VauxSport - Vauxhall advice and chat forum

Mark RA · vauxsport.com Joined: 05 Jun 2007 Posts: 259

Can't wait to see the new lathe mate. Cost much? I take it that it's got a turning radius of 12"?

The one i've access to is a bit smaller, about 8". Nice little harrison though.

alistairolsen · Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 2:58 pm Post subject:

bollocks, I posted this on mig ut its all on one page, so every page view is every picture since the beginning of this thread. 632 views later theyre dead. Will rehost this weekend on another account later on with some new pics. Its all in place now!

Mark,yes mate but its actually ok with 14" *just* so Im happily going to fce my gearbox with it!

alistairolsen · Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 10:15 pm Post subject:

Got the pictures working with a new account!

So today we decided to get dads flatbed chassis rolling so that he can move it wround when Im not there. its properly heavy, was meant to be a 3 tonne gross trailer but we found 2 tonne suspension units going cheap so 2 tonne it is!

Then we wanted to put the lathe in place, mainly to get it out of the way, so we borrowed a pallet truck

Turned it lengthwise to get it through the door

much huffing later

Some of the bits that came with it (probably worth more than we paid without the machine

Cleaned off the lathe (it ws filthy) and then oiled it and covered it up

View into the garage now we have rebuilt the shelf farther along and filled it again, lathe in place and the bg trailer back out so that dad can crack on with it.

In the box I found 6 good indexable tool holders (inch square) so I can sack off learning to sharpen tools for a while, need to try and get some tips!

Thanks for reading!

Mark RA · vauxsport.com Joined: 05 Jun 2007 Posts: 259

Nice, did you get any tooling with it?

alistairolsen · Posted: Mon Feb 22, 2010 9:13 am Post subject:

yeah, a boxful including a load of indexable bits smile

tigra turbo · vauxsport.com Joined: 04 Jan 2007 Posts: 244

Keep up the good work Al smile

alistairolsen · Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2010 10:45 pm Post subject:

Got home about 3pm today so decided to make a start on things!

3 phase digital converter arrived, a less than half price bargain from ebay. 10hp model:

So we got that mounted up on the wall and partially wired in:

Need to get some big single phase cable tomorrow to do the feed from the consumer unit.

The tyres for the single axle car trailer arrived too, some quality Nankangs for 30 quid each

650kg load rating

Bought another T5 coilpack cheap on ebay

and an Abbot Racing boost controller (£3.45)

And finally the "best" news of all my seats have arrived finally. Sadly they will be going back as I'm not happy with them and now £198 quid and 3 months worse off than when I ordered them!

Am I being unreasonable not accepting that?

More tomorrow!

Rich_j_Williams · Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2010 10:24 am Post subject:

Are they supposed to be brand new??? If so then who would except damaged stuff?? Uness theyoffer you a decent discount obviously PMSL

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alistairolsen · Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2010 11:18 am Post subject:

brand new, from the manufacturer! I sent them a strongly worded email and I'm still waiting on a reply!

Rich_j_Williams · Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2010 11:28 am Post subject:

Hope you getit sorted surley they can't argueuch against that Thumbs Up

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alistairolsen · Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2010 4:07 pm Post subject:

Small update while I grab a drink, we got the wiring in town this morning so the converter is now on the wall and all wired in:

Along with a fluorescent tube for some light, time will tell if its enough

So we phoned the company that made it for some advice and then turned it on and fired up the lathe. No coolant pump yet so were restricted to aluminium and brass and suchlike

Then feeling we should do something more productive than machining random scrap to unknown dimensions we put the wheels back on the trailer with the new tyres and set about fitting lights and mudguards

Hopefully get them all mounted before dark and then do the loom tonight in front of the tv!

alistairolsen · Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2010 8:57 pm Post subject:

Evening update:

Did some more with the lights, we were going to make galvanised steel frames for the tail lights like the brian james trailers, but theres a fair amount of fab work and meant we couldnt finish it until the next load of galvanising goes away so we decided to make them out of light alloy.

