101 replies to this topic

[don.siegel]

Rick, 

 

Looks great but how are you going to attach that endbell to the bracket? Maybe I missed something in here... 

 

Don 

[dc-65x]

Thanks guys. My Super-Boochie concept idea might be turning into a Beasty-Boochie.      

 

Gluing the bearing plate to the end bell is only to keep it from shifting to a slightly different position when the screws are removed to attach the motor to the chassis. Those screws are what lock everything together. And I've also made the screw holes in the bearing plate with almost no slop. When the screws are loosened the bearing plate doesn't shift around.

 

I've had good luck using JB Weld to attach bearing plates to Champion Orange Picker end bells. This time I'm trying this ZAP glue. Again, this is just to keep the bearing plate from falling off during motor installation. It is not to add strength to the assembly. The screws lock things up tight:

 

 

If the bearing plate comes loose when I'm using the motor during chassis construction I'll go back to JB Weld. 

[dc-65x]

One last detail with the end bell. It needs to be clearanced for larger commutators used on rewound armatures. An Xacto knife takes car of that shown with the end bell on the top:

 

 

Now on to the can modifications starting with removing the awful crap-o-la bearing. I've tried various methods to accomplish this. Using my milling machine with an end mill I can plunge cut a few thousands at a time until the bearing housing simply falls off:

 

 

A can bearing "duffy" lathe turned from brass and it..........

 

 

.......and a real ball bearing are soldered to the can from the inside.....

 

 

.........to keep things neat and clean on the outside:

 

 

 

The can is finished with drilling the end bell mounting holes:

 

 

 

[dc-65x]

Before final assembly of the motor I set it up with just the can and stripped end bell all wrapped up in Teflon tape for use during chassis construction:

 

 

A pair of rear bearing retainers ("duffys") were lathe turned for 1/4" ball bearings:

 

 

I opened up the Russkit bracket to 3/16" using a hand drill with a tapper pin reamer and finishing with an on size reamer:

 

 

The bracket is all soldered up and I'm ready to set up the Rick's jig and start bending main rails:

 

[dc-65x]

I'm setting the inside rail spacing at 15/16". Spacer gizmos made from 1/8" brass rod make this possible with the Rick's jig:

 

 

Here's the jig set up with all the pins and spacer gizmos for the rest of the main rails:

 

 

All the main rails installed:

 

 

After I install the drop arm hinge and piano wire cross brace I'll follow Mike Steube's chassis building video and go over all the solder joints again with a good dose of heat and acid flux to smooth them out........

[Pablo]

    

 

Fresh duffies, I love it       

The protective wrap makes the motor look like it's gonna rob a bank  ​ 

[dc-65x]

HI Pablo,

 

Look at all the stuff I had plugged into the jig:  

 

 

Back in the day I mostly had burned fingers.  

[dc-65x]

With the main rails tacked in place the chassis was straight, flat and really needed the solder joints touched up and the entire chassis cleaned up:

 

 

But first the rear of the chassis needed beefing up......

 

 

Sandy took care of that and I followed his lead for the most part just tweaking mine a bit:

 

 

I added the rod soldered to the bottom of the Russkit bracket and to each side of the main rails:

 

 

 

The center section of the chassis is finished, cleaned up (but not polished yet   ):

 

 

 

 

The drop arm is next.........

[dc-65x]

Sandy's drop arm has that distinctive radius cut that I wanted to duplicate:

 

 

My syphering guesstimates the radius at 1 5/8".  A art supply store circle template, Lucky Bobs armature dye and a scribe laid out the cut and a cutoff disc roughed it out:

 

 

Files and sandpaper finished it off:

 

 

The Rick's jig lines up the piano wire bits to hold the guide tube:

 

 

The rear of the drop arm needs some work. Sandy cut off the rear of his drop arm flush with the pivot tube. This allows it to clear the piano wire cross brace so the drop arm and move freely.

 

I decided to let the drop arm hang over the cross brace and use Mr. Milling Machine to cut a .010" step to allow it to drop down a bit:

 

 

 

The cross brace allows this much "drop" for the arm. No separate downward stop needed:

 

 

The center section is ready for "floating pans".......

 

 

 

[dc-65x]

I decided to make up the wheels and tires and assemble a roller to set the body on before I finalize the pans.

I'm using our reproduction Russkit wheels, discontinued Alpha "Humongous" donuts and K&B hard vinyl Goodyear front tires:

 

 

The rears fresh out of the Hudy and 1/32" oversize for final finishing:

 

 

The fronts finish ground:

 

[Larry Horner]

I'm a couple of posts behind but your motor mount looks uber strong and I still marvel at your custom made Duffy's. Wonder if my landlord would mind if I put a metal lathe in the foyer?

[dc-65x]

Hi Larry,

 

I'd have to put a real lathe in my garage and the older I get the less attractive that is. I'm using this little hobby lathe for the duffys:

 

 

I even managed to make some set screw wheels with it. But all through the process I kept thinking how much faster and easier it would be with a bigger machine...........in the garage.......ARG!   

