A Spectre of progress

I’ve kept you all in the dark a bit about how the Spectre is going. Sorry about that, I just don’t seem to have found the time to update this site.

However, lots of things have been happening. And, starting at the end first, the most significant is probably that I went up to Jeremy’s place yesterday  to pick up the chassis and the bodywork. As you can see from the photo we managed to pile it all up on the trailer but, to be honest, we should really  have rented a van. Still, it worked OK.

Then, of course, there was a fight to get the stuff disported about the house somehow. That was mostly successful, although the spare bedroom is looking distinctly unspare at the moment.

Back a couple of weeks though, and other things have been happening. I’ve bought some new driveshafts, intended for a Fiesta, complete. The intention is to return a couple of old shafts, bought from a scrappy, so as to get the exhange fees back. The photo shows the new driveshaft and one of the old ones. The new driveshafts have a socking great lump of rubber sitting half way along the shaft. I can only assume that this is some of damper, still it’s probably going to go as I’m probably only going to keep the joints from these shafts.

I managed to get the bearing races off the old hubs, using a bearing separator that I borrowed from Al Boulton. As part of the kit of parts I got from Jeremy I got the rear uprights, as in the photo here. Included with these are new wheel bearings so I’ll have to press all this lot together somehow, probably using a combination of my vice, some big plates and a big bolt.

Talking about bolts, Jeremy’s suspension design uses wishbones that are intended for use with metalastic bushes. Although Jeremy disagrees with me, as far as I’m concerned these are spawn of Satan as they  allow the suspension to move all the time, other than in the direction it’s supposed to move in.

The alternative is to use either rodends, but that would need new wishbones making, or polyurethane bushes, like those made by Powerflex. I’ve had an abortive experiment with these in the past. However, I think I’ll have another go as they seem to make sense to me. What’s more, as I’ve got the lathe now I think it might make things rather easier. I might buy the cheaper versions that Rally Design sell though, as a car full of the Powerflex ones is rather expensive.

Having got the chassis it’s now sitting on the floor in the garage. As you can see it’s sitting on the newly shiny floor and is actually sharing the space with the Fury. One interesting observation is the backrest on the new chassis, its highest point, is actually above the highest point on the Fury chassis, even though it’s still sitting on the floor. I’m hoping that this is evidence of a generally stiffer chassis, certainly it looks as though it’s stiffer.

I’ve been spending a lot of time working out how the diff mount is going to work, and that’s spilling out a bit into what the reverse mechanism is going  to be. However, in order to work out the fine details of this, I need to know exactly where the engine, and in particular its output sprocket, are going to be. So, I’ve  borrowed some engine casings from Andy and these are currently sitting inside the chassis looking all self important. As you can see a Quaife chain diff is the exact weight needed to stop the engine falling off the lump on the bottom of the billet sump. I’ve made some reasonably accurate measurements of this arrangement and I can now update the CAD model of the diff. When I’ve done that I’ll show you a picture of what it looks like.

At least we’re up and running now. Mind you, there’s a huge amount to do; I’m feeling a bit concerned about the amount at the moment, to be honest.