Brake, turn in and…

I’ve been pressing on, although I don’t seem to be making sufficient progress to make me feel comfortable. Still, some things are happening. I have, though, managed to completely finish the hydraulic side of the braking.

So, here’s a nice shiny picture of the final arrangement of the master cylinders, lurking at the bottom of the footwell.

There’s doesn’t seem to be much point actually putting any fluid in the brakes at the moment though, so I’ll leave that for a while. For all I know, I’ll find something that conflicts with one of the brake pipe runs at some point, meaning I’ve got to change the lines and I hate getting brake fluid on my hands.

As I was doing the hydraulics I ran the line to the rear for the clutch slave cylinder. I haven’t fitted the slave cylinder yet though. So, for the time being, I’ll just leave the line tie-wrapped up in position, as in the photo.

I still wasn’t too sure of the steering column positioning. I seem to have moved it around a lot and never been completely happy with it. However, this time I was determined to finish the job. Luckily, I think I’ve finally managed to do this. This time I’ve ended up using a completely (Escort) standard lower column and I’ve moved up the lower bearing mountings a bit more. This was getting a bit hard to do with spacers so I machined some bushes and welded them into a couple of bits of tubing that I welded to the chassis. (I know, I know…)

You can see all of these bits in the photo on the right. I really think that this is it for the column.

Mind you, there was one final thing to check in that I’ve moved up the column a bit more and there was always a chance that it was going to bash into the underside of the front bodywork. (Just what do you call the front bit of the bodywork on a mid-engined car? “Bonnet” seems wrong somehow. The rear bit is clearly the engine cover. Hmmm.)

So, I refitted the central tub and tried the front bodywork on for size again. The first problem was that front of the tub bashed in the fluid reservoirs as it was being lowered into position. This is because the roll cage requires that the rear part of the tub is put in position first and the whole thing “hinged” about the rear of the tub. Still, that wasn’t too big a deal with the help of a jigsaw. More dust in the garage though…

I said that I’d done all of the hydraulic parts of the braking, and that I have. However, that doesn’t mean that the handbrake is done yet. So, I then spent ages fitting the handbrake lever to the chassis, as in the photo on the right.

This might look a bit confusing as there’s a loop of cable. This is because the Wilwood calipers are a bit lacking in mechanical advantage for the handbrake so this arrangment gives a 2:1 mechanical advantage to the handbrake, at the cost of double the lever travel which means that you have to be a bit careful to adjust the cables so that there’s only a little slack in them. Experience from the Fury shows that that isn’t a problem though. As you might be able to tell from the photo, the cable comes out of the lever heading straight down. So, I machined a bit round lump of Delrin to run the cable around and bolted that in below the lever.

At the right side you can see the compensator that will be attached to the two cables to the rear brakes. I haven’t actually made those cables yet because I’m not completely sure how the cables will attach to the calipers. On the ones on the Fury I had to modify the levers on the calipers so that they didn’t bash into the inside of the wheels. However, I don’t know yet whether that’s going to happen on this car as I don’t yet have the wheels. I have ordered them though, Compomotive CXRs like the ones I’ve got on the Fury and as in the photo on the left. They haven’t arrived yet though. Until they do, I’ll hang fire on finishing the handbrake.

That’s all the J15 stuff. It may have escaped your notice, as you’re probably not as obsessive as I am, that the racing season is coming up full tilt on us. As it’s clear that the J15 isn’t going to be ready for the first race[s] of the season, I spent a while at the end of today just checking that the Fury still worked. I’ve got some more to do to it though before actually racing it. I wonder how you do it?

11 thoughts on “Brake, turn in and…”

  1. All those little jobs are getting there. I see what you mean when you have said the foot well is small. Do the cylinders interfere with your feet or is a cover going over them? Do you think having the cyclinders rotated slightly will give problems with bleeding? Still it look a very neet instalation with the three resevoirs.

    1. I don’t them being rotated will be an issue. Remember that all the air in the system goes out the port towards the brakes anyway. I think you could run them upside down without any problems.