Cut some shapes with the bandsaw:

Then drilled the holes for the lights and bent them (lots of heat and me swinging from the cieling booting them in the vice :P )

And fitted them:

Made up some new ratchet straps with nice new soft webbing:

And finally measured up the whole trailer and then went inside to make up the wiring loom with individual tails all coming out in the correct places to feed all the lights. We'll clip it in and fit the plugs tomorrow

alistairolsen · Posted: Sun Mar 07, 2010 7:19 pm Post subject:

Wee bit of an update from this morning, set abou fitting the wiring to the trailer

Nicely clipped along the chassis rails up out of the way:

Neatly tied and sealed where it goes into the tail lights:

All finished:

Put it on the level to check it sat nicely, its got about an inch of rake front to rear!

This afternoond vanished in odd jobs, prepping the bits for the big trailer for galvanising with a flap wheel in a grinder, fitting a new clutch cable to dads saab, fixing corroded heat shields on mums astra with penny washers and finally sanding down some of the plastics I want to respray for the nova.

Hopefully Ill know more about my seats next weekend!

alistairolsen · Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 9:47 pm Post subject:

Update on my seats! I spoke to Triton today and they were more than apologetic. It must have happened in transit as they are sending me the pics they took before dispatch. I can see how a heavy parcel sat on the seat of the top seat in the package would cause the damage.

Theyre going to make and send another seat to replace the crazed one, so i can continue to use that for mock up next weekend as they dont want it back. The other seat I'll check carefully at the weekend and then decide whether to return it for refinishing/repair or hold onto it. I've said it before, its not the problems that define a company but how they deal with them!

beer

chip · Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 9:59 am Post subject:

Fair fucking play to them for that!

Perfect customer service. clap

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Under 400bhp makes baby jesus cry.
(so my boost leak at the jamsport day must have had him sobbing like rich j williams watching a chick flick)

www.totalvauxhall.co.uk

Nova - 457bhp - Mid Engine - RWD - GT35 - Autronic SM4

alistairolsen · Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 7:55 pm Post subject:

Another weekend at home and some more progress, on the locost finally!
First job of the weekend was collecting this £62 ebay bargain:

3kw Clarke compressor with a 150l air receiver. Nice being able to take advantage of the glut of cheap second hand 3-phase equipment now!
Saturday morning I set about fitting the driver’s seat. Having reached an agreement with the manufacturers so that I was sure that these were the seats I would be using (I previously wasn’t sure if I would just end up returning them for refund) I set about figuring out where they needed to be.

With the seat propped up on blocks under the mounting points to replicate the height of the runners and prevent us loading the base unevenly I got dad into the car (hes somewhat more of a challenge than me to fit the rest of the car around!)

We checked for space for the pedal box, confirming that the 50mm I added to the chassis length had prevented us needing to box the pedals into the engine space.

Next we chucked the column in place where it was comfortable for dad and recorded where it was, we also checked where his arm fell for the gearlever.

Having moved the seat forward somewhat :P

I climbed in and checked that the relationship between the pedals, wheel and gearlever suited both of us. Its all fine, but I suspect we will need a quick release wheel to get in and out of the car and the gearlever is going to be a compromise as dad would prefer it 50mm forward of where I do.

Next I modified an old nova seat runner (how much heavier are corsa ones ffs!!) With some thin angle to brace it and pick up the rear seat mounts.

Mounted were tacked on flush with the bottom of the chassis (will sit above the alloy floor with countersunk bolts through the whole lot)

Finally the seat was fitted on the proper rails and slides back and forth perfectly.

Meantime dad had put the finishing touch to the small trailer:

And finished the parts for the big trailer ready to go south for galvanising 

Sunday morning bright and early I made a start on the pedal box, again somewhat of a challenge to get size 11 feet and an oversize gearbox into a footwell which was small enough to start with!

The clutch pedal was modified by cutting off the tail below the pivot (intended for a cable pull) and lengthening the portion of the pedal above the pivot.

Next we drew some feet using a old shoe to figure out what space we needed. The pedals are inset towards the centreline from the centre of the seat by 20mm or so.

Then I tacked up the mounts (no bushes which is why there is a little misalignment) and put the bulkhead back in place to try.

Dad made up some spare wheel carriers out of old hubs I had, and a winch post for the small trailer so we can get them galvanised with the rest of the stuff.

Having measured the Volvo pedal box I settled on a pedal ratio of around 3.2:1 (volvo was 4:1 on a 12inch long pedal :O) Then we used a 36mm arbour in the pillar drill to cut the holes for the master cylinders and fitted those up. Brake is spot on, the clutch I will need to do some work on the clevis arrangement.

