Author Topic: Riley Special chassis (Bridget the Riley)  (Read 9436 times)

synthpunk

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Re: Riley Special chassis (Bridget the Riley)
« Reply #120 on: 14 Mar 21, 06:28 pm »
Ive thought about that but tbh i dont think it will be either butch enough for the job, or else accessible enough to allow easy ish replacement. The dash already has enough structural responsibility as it is without being relied on to hold the steering wheel as well.
My idea has gone through a couple of design evolutions but its pretty much there now - im going to use the spare 8mm ubolts i have to hold a couple of nylon bushes in place on the steel box section cross members, via an intermediate plate to hold the Ubolts which will be itself riveted to the box section steel.. The one at the bottom end will be pretty much exactly as shown in the pic below, and the top one will be split to allow the shaft to be completely removed if necessary. Theyre both made from some sort of nylon bearing material i got in a job lot of bearings, bushes and shafts from a house clearance, but whatever it is it machines very well and seems like it will do the job nicely. I realise you can just buy split blocks from Gemini amongst others specifically for this task but i felt like having a play with the lathe ;c)

synthpunk

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Re: Riley Special chassis (Bridget the Riley)
« Reply #121 on: 14 Mar 21, 06:34 pm »
This might seem like an awful lot of faff but the one thing about this build that ive already learned is that it pays to think ahead- at some point (probably shortly after initial test drives) im almost certainly going to have to remove stuff, fettle it and stick it back again, but once all the wooden bits are glued up therell be much less ready access to the innards than on a standard CK with a separate chassis and body. So im having to think quite a few steps in advance of where i am now in order to not paint meself into a corner...

synthpunk

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Re: Riley Special chassis (Bridget the Riley)
« Reply #122 on: 15 Mar 21, 08:19 pm »
Right, steering brackets sorted! I ‘simplified and added lightness’ to my previous plan and came up with this- some wire clamps to hold the plate onto the threaded cross rods, and the bits i made in the lathe yesterday held on with U bolts. Im going to add a strengthening ply either side to man up the structure a bit, and have some locknuts and washers on the inside as well, at the dashboard end. The other end goes through the suspension mounts so should be plenty strong enough.

synthpunk

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Re: Riley Special chassis (Bridget the Riley)
« Reply #123 on: 07 Apr 21, 09:44 pm »
Right- quick update;
Im still waiting for the weather to get hotter so i can finish glueing and painting and stuff.

Longer update- ive made new brackets for the top and bottom of the steering column out of L angle aluminium, machined up some hub adaptor plates for my c90 rear wheels, bought a rear axle and sprocket, started making some front suspension shackle mounting brackets, and am getting closer to finalising the engine bay. It might even end up only involving 4 simple welds that even me with my stick welder will be able to do.
Having the rear axle with the two wheels in place on the back end has given me an enormous boost in excitement, cos its all looking really really good. Wider and squatter than i thought, and staring at the back end with my imagination head on i can start to visualise what the rear end/engine cover will look like. Which is nicely exciting. Im hoping to have it all on wheels in the next few weeks. ACE.
Ive also finally worked out optimum positions for all the dashboard instruments and switches and actual blinkenlichts and stuff; tach counter/hour meter, ammeter, speedo and clock L-R along the top. Engine Kill switch on top right, switches and fuses for Kipple, Frivolity and Unnecessary Complication down the bottom, L-R.

synthpunk

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Re: Riley Special chassis (Bridget the Riley)
« Reply #124 on: 07 Apr 21, 10:58 pm »
Found another progress pic- i made another torsion box out of the marine ply to beef up the dash area, reinforced via more threaded bar, long nuts, lock nuts, big washers and other lock washer type things. The upper steering support has subsequently also been beefed up, and holds the dash in place at the bottom. Ive modified my plan with regards to the scuttle away from a simple wooden structure, im now thinking shaped aluminium sheet.

Marek.Z.N

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Re: Riley Special chassis (Bridget the Riley)
« Reply #125 on: 08 Apr 21, 09:46 am »
Looks really cool and the dashboard plan looks busy and impressive. Cant wait to see it in person at some point.

synthpunk

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Re: Riley Special chassis (Bridget the Riley)
« Reply #126 on: 11 Apr 21, 08:36 pm »
Rear axle G clamped to the rear chassis for a 4 wheels on test- hooray!