  2. The OCD within me is struggling with why you haven’t put the three outlet brake lines the same way (I’m sure it’s because it’s an easier route to the front brakes), but I’d be fretting about that every lap…

  3. just noticed the cunning holes for removal of the pedal shaft. You asked earlier for ideas on how to do the throttle cable. Taking insparation from the series landrovers which use a lot of rods and levers. Maybe you could use a hollow pedal spindle with a rod through extending in to the tunnel area and attached to the throttle pedal. thus shortening the cable length and reducing the need for a U turn which inevitibly leads to problems. the variable ratio could be achived by using several holes or diffrent levers.

    1. Ah, I wondered if someone would ask me what the holes were for! Well spotted.

      Interesting you should suggest that, because I’d thought about something similar myself, and was also attracted to the thought that it would avoid the U turn. Problem is, I’m feeling a bit short of time… Mind you, if someone else thinks it’s a good idea then perhaps I should persevere. I’d also thought that I could make it so that the beginning part of the throttle travel was more sensitive than the latter. When it’s wet you often need to modulate the throttle below 20% with extreme precision, that’s rarely required above 50% throttle opening when you tend to use it like a switch. I’d wondered about using a lever to get something like that.

      Hmmm… 🙂

  4. What diameter is the spindle? It looks like 12mm on the picks if so you could use a piece of 12mm 1mm wall tube with a bush in each end and a piece of 8mm bar to run inside it. of course a diffrent securing arangement would be needed other than spilit pins maybe shaft gripping washers. A quicker but dirtyer approach would be to run a bar round the back of the pedals hinged with tabs to the spindle. Of course making it so it don’t interfere with the other pedals. As for your ratio set up i’d set it up linear at the pedal i.e. 90deg cable to lever angel at mid travel. To maximise cable travel to reduce sticky/springyness. then alter the linkage at the engine. Where if you set a cable to lever angle of 60deg. a more elegant solution would be a groved cam which altered profile as you opened it. But that could be difficult to make and fine tune.

  5. Hi Tim
    Just registered have been reading your blog for nearly two years now and I am very envious my garage is not big enough to swing a cat in. HaHO
    Any way hope every thing is going well with your build

    The question I wanted to ask you is I’m sure I read in your blog some where that you suffer from motion sickness (sorry for if I’m wrong)
    But if you do what do you take to over come this

    I’ve been Karting recently and after about 45 laps or so I have to stop and be vilanly sick then take afew days to get over this.

    I dont want to stop Karting though

    Thanks

    Reno

    1. Reno,

      Nice to meet another reader!

      I do suffer from motion sickness although not spectacularly badly. I’m useless if I have to passenger in a car and read a map, but driving is usually OK. I’ve been on a theme park ride exactly once in my adult life (it was at Disneyworld when we lived in the US) and that took me most of a day to get over. Oddly, when I was an undergraduate we used to go to Blackpool after exams and I never seemed to suffer too much; perhaps the over-consumption of alcohol had something to do with it.

      There are a couple of circuits, though, that do cause me issues as they do for many people. Most particularly is Cadwell. My theory is that the negative G over the mountain, where the car leaves the ground, is the culprit.

      I’ve got two solutions, usually taken in tandem. The first is the active ingredient in many over-the-counter travel sickness pills: hyoscine. That does a good job, as does ginger! Stem ginger is, of course, yummy but I can often be seen before a race at Cadwell swapping ginger nuts with Henry Carr, another RGBer who suffers similarly.

      HTH,

      Tim

  6. Hi Tim

    Thanks for your reply, I had read on the internet that Ginger was quite sucsesful and was going to try that.
    I will try the Hyoscine hope that works

    This year I’m hoping to attend one of your race meetings hope you do well with your new car, when are you hoping to get its first run.

    Any way will not bore you any more just to say thanks and goodluck for the coming season.

    I’ll be reading all about it keep up the blogs

    Kev
    (Reno)

    1. Your guess is as good as mine as to when the J15 makes it out. Just watch the progress here, I guess.

      If you do come to a meeting, come and say hello. 🙂

      Tim

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