163 replies to this topic

[Half Fast]

How will the gears be arranged to drive the four wheels?

 

Cheers,

[Gator Bob]

You "Build Excitement"

[Pablo]

I have some extra duffies if anybody needs 'em.

[Don Weaver]

P sent...

Don Weaver

[Russell Sheldon]

Stunning work as ever, Rick.
 
There are pictures of a 1/32 six-wheeler built by Derek Cooper in the 1980s:




 
Derek Cooper six-wheeler
 
Williams actually built two six-wheelers. They added extra wheels at the rear of the car to improve traction. The first of their six-wheelers, based on their 1979 car, was called the FW07D. Front wheels could be used at the back of the car to maintain the same or larger contact patch, while reducing drag compared with conventional wide rear tyres. The increased wheelbase meant it also had longer downforce-generating skirts.
 
Their second car was the FW08B. The car was about 250mm longer than a standard FW08 and all four rear wheels were driven. Even before the car began testing in late 1982, rumours had begun that the FIA were preparing to ban six-wheeled cars from Formula 1. For 1983 the FIA announced all cars should have a maximum of four wheels with two of them driven, and that killed off the last six-wheeler for good.
 
An interesting aside. Jody and Ian Scheckter will probably be the only brothers to have driven six-wheel Formula 1 cars. Jody drove the P34 and Ian the March 2-4-0.
 
Kind regards,
 
Russell

[Mark H]

You loco Rick! Don't really see how this could work on the track at all... but it sure is going to look cool!

[Steve Okeefe]

Rick,

 

Nice work on the brass bracket arms, Captain.

 

Drilling holes is easy, but drilling an exact size hole in an exact location (much less three of them) well, that's another story.

 

Carry on!

 

Steve

[dc-65x]

Thanks for the link and the kind words, Russell. I also included a link to Derek's amazing car in my "Help With Gearing" topic. I'm very sorry to hear of his health problems.
 
Si, estoy muy loco Mark.
 
Carrying on, SteveO .
 
I whipped out my indispensable "Rick's Jig" and set up four pins to set the rail spacing and set the wheelbase at 4.5" overall, 3.5" to the first rear wheels. I figured that if 4.5" works for stock car it should work for six-wheel cars... maybe:
 

 
I bent all four rails right the first time and that's NEVER happened before. I'm usually one for three .
 
Anyway, with those on I could slide the chassis back and forth in the jig with the four rail spacing pins keeping things aligned. That allowed me to find other jig pin locations to line up the drop arm up stop rod and the drop arm pivot tubes:
 

 
The drop arm pivot tube is 3/32" with a .047" wire in front to reinforce it and a .030" wire for a plumber upward stop. After all three are soldered up the center crap-o-la is cut out:
 

 
Time for the drop arm:
 

 
Onward...

[Pablo]

What a machine!!

[Tex]

Hey Tex, it's not "way out there" is simple physics...

 
Hey, doods, it's just simple physics; nothing to see here.
 
NOT!
 
We are a captive audience, Rick!

[SlotStox#53]

What a machine!!

Couldn't put it better myself, Pablo!!

Onward, Rick...

[Steve Okeefe]

Rick,
 
I was wondering what wheelbase you were going to choose, and the logic you would use to determine it. I'm thinking you could easily justify a five inch (120 inch in scale) WB, but then it might be like driving a Greyhound bus!
 
Not sure a short (or short and adjustable) guide lead would help either; placing the guide post near the front wheels on 4.5" (or longer) WB cars never worked for me...
 
Shiny goodness as usual; rock on!
 
Steve

[Tim Tyler]

If memory serves me correctly, the March 2-4-0 pictured in Rick's earlier post came out in late 1976 (or perhaps 1977). I raced a 1/32 scale replica of it in New Zealand at the annual "Titan Products" invitation meeting just prior to Christmas that year. The body was a conventional March (761?) Formula 1 body, and the system to drive the four rear wheels was similar to what Rick is building.


The "front-rear" axle had a 36t Taylor contrate gear, and a 26t Cox spur gear driving an pinion on the idler shaft. The idler shaft used an 8t Cox pinion. The "rear-rear" axle had another 26t Cox spur gear being driven by the idler pinion. The system worked very well, despite the relatively low-tech engineering. I won the race, by MILES!!! It was bloody fast, and allowed us to run a more powerful motor than usual yet still get the power down controllably. Then, of course, the thing was banned. Rightly so, I think.


The car was built by then chassis-guru Louis Hatten, who was an incredible innovator. He also built a six-wheel 1/24 scale sidewinder Can-Am car, with four wheels driving at the rear. It was an ingeniously simple system: the motor was full sidewinder with the armature parallel to the axle(s). It had only one pinion, but it had rear axles (and gears) on both the front AND the back of the motor. Neat!


