Sunday, February 20, 2011
That Hunter again
Stacey reminded me that Jeff Simmonds himself, owner of J & S Fibregass, owned the car in the early 80s and in that time it was subject to another SCW article. Here it is in the October/November 1985 edition...
The Triden today.
Well, Wayne had a great afternoon catching up with his dad's old car. Here's a couple of photos from the day.
That's Wayne and his young son on board.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Ron Tonkin and the Triden
Wayne Tonkin who lives over in Albury, sent me some photos from his dad, Ron's album. Ron raced the Triden in 1961, 1962.
Mallala 1960
Collingrove 1961
Clubhouse Corner, Mallala 1961
Collingrove Hillclimb 1961
Collingrove 1961
Collingrove again 1961
A bit of history from Wayne, Lee Nicolle and Graham Waller, the current owner - The Triden was built in 1956 by Graham Driscoll using a chassis and running gear from a 1949 Triumph 2000 roadster and combining this with the motor,gearbox and diff from his Holden sedan racing car. I'm pretty sure Graham was the guy who ground cams back then and ran midgets at Rowley Park etc. - see below...
The Triden was raced at Port Wakefield by Driscoll minus body during 1957, 1958. It was then sold to Ron Tonkin who manufactured a one-off fibreglass body which was fitted in 1959 and raced by him until 1961. It was then sold to Bill Moyle who road registered it and continued to race it until about 1964. The car was brought into historic racing by Bill's son in 1979. These two pictures appear to be from that period....
AIR
Winton
Mike Gosbell was a subsequent owner and it is now in the hands of Graham Waller who totally restored it in 2000. It's gone from SA to WA to NSW and ironically it presently resides just 20 minutes away from Wayne's home. Wayne has been invited over to see the car and today is the day. He's taking his camera of course and I, for one, am awaiting the outcome.
Kapunda - week 20
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Luke's Hunter
Been off the air for a while. Sorry about that. Thanks for the emails and phonecalls enquiring about my health. The hunter that Luke has recently acquired is quite a famous one really. Here's some pics from way back when it was a South Australian car.
It was owned then by Phil Soden (I'm relying on my memory which is not like it used to be) who I think acquired it from the estate of the original owner/builder in the 70s. He subsequently moved to Sydney but retained the SA rego until he offered it for sale in about 1982. It was built by Ian and Jill Hindmarsh who had a garage/workshop in country NSW and here's an article on it from the Nov. 1962 SCW.
They raced the car successfully and I just noticed this page from an old 1963 VSCCA hillclimb program.
Ian in the 70s met an untimely end when he was drowned along with his sports car team mate, David Moline when David's dad, Paul's Sydney-Hobart yacht, Nimbus II, capsized. This is the obituary that appeared in Racing Car News at the time.
Anyway, Phil bought the car and eventually offered it to me in the 80s. I was a bit backward in coming forward and that's probably when Geoff picked it up.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
McArlus Cars - 16
This is the long awaited driveshaft update.
After discovering a problem with the length of the driveshafts, and consequently running out of suspension travel, I have spent a lot of time (and beers) trying to find a solution.
To start with I have different length shafts.
I am sure that all of the shafts, I have six of them; have come from the same model car at the wreckers. I cannot say with certainty if they came of manual or automatics, but if I had to guess, I think I would have taken them all off manuals. It is important to remember that I only use the short shaft out of the cars. In the KA laser one drive shaft is about 300mm longer than the other, so to get six they must have come off six different cars and the shorter ones I have must have come off two different cars. Sometimes you can be unlucky.
I measured each assembled shaft fully compressed and proved it. Two of them are short and four of them are about 6mm longer. I then started to disassemble them to try to find the difference. In the picture that shows the outer end of three axles, all of the inner ends are aligned. The top one is a long, the middle a short and the bottom one is a modified short, but more on that later.
Once I had proved that the difference was in the axles, I really wanted to find out more information. I spent a lot of time on the internet and talking to driveshaft reconditioners without a lot of luck. Most of them said that it couldn’t happen, although a couple did say that it does happen from time to time, but that it wouldn’t matter. Unfortunately in my case it did!
I investigated all possibilities of a solution.
Ideally the short shaft that carries the sprockets should be shorter. However shortening it would mean that its internal splines would need to be deeper. Ideally the bearings that carried the shaft would need to be changed and located differently as well.
To fix the problem here would mean replacing the bearings, devising a new method of locating them on the sprocket shaft and having a new sprocket shaft made. Clearly this would be an expensive and inconvenient path to take, and despite it being to “right” solution, I wasn’t keen to redesign the shaft and bearing mounting, or spend the money and throw the current custom made parts away, or get shorter axles made.
I have had too many Bolwells to enjoy either of those solutions!
The other area that shortening was possible was in the axles that I had.
After first reassembly all of the suspension, and then moving it through its travel, I carefully determined what actually was the correct driveshaft length, making sure that the bumps stops on the coilovers were compressed before the driveshaft bottomed out. At this point I discovered that even the short axels I had were too long, so I had definitely made an error in the sprocket shaft length!
