John’s Lakester

Target March 2001

February 2001

Things are moving. The biggest job left is to make the body for the rear of the tank. this will need lots of paper, plaster, fibreglass and time. The canopy has been mounted and hinged, but is not yet complete. Another few layers of glass and a windscreen are still to come. I have half made the battery location in the rear of the car.

We had a DLRA meeting on Sunday at the Aussie Desert Cooler radiator shop in Preston. There was quite a few new people there who are hoping to be at the lake next month. It is looking like a good meeting. I must say, when Norm and Vicki put on a spread, they do a damn fine job of it.

I can't get narrow rims for the front of the car. It looks like I will be running on the rims from my '37 Dodge sedan.

With the tires we have for the rear, our absolute maximum speed should be 173 MPH. This is of course assuming that the engine has enough power to pull 7000 RPM in top gear, and there is no tire slip. Over 175 we need a parachute, so I don't want to do that, as we don't have one.

The glass part of the body has been laid up. I now are dismantling the car to fully weld it, and to make the firewall, and put the frame inside the body. It is a tight fit next to the radiator, but a little rubbing won't hurt.

We have got the torque setttings for the twin cam motor from Mark Rozzano in California, who answered my posting about it on the Usenet, as always, anything that can go wrong will, and the bearings supplied by toyota were 10 though undersize, and not the standards that we asked for. Apparently we are taking 14 thou of the head, but the motor will be stock otherwise. we have borrowed some carbies of one of Pauls mates that are off an Alfa, but should do the job.

Mark from Port Pirie has been talking to me in my role as Chief Steward for this years meeting, as he is running his car for the first time, and we were talking about the things yet to be done on the cars, (heaps for me) and I mentioned that we didn't know much about the motor and hadn't seen a manual. About half an hour later, he rang back and said he had one, and would post it over for us. I haven't checked, but Paul should have it by now. It will be greatly appreciated. Mark has a 5 litre Holden, and is hoping to run over 150Mph.

I have welded the chassis, and made the firewall. The chassis has been painted in a mixture of Caterpillar Yellow, and a bluey turquoise that I picked up at a swap meet a few years ago, but hadn't found anything to paint it on. I have now started to put it all back together again. I hope to get the motor tonight (Sun 25/2) now.

I have decided not to put a frame inside the rear of the body. It is getting too late in the show. I hope the glass will be sufficient to hold up. I have seen glass hotrods without any steel in them, and they manage OK for a while.

The assembly is slow, and there does not appear to be much progress when looking at the car.Nothing fits the way it came apart. I have been wasting time chasing tubes for the tires, as you are not allowed to run tubeless, I have started to bog the rear of the body, and this needs a lot of bog. Today, Sunday, I will continue the bogging up of the fiberglass, as soon as I get some more, and I hope to mount the canopy on it's frame. No sign of a windscreen yet. I am starting to look at things that can be done on the lake in case things The wiring is about half done, but that can be done anywhere. There are no fuel lines yet, the bottom water pipe has yet to be made, and it covers half the length of the car. The tailshaft loop hasn't been made yet, which will be a bit of overkill for a tailshaft that is 7 inches from tip to tail, but the rule book says you have to have one.

The fire system I was purchasing has fallen through due to a typo on the catalog, which lists it at 5KG, but it is only 5LB, which means I would have to have 2 to meet the regs. I do however have a nice blue helmet, but no drivers suit yet.

26/2/01 The motor and gearbox have been assembled, Paul was talking to the mechanic at Euroa who works out of what used to be the Toyota dealer about 20 years ago, and he said that there was a whole heap of old Toyota shit in one of the storerooms out the back, in there he found a couple of service manuals, and a head gasket off something, that is not quite exactly what we need, but close enough. The gasket sets we got from Toyota were not the right ones. Toyota have been hopeless, they sent the wrong bearings, wrong gaskets as well. I would hate to have to make a living depending on them. The new gaskets are good, as the alternative was to use either aluminium roof paint or araldite epoxy glue on the old one. Both have been known to work in a pinch, but Lake Gairdner is a long way from anywhere if it doesn't. Paul has spent today doing the valve clearances, which use shims for adjustment. He thinks the engines poor performance for its previous owner is possible linked to the poor adjustment, and that the valves were not fully seating. Wayne O'Grady, last years steward, and this years president of the DLRA came around after work this evening and helped with the body work on the fibreglass part of the body. I will not make a body in this manner lightly again. I think that making a mould, and then taking a body from that would have been faster, and no more expensive, when the amount of filler that has been used is worked out. Tomorrow (well later today actually) I hope to fit and fire the engine, hopefully get my wheels back with tube fitted, and chase a fire system.

The engine has been fired briefly. The radiator has been plumbed, tailshaft loop made and fitted. The wheels have been returned, and I have a fire system, but it is not yet fitted. I have finished sanding the body of the car, it is not perfect, but at the speeds on a salt lake who will be able to see. New wheel bearings and tailshaft universals have been fitted.

