Hi Folks, it's been a bit quiet on the Okrasa front for a few weeks. I've had a number of weekends away, so only just beginning to catch up.
One thing that we did have to do is have a look at the suspension all round. Ian (V.W. supremo, P.M. Steve Wright for contact details) is in charge of all things trick-suspension, but I did attend to lend some cutting and welding assistance.
Objective was to modify the front torsion bar holder area of the torsion tube area. The bars are held in place by a fixed, square holed holder, pinched into the centre of each of the two torsion tubes. This holder has an external bolt that clamps the torsion bar to the holder.
Objective was to cut out this area, grind out the 'dimples' that retain the bar holder, and punch them out. Then the tubes had to be cleaned up, and each clamp-bolt hole machined into a slot. After that, the whole lot could be welded back in again, together with some external clamps that allow the bar holder to be held through a range of positions, giving a large range of height adjustment.
I regret that I failed to get pics of the machining (done on my 1954 Tom Senior mill
), or indeed the later stages, but here're the two sections in question:
I'll grab some of the new arrangement in place when I'm next up there.
The rear shocks with over-springs have been removed for rebuilding: Steve can fill in the details on these, as I can't remember what they are
.
Anyway, once completed, we'll have a height-adjustable front end, and shock-adjustment to the rear as well. I guess there's no reason why the front shocks shouldn't be changed for something adjustable should the need arise later.
BTW, one interesting discovery was the the torsion bars had been cut down to one leaf each, but only half-way along. A bit of a puzzle as to the logic, but for now we're bowing to David's knowledge at the time (as he had an excellent reputation as designer and engineer). No doubt Steve will assemble a variety of alternatives to try in the future as well
.
Anyway, main reason of post was some gratuitous shots of car in a 'being worked on' position. It's amazing how real it looked, and we were very pleased with the proportions.
From my point of view, I'm slightly in limbo for a little while. I've got another training session coming up which is all about jigs / bucks. The issue we've got at the moment is that we've got a 'master' side that we're happy with. This now needs to be duplicated as accurately as possible on the other side. BTW, the second side at the moment is only the very roughest outline to establish an overall feel for the shape, and is no-way accurate enough to work from in the metal.
Anyway, with this upcoming course in mind, I'm a bit inclined to wait until I've sucked up as much info as possible before making a start on the second side.
TBH, there're a number of ways I could go, and I don't want to make a start, only to find almost straight away that there was a better solution available. This is the one disadvantage of free-handing with the wire: you never have a set of flat plans to work from.
My guess at the moment is that I'll set up some fore and aft datumn lines, and used these to base some outer profiles (probably 6mm ply or MDF). once these are layed out, they could be tidied up, and transfered over onto 12mm (or so) board, or onto the thicker (5/16th) wire, before being built into a proper buck.
We'll see: one thing seems to make sense, at the moment at least, which is use the 'master' side as it is. One thing's for sure, I can't wait to get the buck all finished and really solid.
There're a few other smaller jobs I can do in the meantime (like laminate up some hammerforms for the front and rear) to keep things moving along.
All for now
.