[dc-65x]

I wanted to finish up the motor since it is no longer needed as a jig motor. The can got Champion magnets and extra .004" thick shims to tighten up the air gap:

 

 

I looked through all the races tech charts in Model Car Journal between January and April 1968 and found the racers were, by an overwhelming majority, running single 26 winds in their motors. There was one lonely single 27 listed and that's what I happen to have:

 

 

The armature for my early 1968 build should have:

 

Standard thickness laminations, no .007 or .005 jobs.

Fiber end plate insulators for the armature stack, no powder coat.

Soldered wire to commutator connections, no welding.

 

The new old stock Thorp beauty fills the bill. Here it's all spiffed up and ready to install:

 

 

Soon I'll find out if this motor lives up to its name:   

 

 

I think the end bell give it a pretty trick look:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[don.siegel]

What a good looking motor Rick! 

 

The arm has no apparent epoxy: I assume it's a transparent type that diffused through the windings. Seems odd to not even see a hint of it - or maybe that's just my sloppy epoxy jobs I'm used to... and by the way, we can see this detail thanks to your excellent camera work. 

 

Don 

[dc-65x]

Thanks Don. With a bright light and magnifying glass I can see traces of epoxy shining between some of the windings. I thought about adding more epoxy but that might throw the arm out of balance. And since Thorp balancing had such a good reputation I thought I'd just leave well enough alone!  

[dc-65x]

With the motor done I got it in the chassis with a vintage steel 7T pinion gear from Buzzy's eBay auction and a NOS Weldun 31T crown gear:

 

 

NOS Cox quick change guide, Cox Superflex lead wires and Phase III braid:

 

 

Careful positioning of the guide in the drop arm's cutout makes for a built in guide stop:

 

 

With the body positioned over the roller center section........

 

 

.......I can position the pan hinges which also support the pin tube body mounts correctly. i want them about 1/4" back from the wheel openings in the body:

 

 

Pans are next and the chassis will be done.

[Pablo]

    Motor looks like it could burn furrows in the track     

[dc-65x]

Thanks Pablo 

 

I decided to do my pans a bit differently than Sandy did on his beautiful chassis. He used 1/64" or 1/32" X 1/4" brass strip and built up the outer edge with 1/16" brass rod. He also had to bend a kink in the piano wire hinge so it would sit flat on the brass strip pan:

 

 

I used 1/16" thick brass strip (leaving off the 1/16" brass rod) and machined a little relief for the wire hinge so I wouldn't have to bend that kink for it to lay flat:

 

 

My home made vise stop meant I could quickly put the pan in the vise, machine the relief on one end, flip it around and machine the other end, put in another pan and repeat the process:

 

 

The pan hinges also have the body mount pin tubes soldered on top of them. I set the spacing up so my Rick's jig would align them both by leaving them long and cutting to size after soldering:

 

 

 

Here's the pan hinge and pin tube soldered into the little relief in the pan:

 

 

Here are the pans installed on the chassis along with a down stop just like Sandy's:

 

 

With the pans installed the chassis is finished. I will put a nice polish on it but first I want to get the body mounted:

 

[dc-65x]

I found that for this factory trimmed body I could use my Rick's jig to square up the rolling chassis and body for mounting:

 

 

It worked amazingly well locking the body in alignment for pinning. Here's the jig and all the various dowel pins and shims:

 

 

I always like to include engine detail like velocity stacks but the ones on the McLaren Mk6 I'm using for inspiration aren't vertical but angled at about 45 degrees. Maybe there was a model kit back in the day that could have been "kit bashed" for stacks but I found this from Shapeways and I like it so much I just have to use it:

 

 

It has amazing detail with the individual tubes connection to the manifold. I epoxied reinforced everything from the bottom into one solid lump and cut it down:

 

 

it sits over 1/16" lower:

 

 

I made a little styrene motor box for it to sit down as low in the body as the chassis would allow:

 

 

I'm thinking it should look pretty cool:

 

 

Now for an interior.............

 

[Tex]

your use of those velocity stacks are closer to the real deal on an M6 than you might imagine... they weren't vertical on the M6!

[dc-65x]

That's right Tex.
 

...........on the McLaren Mk6 I'm using for inspiration aren't vertical but angled at about 45 degrees.

 
I wasn't sure what I could do until I found these angled stacks.

[Alchemist]

Hi Rick,

 

Just when I believe that your project fabrication won't get any more fantastic than usual, you go and add wonderful tidbits, like the intake manifold with stacks you came across!

 

The finish on that piece is so smooth and so nice.

 

The only word that I feel is most appropriate is "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"! ! !   LOL

 

Thanks for sharing Rick.

 

More pictures please.

 

Ernie

[dc-65x]

Here you go Ernie. Here's the engine on the on the factory team Mk6:

 

 

My stacks will sit a bit higher but they will be as low as I can make them in a "low and wide handling body".

 

Here's the link to the engine detail at Shapeways 3D Modeling:

 

LS3 OBX intake 1/24

[Larry Horner]

Wow, the detail in their model is awesome ... in the 3D viewer, I swear I could see the butterflies! That blower and manifold look pretty sweet too. Rick, is this your first venture into 3D printing?

[Martin]

Too bad Shape-ways part did not include the distributor. It seems to dominate the engine.

 

Rick,can the distributor be added, looks like there is room ?