New Dampers and other changes | Belly Tank Lakester Ep87

Описание: New dampers / Water tank complete / Smoother rear fairing / Better gearchange lever mechanism.

1) The 87 year old lever dampers I had on the front may be cool but they didn't actually work when I went down the beach. The front was bouncing along - the spring worked but no damping. No surprise really. You can have them rebuilt but very expensive. At the beach last year there were lots of cars there with regular telescopic dampers and when I looked them up online, 1934 Terraplane and Hudson cars were among the first to use them so should be OK with VHRA rules therefore.
I have had to create a bolt-on structure with outriggers sticking out each side to mount the upper part of the dampers to. I test fit it here and all looks promising.

2) The old head fairing had shark gill type air intakes on each side to get air down into the radiator (failed) and also the carb air cleaner. I wanted to try something different to dozens of louvres which would get more air in than louvres would, also louvres are hard to make on a tightly curved panel.
As I am now going to use a water tank, I have removed all but a few left for the air cleaner and had to shape, weld and blend in fresh aluminium where the old intakes were. Also had to weld a panel back into the main bodyshell that I had previously cut out to let air flow down into the radiator. I have learned from previous mistakes and used pop rivets to hold the new panel in place for tack welding, before drilling them out and welding up the holes. It works just fine as a way to do this.

3) Water tank: After filling it with water for a third, or was it a fourth? - time, it now seems to be leak free. This now has load spreading mounts welded on to allow it to be bolted to the frame rails of the car. I have also roughed out a layout for my auxiliary water pump. This will pump water through a mini-radiator when the car is parked to cool the tank-water down, but only if I need to use it.

4) Gearchange: The mechanism at the cockpit end could do with some improvement. It worked last time but you have to fight with it a bit ! Some kind of lever based mechanism would make this a lot better. The challenge now is how to do this without having to put a blister on the outside of the bodywork. I don't want to do that unless I really have to so some experiments are underway here, trying a few ideas out. You do one thing and it causes a new problem if you aren't careful.