Yesterday we had some inter-city inter-club racing of C43 and F1, and afterwards a brief pow-wow on how the c43 was performing, and it’s future in our National class(es).
I decided on the way home (2hr drive) to see just how flat I could get one of these
They have dogged me for a couple of years, as whilst the material is excellent, their forming is distorting, and with the chassis being different on each side this leads to a twist and a kick at the rear and l/h side. Up to now, I have got them relatively flat and made up the variances with Lexan or tape
I spent some time with it on a level board (that is really really flat) in front of a light, looking for telltale gaps between the board and the chassis, and with a Sharpie marking out what areas were elevated or seemed too low. It’s pretty much flat and ok in front of the ‘waist’, but behind that it gets pretty squirly.
It’s kind of like doing a Rubik’s cube, any bend you make to fix an area first you need to consider what effect that may have elsewhere.
After a few hours of playing I set it down and went to bed, and finished it off today in the garage
Out of the packet they typically have a raised ‘bubble’ where the Centre rib has been pressed up, in front of the motor box
The left side rear j-bar area is raised, and the rear section from the front of the left axle upright kicks up.
The right side rear j-bar hole is sometimes a bit down (hence the ‘twist’ I mentioned) and it’s common to find small raised areas at the edges of all the bends that create false high-spots making reading what’s really going on impossible until you get rid of these. This should be the first thing you do. If you don’t know what I mean, get a piece of metal, bend it and look at the edge of where it’s bent...
I’ve also seen on many of these a distorted kink in the right wing tip, which is trouble. If you can’t sand it out (we cannot) it can only be left there or hammered flat. This one didn’t have this issue.
Now, after about 8hrs, it’s flat like week-old roadkill hedgehog.
The pans are pretty easy. Mostly finger bends and tweaks. This one seemed to work out easier than others
Tools used were flat-nose pliers, a hand vise, mini press brake, shop press, small hobby hammer and various metal rods and blocks. Under our rules, no sanding of the chassis is allowed.
Will it be any faster, no probably not. But it will be easier to set up with even pans level to the chassis and provide consistent handling. If I get all my chassis set up like this the same, there shouldn’t be too much difference between them (fingers crossed).
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