Marek.Z.N

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Re: Riley Special chassis (Bridget the Riley)
« Reply #127 on: 11 Apr 21, 10:32 pm »
Looks cracking!!

synthpunk

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Re: Riley Special chassis (Bridget the Riley)
« Reply #128 on: 08 May 21, 10:17 am »
Right-update time-

Im still astonishingly pleased with all the progress i made up until about a month ago. Having a chassis on wheels in the garage is a great feeling; it no longer feels like im building a huge, expensive rabbit hutch...
..
.
I say ‘building’....
Tbh i havent had the time to do very much else with it since then, as Mrs Synthpunk’s maternity leave has ended, and is back doing nights at the NHS, so im now primary childcare during daylight hours when im not at work and most evenings, so available tinkering time has dropped off to about an hour an evening, max. Which is quite often spent nursing a beer and trying not to feel so tired, staring at things, trying to work out what to do next. Im not complaining; the tiny synthpunkette unit is a wondrous beastie and i am loving spending so much time with her, but its deffo made progress on dadprojects much slower.

Having said that; the chassis is pretty much there now anyways. Needs its skins putting on, as the biggest job that remains undone, then painting etc of course. Ive been working on the metal bits; pedals, steering, engine bay. I now have a Lifan engine with electric start, and a TAV should be turning up today, so thats all the major purchases made now except for the bits to make the tailcone.
The pedals im also quite pleased with so far. They are mounted onto an aluminium sub frame that bolts in via the existing stays and bolts for the steering and suspension, so no extra holes needed in the chassis members. I didnt like the ‘throw’ of the accelerator under foot, so ive made a new pedal to actuate the mechanism, and modified the mechanism to give me a linear push/pull on the throttle cable without bending it round anything, or snagging it anywhere, with adjustable end stops and the ability to tweak both the throw of the pedal and the travel of the actuator independently. Ill post a pic in a bit.
Ive also started servicing the brakes. I got em second hand (cheers Rhys!) and they were basically blocked up solid with dirt so a good clean later and theyre looking much better. At some point im going to make a handbrake to go with it.

So there we are- still progress, just nowhere near as fast. Im now hoping to get her finished by the end of the summer, realistically.
Cheers!
Rich

synthpunk

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Re: Riley Special chassis (Bridget the Riley)
« Reply #129 on: 12 Jun 21, 12:54 pm »
Thought it might be time for an update-

Ive worked out the engine mount. Its a sheet of 8mm thick 6082 aluminium, that can slide backwards and forwards under the aluminium angle of the main rear ‘subframe’ thanks to some cunningly shaped bits of ally ‘Z-rail’ i found in my parts bin. Once upon a time they were part of a very expensive Calrec mixing desk that was installed in BBC Radio Norwich. Anyways, therell be a belt tensioning mechanism that involves moving the engine plate backwards and forwards and then bolting it down.

The skins should be going on this weekend. I could potentially then paint the whole thing white. However; id quite like to wrap the whole lot in epoxy glass first, which brings up a problem- the Cuprinol the whole structure is doused in might well stop the epoxy from penetrating fully. So- im going to veneer the whole car first. The veneer will glue to the cuprinol fine, and allow the glass to stick properly. I bought a joblot of veneers some years ago from the estate of a friends uncle. Ive got enough veneer to do about 3 cars, or an entire dining table and chairs with matching side tables... Indian rosewood, brazillian figured mahogany, ripple Sapele, walnut, figured english oak, figured maple (american) and English Sycamore. There is a strong temptation to make a high speed regency chest of drawers; all flamed mahogany and rosewood, but i think ill go for Sycamore bodywork, figured oak chassis and walnut and rosewood dash/cockpit trim. So even with just the epoxy glass applied, shell be pretty white even without paint.

Veneer has a reputation for being fiddly. It is. But i think this job will be pretty simple as far as veneer goes. No bookmatching, no inlay, just a load of glue, some clamps, and an ordinary household iron... the the veneer will be applied in strips angled at 45 degrees over the carcass, so compound curves are no problem. Should look like its been cold moulded, hopefully.

synthpunk

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Re: Riley Special chassis (Bridget the Riley)
« Reply #130 on: 26 Sep 21, 02:33 pm »
Right- long overdue update.

Its not that I haven’t busy, it’s just that most of what I’ve been doing is getting frustrated with the weather and basically tidying up things I 90% completed months ago, which makes for boring forum reading IMO… So basically I’ve been radiusing edges, shaping the cockpit cutout, reinforcing and then radiusing the edges of aforementioned cutout, filling holes, sanding off the outside of the whole thing to get rid of the cuprinol coating, and also adding the lower skins to the whole thing. 1/4” Keruing marine ply now covers the underside of everything. And then glassing the whole lot with at least 1 layer of epoxy and glass, or at least epoxy, to seal the surface and prevent it from going mouldy in the shed. All the right angles are either radiused to 6mm, or filleted to same depending  on wether they’re external or internal. So folding the cloth round the edges has been very successful, and as a result the Unibody structure as a whole is strong, waterproof, and as a bonus the ply skins are totally bonded to the underlying framework. Result!
The test piece of birch ply I left untreated a year ago is now totally black with mould, it’s minging. I should prolly bin it, it is almost certainly a health hazard.
So anyways, the existing structure is now finally mould proof, and I’ve also added another torsion box behind the front grill, and changed the way the grill mounts. It’s bonded in with epoxy, and reinforced with more glass tape and epoxy, as now are all the other torsion boxes in the structure. Nice.