I’m hoping to catch up with Hugh from Locostbuilders sometime over the next week or so to TIG the pedals and mounts before I’m next home. Then I just need paint, grip tape, return springs and reservoirs and the pedal box is finished!

More soon!

don · Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 10:41 pm Post subject:

I love this build cant wait to see it done!
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alistairolsen · Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2010 9:46 pm Post subject:

Easter at last, took my half day Friday off to get a full 4 days in the garage Big Grin

First job was to fix mums car, its been suffering an oil burning issue since we got it and is due an MOT soon so we needed to change a broken spring (a pleasure after some J platform cars!) change the pads on the front and we ran a compression test.

New jack made light work of the lift Big Grin

Old pads, oops!

Old vs new!

Compression test came up to 150psi on all four cylinders with the engine cold, so theres nothing wrong with the rings and valves. Looks like dad must have nicked a stem seal when he fitted them. I’ve ordered a head set from and ill get genuine stem seals but obviously nothing will happen till Tuesday now.

Dad was in Glasgow yesterday, so he took my sisters old corsa shell, 4 dead batteries and a cat converter to the scrap yard (£168!) collected the other trailer parts from the galvanisers and then collected me from work.

So we set about assembling the twin axle trailer on top of the two freshly painted axles.

Side longitudinal first:

A frame into place

Beds in place

Crossmembers in place:

So thats how it was left, all the bolts are in place with nuts on them and I’ve started to tighten them in sequence.

We had to nip into town to try and get brake cables, 7 core lighting cable and fit a friends satellite dish. Got the cable eventually so we can make a loom and fit lights tomorrow, but nowhere had brake cables in stock so we’ll order them from ebay.

Tomorrows plan is torquing up all the bolts, making and fitting the loom, fitting the lights on their brackets, mudguards, spare wheel holders and wheels and getting it back out of the garage.

alistairolsen · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 7:15 pm Post subject:

Right, so today...

Set about torquing up all the bolts, crossmember first, then beds to crossmember and then all the 8mm bolts from the beds to the longitudinals front to back. No pics cos it would be as boring to look at as it was to do!

A slight shortage of bolts meant when we started on the mudguards we had to use hexes out from the bed which Im not keen on having next to tyres so Ill swap these out at a later date but we got all the mudguards lined up, cut to fit over the flange and fitted:

We also fitted the winch crossmember and winch and greased it:

Light brackets were the same story as the other trailer made up in folded aluminium. Cut them with a bandsaw:

Marked, drilled, bent and fitted them:

The spare wheel holder was added to the other trailer along with the winch post (need a winch when I have some more cash)

Final job of the day was making up the loom, heatshrink on the smaller bits and annoyingly some (blue) tape on some of the larger junctions.

Doesnt seem much but the small bits seem to take forever! Painted the centre of the rear axle again so id can definitiely go outside tomorrow (raining again).

Im planning to get up early and do a couple of hours in the garage before the F1 tomorrow and then crack on when its done, want to get the loom in, wheels on and get it outside and then get some tips in my new lathe tools and shim them up for making up a dummy input shaft.

alistairolsen · Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2010 8:39 pm Post subject:

Relaxed day today, it was Easter after all!

Got up this morning and went out for an hour and started looming up the trailer. Fitted the loom and all the terminals followed by some rubber strips and anti-looses to hold the ramps:

Watched the Formula one with breakfast and then we fitted some wheels and kicked it outside after a bit of a reshuffle:

Started setting up some of the new tools for centre height, cutting and filing some shims:

Then I set about machining up my dummy input shaft for lining up the parts of the gearbox. First I centre drilled the end of the bar stock:

Then bored it out with a twist drill:

Then I tapped a thread into the hole by applying pressure to the sliding tailstock with the tap in the jacobs chuck and turning the lathe over by hand

Next I centre drill the bolt head so I could run the piece between centres later:

I cut out two disks with the bandsaw and filed them roughly round, drilled the centres and cleaned them up neatly before bolting the whole lot together with threadlock:

Started cutting it down to size until it was close, then moved it out between centres, as I want to machine the plates and turn down the other end for the crank, before parting it off, all in one go without having to unclamp it.

Tomorrow I want to get it finished smile