isn't a lot of bracing in an S1 chassis, that will be sorted.

[1midz0wwbl268]

Bucket of steam, now that brings back memories, working for a steam railway , no one falls for that one, but ask someone for a left handed spanner, gets them every time

 a bodgeit, thats a northern thing,isn't it ? It's  what northern engineers do, i,ve seen plenty of them,  and every one has come from somewhere up north .  

[allan wheatley]

u forgot the spots for the spot welder

[28ullkq4hau58]

what about the ,minus tape measure,,

[Big Vern]

Tap for external hole, sparks for the grinder, metric adjustable and the old favourite - after washing a car in the car wash bay fill the back box with water from the jet wash then get apprentice to look closely for leak on the back box while you start it up and give it a rev :-)))))))))

[28ullkq4hau58]

condom fixed over tail pipe with a strong rubber band  they dont half get bit before they go bang ,,lol, perfick,, for that annoying customer as ther leave the garage ,,lol,

[Dave Taylor]

would not have job if it weren't for us up here building steam trains for you to work (play) on. Horwich Loco works. Rainford, Stockton & Darlington.

[1midz0wwbl268]

oh yeah!! what about  ashford brighton and eastleigh, they built steam engines also, but who started it, a Cornishman  and play sir??  its a very serious business sir,  the public tend to get a bit upset when we ruin they day out by killing them :)))))))) all joking apart, some aspects are taken very seriously trains are not toys they can kill you just as easily at 25 mph as at 125mph ,standing only feet from a presurised vessel at 175-225 psi thats full of steam and boiling water, with only cotton overalls on, , we must all be mad 

[Dave Adams]

I have had an unplanned day off today so i fully welded the new front into my car, the slight distortion from the welding is almost gone but there its a 3/16" maximum and more like 1/8", well within the adjustment range i have built into the car.

I am now trying to work out the rack position and mounts.....because the original ones were crap...there is no getting round it they were just all wrong. i think my car must have been one of the first cars to come off the production line as the rack mounts have been well bodged, they were also not drilled right as the rack used to move left to right in the rubber mounts. that will be sorted this time.

[Dave Adams]

been making an alignment tool for the front to rear alignment....the car has a"thrust" of 0.5 degrees to the N/S that means the axle is trying to steer to the N/S by that amount.

so over the length of the  car (axle centre to axle centre) the wheels will be "looking" over to the N/S by 19mm.....so to get the wish bones at the front fully central i need to take this into account when measuring to any datum point.

so what did i get when i measured? well the N/S came out to 524mm to the chassis rail and 543mm on the O/S making the car look to the left by 19mm.....exactly what i predicted. RESULT.

I made this bracket to hold a laser pointer against the wheel rims.....

this laser pointer produces either a line or a point, so i set it to line..

It makes it very easy to measure......

The same laser pointer will be used to make a tracking alignment tool.

[Dave Adams]

i have also started to make the tracking tool, some pictures first,

I spent quite some time to make sure the two "legs" are at 90 degrees to each other, the plate is to help locate the laser pointer.

I have fitted it with three bolts so that it will always stand firm the rear one will be adjustable. the front edge will have a white board glued to it and the laser will look through a small hole........

the same laser pointer (it has a magnetic base) will be used. It will look through a hole in a sight board and it will reflect off a mirror and back to the board showing toe in or out.

to calibrate the mirror will be set to the O/S wheel and the pointer put in a suitable position about 1M from the mirror, it will be moved about (the laser pointer) until in shines on the centre line. Then the mirror will be placed against the N/S wheel, so long as the pointer has not been moved the laser will point onto the sight card and show the tracking.....simples, a little more to do and its finished.

[Dave Adams]

well not a lot done this weekend, i just don't like working on the car when its really cold. But i have finished checking the alignments and its a lot closer than i hoped.....

i bought some plum-bobs and carefully measured the under side of the car. my intention was to get two parallel lines measured to check the new chassis extensions. assuming the rear axle is where it was before the crash i measured the width of the car, it came in at 43 1/2" the chassis rails up front are 19 1/2" wide, i need the lines to be slightly wider than the rails so i measured in 11" from the edge at the rear axle and it worked out at 9" at the gearbox cross member. Then by having another plumb line at the points where the front wishbones are to be mounted, hanging from a length of steel. then by using my eye, align all three strings.

What did i get? The O/S came in at 7/8" front and rear wishbone mounts (should have been 1" so 1/8" out.....) The N/S came in at 1" rear wishbone mount and 1 1/8" front wishbone mount. Those 1/8" (3mm) will be very easy to correct out in the wishbone mounting brackets.

and here is a similar shot..

if you look carefully you can see my laser pointer drawing a line on the bulkheads, i used it to check that the three strings were in fact in line...

[Dave Adams]

Very modest progress this weekend because of the hassles of selling a property when the tenant wont hand over the keys despite moving out a week ago and the laws total protection of their "rights" AAARGH!

Anyway rant over....

started to fit the wishbones, they seem to be at about 5-8 degrees castor and they have negative camber so fine so far

and....

however there is a problem with the O/S wishbones....i had thought that they had survived the accident, but.....

The mounting bushes on the top arm do not line up any more, and have a misalign of about 10mm. I do not think its a good idea to straighten them out so i need a new Triumph top wishbone. Any of you lads got one for me please? The bottom wishbone seems fine.