Next job is epoxying some stainless bushes into all the subframe mounting holes, to stop the mounting bolts from wallowing around and oval-ing the wood. Then glueing all the wooden faux louvres onto the bonnet and scuttle, more filling, and yet more epoxy and glass if the weather permits, but tbh I dont think ill be doing any more glassing till springtime now, itll just be too cold and wet outside… same maybe goes for fibreglass primer. I’ll just leave it woody looking till springtime.

Anyways. Even if it will look like a mobile rabbit hutch, it’ll be fuelproof and waterproof enough to bolt the engine and brakes in and take it for a test spin round the farm next month. Yay!

synthpunk

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Re: Riley Special chassis (Bridget the Riley)
« Reply #131 on: 26 Sep 21, 07:46 pm »
Just having reread my previous 2 posts I thought I’d better clarify- due mostly to time constraints (toddler) I decided to not go gonzo woodworking and cover it in veneer. Instead I did some experiments and discovered that it’s possible to sand through the layer of wood rot treatment I used (cuprinol), thoroughly degrease, and thus get a good epoxy bond. Hooray. The insides of all the torsion boxes are all still cuprinol treated, then varnished, then filled with fire grade closed cell expanding foam to displace any water that does leak in. All the external sharp edges have been radiused, as radiuses are less prone to damage and leaking. So the skins have all been radiused into the rest of the structure and cockpit etc, so extra glass tape reinforcement around those areas has helped secure the skins even more.

So everything’s been wrapped in glass. It’s about 300G/m2 on the undersides and up the sides of the chassis rails, the body sides are a layer of 80G, and the scuttle and seat back are 300 again.

Ive decided to trade some of my weight advantage for strengthening things up and paying attention to end grain. The undersides of the chassis rails were quite a lot of endgrain, this has now had a 6mm layer of marine ply epoxied underneath it, so the endgrain problem has been minimised.
The front suspension mounts have had a layer of 6mm ply on the inside face added to bring the overall width of the front horns to 36mm, so i can fit some of the group buy springs when they appear.

I’ll dig through my phone and add some photos.
Cheers!
Rich

Adrian

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Re: Riley Special chassis (Bridget the Riley)
« Reply #132 on: 14 Oct 21, 09:20 pm »
Jeeez! :D
🚗

synthpunk

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Re: Riley Special chassis (Bridget the Riley)
« Reply #133 on: 11 Jan 22, 08:50 pm »
Evenin all- I’m back…

I decided to take a 2 week break from the internet which got indefinitely extended when I realised that life is sometimes much better without it. Definitely worth trying.

So anyways, the cyclekart….

She’s basically remained pretty much untouched since October due to a combination of the weather being very bloody cold and miserable on the south downs, and also my shed trying to kill me. The door (up and over garage door from the seventies, all galvanised steel) fell off one dark and raining evening, missing my head by a couple of inches… the cantilever pivots had rusted through and collapsed, and the honking great balancing springs shot off like grenades. Loud and scary. So I had to lock up the shed as best I could and then completely change the way the door is mounted when the weather improved. Its now a sideways opening barn type door. Much better….

The short story is that it took till december to fix the door, then christmas happened, so ive done nothing on the car itself. On the plus side ive finished some other projects, and also got to look at the car with fresh eyes once I finally got in there again last week. I need to remodel the back. The radius is too tight, and the shoulders of the seat are wrong. Easy enough to sort, as its all still just bendywood strips tacked onto a bulkhead frame.

I’m still thinking about what to skin it in, and something I’m going to investigate is using the framework that I’ve built as a former, and skinning it with cross ply layers of gummed brown paper tape. And trying to impregnate it with thinned epoxy, then a layer of glass, then filler, then paint, etc. Easier and cheaper than veneer, and lighter too. Its a method used to make model racing yachts in ye olden days, ive played with it in the past. In the thirties the resultant shell was waterproofed with shellac, in the 60s you used varnish. So I reckon epoxy will work well… If anyone knows the name Vic Smeed, well he definitely did some designs in gummed paper…

Ive also been messing about with a stylus on my iPad, trying to work out whether or not to add some wings…. ;c)


jim

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Re: Riley Special chassis (Bridget the Riley)
« Reply #134 on: 12 Jan 22, 06:13 am »
That's really looking good Rich with a strong resemblance to the original car and I like the wings.
If you can drive round corners, you're not going fast enough.