Catch-up Blogs - 20th - 26th April

After my accident when I was attacked by the front hub (who left that hanging from the roof?) and saw stars for a few days, I finally remebered that I am supposed to be writing a blog.

So, where were we?

Having painted the front hubs and finished building the suspension units we decided the chassis would be easier to work on if it was raised up a couple of feet. A hunt round the garage, or CMF (Component Manufacturing Facility) produced a lot of old wood and a frame was fairly quickly built. Continuing our NASA analogy it was named "The Crawler" and casters added to make it movable.

Then it was mounted on the CTV (Crawler Transportation Vehicle) and taken to the VAB.

Before the Rocket could be positioned, the floor panel had to be marked out ready for cutting back at the CMF.

Here we see an engineer skillfully marking the panel..

We haven't stopped!

Hi all/both,

this week's theme is "parts that stop the wheels from falling off". First up we have a sample of the completed suspension bushes. Cliff may need to re-mount his vice, but otherwise I think everyone got through the whole lot unscathed. If only we could say the same for the next step!

Here is one of the uprights dad was cleaning in the last update, after brushing and Hammerite-ing (other direct-to-rust paints are available). It's just hanging around drying off, out of the way... or so we thought! If you look closely you might spot traces of blood on it! Yes, dad has managed to get run over already, and we barely have any parts together yet!

Hopefully he'll be along soon with another exciting update, assuming that he's stopped seeing stars!

• Progress - All suspension bushes complete, uprights cleaned and painted
• Plans - Dad's secret project, buying some nuts & bolts

The clean up begins....

As Tom will be bringing the completed suspension arms at the weekend, I thought I'd better clean the front uprights and steering rack. These are some of the second hand, or "classic" as we prefer to call them, parts used in the build. Next the uprights will be wire brushed and painted and the rack relubricated and fitted with new gaitors and track-rod ends.

Bits + work = parts!

Most of today was spent in Cliff's garage/workshop, cleaning up the wishbones & bushes. As you can see from the picture, we got as far as popping one set together!

:-)

I'll admit there was a bit of workshop envy going on (so much space... and he has his own lathe!).   :)   Back again tomorrow, unless the predicted snow is bad enough to trap us all indoors. In which case we'll probably be online for a race (or as I like to think, practice!).

:-)

• Progress - one down
• Plans - seven to go

Always use protection!

On Saturday we did some "research" in B&Q, then went to the VAB to wrap some protection around the chassis. Should be enough to keep it safe from getting scratched by our clumsiness! We also picked up the wishbones, which I have brought back to Sheffield to prepare. Dad took the used parts (front uprights and steering rack) to clean up, he's also going to be cleaning some of his tools (hopefully he will post with some exciting toolbox pictures!).

:-)

• Progress - bit of protection added
• Plans - cleaning & filing