I am so happy to see Rick doing this, as I had almost forgotten about that famous six-wheel March I raced once.

[Russell Sheldon]

Hi Tim,
 
March built the 2-4-0 (the designation used to describe railway rolling stock: two wheels leading, four driven wheels, zero trailing wheels) in late 1976. After initial testing, both works drivers, Ian Scheckter and Alex-Dias Riberio, reckoned there was nothing to be gained from the twin rear wheels and couldn't see the point of it, so the car was later converted to four wheels and raced at the tail end of the season as a 771.

Ian Scheckter practiced the 2-4-0/771 for the 1977 Brazilian GP, the only time it appeared in six-wheel trim at a GP meeting. It didn't start the race.

At the end of the year March pulled out of Grand Prix racing and the car was sold to British hillclimb specialist Roy Lane, who asked for the car to be re-built in its original six-wheel form. Lane promptly won the opening two rounds of the British Hill climb championship in the "2-4-0", probably the only other time a six-wheeler won anything but, like Scheckter, Lane didn't think the six wheels gave him any real advantage over four wheelers. So it was again put back to four wheels and Lane stormed through the rest of the season to become British Hillclimb Champion.

Kind regards

Russell

[Jairus]

Hmmm... makes me wonder of this experiment (though well executed) will end the same Russell.   

But, I'm glued to updates regardless because I love gears, brass, and superfluous engineering same as everyone here.

[dc-65x]

I'll be off line for awhile but I'll be back on this project ASAP. I'm "going under the knife" and I'm not sure how long it will be until I'm back at the workbench....soon I hope!

 

Anywho here's where I'm leaving off. The rear end of the chassis looked funny. The rear axle bracket sitting out there all by its lonesome. So I added a pair of half rails from the front of the axle bracket to the rearmost rear axle "Duffy":

 

 

It allowed me to solder up the whole rear end into one solid piece:

 

 

Lastly I modified the crusty 7/8" drop arm to look like the neato TEAM NUTLEY piece:

 

 

 

So, that's my stopping point. I hope to be back soon......

[SlotStox#53]

Great stopping point, the rear end and the drop arm look sweet .

All the best for your time away Rick ,hope you're back ASAP and a swift recovery from "the knife" .. your workbench and many projects need you back

Paul

[MSwiss]

Great job so far, on a real interesting project.

 

Good luck with your date with the knife.

[dc-65x]

Thank you guys.

 

I'm really having fun with this project. I'm looking forward to giving it way too much power and achieving LUDICROUS SPEED!
 

[Duffy]

"Date with the knife"...Yah, I don't normally do this, but it's just right there. And it's short.

 

[dc-65x]

I'll be off line for awhile but I'll be back on this project ASAP. I'm "going under the knife" and I'm not sure how long it will be until I'm back at the workbench....soon I hope!

It's been 2 weeks since my date with "the knife" and boy am I glad that's over with! Check out the "da vinci robotic surgical system" they carved on me with....YIKES!

 

 

That's the patient underneath that multi-armed gizmo. Instead of splitting you open stem to stern they just poke 6 little holes in you and send in the "bot".

 

Okie Dokie, enough of modern medicine and back to vintage slot cars.

 

I finished up the drop arm with its pivot tube and spring:

 

 

It also gets a plumber pivot tube with a "blow hole" to clean out the Crap-O-La like acid flux and water:

 

 

Then my Rick's Jig help make up 3 sets of cross braces that will tie the plumber pans together and also serve as body mounts.

 

The front 2 are have an opening on the bottom as pictured to allow plumber pans to go down with the drop arm. The rear cross brace is solid to serve as a plumber pan down stop. I'll show how the movement works on the finished chassis:

 

 

Here's the chassis in my Rick's Jig with the plumber pans and 2 of the 3 cross braces installed. Leaving the cross pieces long allows me to use the jig to line things up:

 

 

All the extra length has been cut off, everything is deburred and the chassis is in the tumbler now......

[SlotStox#53]

Wow that operating machine looks amazing!

 

As for progress on the six wheeler ....... Awesome!   Really love the motor bracket.. Look forward to seeing this all done!

[dc-65x]

Thanks Paul. An hour and a half to go in the tumbler for a 4 hour stint......

[Steve Okeefe]

Rick,

 

Hmmph...  That robotic surgical system looks a lot like my soldering robot. 

 

Your hexapod is coming along nicely...  How wide are you planning to make each of your rear tires?

[dc-65x]

Hi Steve,

 

I'm building the car to 1968 Car Model Series rules so the rear tires will be 5/8" wide. The cars that inspired the design are from the last CM race in Dec 1968 (the magazine is dated months later than the race, as usual):

 

 

 

 

 

The chassis is out of the tumbler and WD40 soak. Pictures soon......