I have completed the nose area of the tank. I have mounted the extra bits of aluminium angle that my brother in law so kindly shaped for me.		I also extended the steel rim that mounts the tank.
The canopy has been hinged and attached to the frame. The hinges mount to the rear of the tube that is a combined roll over protection/ hinge mount/ steering shaft mount/ instrument mount.		As you may be able to see in the background, things are a bit hectic, as the house is being extended at the same time. So with 4 builders, a lot of timber and equipment, there is not much left over for me.
The hinges are made from 25 mm flat. the circular bit was bent around some 90mm pipe held in the vice. A pair of vice grips held the flat to the pipe. Heat was needed to bend the 90 degree bits.		I went overbord with the circular bit, as I am only getting about half of the hinge travel, as the canopy hits the top surface of the tank. The chain has to go, as it jams the canopy. I I had my time over, I would have used the boot hinges off a Mazda 121 bubble car. They are extremely neat with built in gas struts.
I went and saw Merv at All Maz wreckers in Clayton on Thursday (another one of those good people with A model roadsters), and purchased a rear hatch latch of a 323 Mazda/Ford Laser.		I have attached this to the frame in the canopy and the front bar of the roll cage. The cable is for the driver to use, and I think I will put a wire ring outside for external opening.
I went back to Merv at All Maz, and bought a couple of Mazda 323 Hatch release cables. They are about 3 meters long, and like most of the stuff I have used from a Mazda, very high quality. I will use one for the accelerator,		and the other on the main battery kill switch. I have modified my Hi-Lux accelerator pedal by welding the end of the Mazda hand lever onto the action part to match the cable, and making a larger pedal surface and a toe hold, by using some 4 inch exhaust tube and some 5mm rod.
This shows the seat and harness in position. I have extended the Go Kart seat, and made a tube and flat frame, which I have yet to glass in place. The seat bolts to the 6mm plate that we rolled		a couple of months ago. I have yet to put the two cross pieces between the chassis rails to stop the chassis collapsing in an accident, but when I do, the shoulder straps will wrap around the bottom one of them.
The battery has been mounted, as well as a remote control kill switch. The kill switch is operated by the same type of cable as the accelerator,		so we will be to swap the cables if we have problems with the accelerator (ie. if the car won't go fast enough)
This is the 'jig' for bending the steering wheel. It uses the end of the planks that the builders have set up to mount their drop saw.
Here is the wheel. Basic, relatively cheap, and hopefully functional. I looked at go kart wheeels, but they started at $200.		This one cost $33 for the aluminium, and half a days work. It won't be as comfortable as the fancy ones, but we're not in the car for a long time, just a fast time.
This is the start of the frame work for the body. As you can see from the picture, I have used about half the girls supply of yellow chalk to try and get a nice line.		After I had a reasonable line, I cut it out with a jigsaw, and then used a hand plane (one without a motor) to smooth up the cuts, and the curve.
This took all Saturday to build. I have plenty of spare spars that I have cut out that didn't fit, or that I had wrong. It looks like a fastback sports car to me, when I look at it from the side.		Today (Sun 11/02) will be spent covering it with the heavy paper stuff I used for the canopy, and plastering it. I have bought a 20Kg bag of plaster in preperation. As you can see in the background, the builders have been busy as well, and they reckon they will be finished before me.
This is covered with the heavy paper to make the shape. The paper is nailed to the frame. It's a bit lumpy, as the paper doesn't shrink or stretch to match the compund curves.		I wet the paper with the hose, which made it nice and soft. I have used construction adhesive to glue a few bits that I couldn't screw or nail. Good stuff, and cheap.
Once the covering was dry, and reasonably solid, I started plastering over the top. Once the plaster goes to a sort of a firm plastic state, I attack it with my metal 12 inch ruler.		This scrapes all the lumps and bumps down, and is heaps easier than waiting for it to go hard and using sandpaper. Plaster is good for this, as it is easy to work, not too hard, and cheap, when compared to something like bog.
This is the state of play on Sunday 11/2 night. Tomorrow I will start sanding.		Because I am laying the glass on the top, and not making a mould, it doesn't have to be perfect, as the glass will have to be sanded and bogged to get a smooth finish (maybe, depends on the time situation).
Well, here is the glassed up body. I started out trying to glass a 3 foot section, but it was too big to handle, and had to cut it up into about 12 - 18 inch strips.		I used nearly 8 litres of resin, and I will have to get some more tomorrow to let me glass a frame inside later. It took a day to make the frame, a day and a half to paper and plaster, and half a day to glass it up.
This shows the basic gear selectors. The bottom one moves between 1-2, 3-4 and Reverse.		The top shaft selects either 1 or 2, 3 or 4 or reverse. Changing from 2 to 3 will be a 3 step process, move the top lever to neutral, move the bottom shaft to 3-4, move the top shaft to 3. No snap changes here!
This is the start of the firewall. The rule book says .065 thick. This sure works the hand muscles with the tin snips.		The top part of the firewall will also hold the front of the body in place.
I have been splashing a bit of paint around, and am starting to reassemble everything. The enamel takes forever to dry, so I have had to buy some enamel hardener to help things along.		I am doing a lot of work on the car, but there is not much to show for it. Brake lines to be run, wiring, coolant lines, windscreen, rear body work etc, etc.
The car is starting to go back together now. I have laid some wiring out in it, run the brake and clutch lines. The tank will not fit the same mounting holes it used before.		Putting this thing together again is worse than a hotrod.
The body has been worked on by me for what seems like forever now. It is coming along, but not fast enough for my liking.		I don't know what the spots on the photo are, maybe I have just photgraphed some micro UFO's
The canopy has been painted, and I have some 2 mm polycarbonate for the windscreen.		This has not yet been cut and fitted.
The fire system is to be mounted above the engine. The radiator is plumbed, as is the fuel tank. The wiring is about three quarters complete.		More assembly on Thursday, the aim is to leave on Friday2/3/01.

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