By closely inspecting the axels I tried to find where I could shorten them. In the picture of the outer end, it can be seen that the CV joint is held on by a wire circlip. This locates in the outer CV joint and prevents it pulling on and off the shaft. In my case there is no length adjustment in the outer CV joint, I don’t know, but assume it is always the case as on a front wheel drive car the outer end has to deal with suspension travel and steering.
By looking closely at the wear marks on the axle (as in the picture) I could shorten the outer in of the axle by moving the circlip groove in by 7mm and then cutting the extra length off the axel (at the original circlip groove). In this way I was losing virtually no loss of spline engagement of the axle with the outer CV joint. This would solve my problem with the “short” axles.
With the “long” axles I also needed to shorten the inner end. This end is where the length adjustment of the driveshaft takes place. The bearing spline is located on the axle by a circlip on the outside end and bears against a shoulder on the axle on the inner end. All of this fits inside the large ‘cup’ and is held in by the large wire circlip in the picture. In this case there is about 25mm of length adjustment, with the bearing sliding in and out of the cup.
You can see in the Inner end picture how I have reduced the shoulder on the top axle by 4mm.
By reducing the shoulder on the axle (on my NEW lathe) I could then remachine the circlip groove and only lose about 1-2mm spline engagement from the axle to the CV joint bearing. I only then needed to remachine the circlip groove and again cut the excess length off the axel.
Although not the perfect solution, I think that this has solved our problem and I will keep a copy of this post in case I ever need to do it again!
Simon.
Driveshafts Outer End
Driveshafts Inner End
Driveshaft & CV Outer
Driveshaft & CV InnerTuesday, February 8, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
Robert Kubica
Director of hand surgery at San Paolo Hospital, Professor Mario Igor Rossello said....
“It has been a very important and difficult operation. Robert Kubica’s right forearm was cut in two places, with significant lesions to the bones and the tendons. We did our best to rebuild the functions of the forearm. It took seven doctors, split into two teams and a total of seven hours to complete the operation. One team was the emergency task force from the hospital of San Paolo (Savona) that is normally appointed to treat this sort of injury, while the other team came from the orthopaedic department of the Santa Corona Hospital (Pietra Ligure). At the end of the operation, Robert’s hand was well vascularised and warm, which is encouraging. Following the surgery, Robert Kubica will remain under permanent monitoring overnight because his condition remains serious.”
Sunday, February 6, 2011
McLaren 2011 part 3.
Some shots from the launch.
Not sure what you can draw from this. Except maybe that one's left handed and the other's right handed.
Or maybe it takes two hands.
McLaren 2011 part 1
McLaren File: 2011
Technical Specifications:
| Chassis | |
| Monocoque | McLaren-moulded carbonfibre composite incorporating front and side impact structures |
| Front suspension | Inboard torsion bar/damper system operated by pushrod and bell crank with a double wishbone arrangement |
| Rear suspension | Inboard torsion bar/damper system operated by pullrod and bell crank with a double wishbone arrangement |
| Electronics | McLaren Electronic Systems. Including chassis control, engine control, data acquisition, dashboard, alternator, sensors, data analysis and telemetry. |
| Bodywork | Carbon-fibre composite. Separate engine cover, sidepods and floor. Structural nose with intergral front wing Driver-operated drag reduction system [active rear wing |
| Tyres | Pirelli P Zero |
| Radio | Kenwood |
| Race wheels | Enkei |
| Brake callipers | Akebono |
| Master cylinders | Akebono |
| Batteries | GS Yuasa Corporation |
| Steering | McLaren power-assisted |
| Instruments | McLaren Electronic Systems |
| Paint solutions | AkzoNobel Car Refinishes using Sikkens Products |
| Engine | |
| Type | Mercedes-Benz FO 108Y |
| Capacity | 2.4 litres |
| Cylinders | 8 |
| Maximum rpm | 18,000 |
| Bank angle | 90° |
| Piston bore maximum | 98mm |
| Number of valves | 32 |
| Fuel | ExxonMobil High Performance Unleaded (5.75% bio fuel) |
| Spark plugs | NGK racing spark plugs specially designed for Mercedes-Benz F1 engine |
| Lubricants | Mobil 1 – combining greater performance, protection and cooling with increased economy and lower emissions |
| Weight | 95kg (minimum FIA regulation weight) |
| KERS [hybrid] | |
| Type | Mercedes-Benz |
| e-Motor | Engine-mounted electrical motor/generator |
| ESS | Integrated energy storage cells and power electronics |
| Power | 60 kW |
| Transmission | |
| Gearbox | McLaren-moulded carbon-fibre composite. Integral rear impact structure |
| Gears | Seven forward and one reverse |
| Gear selection | McLaren seamless shift, hand-operated |
| Clutch | Carbon/carbon, hand-operated |
| Lubricants | Mobil |
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