Team Orchard

ok , really did not like how the RWD was progressing , so i did a animal (valvers.com ) , well , maybe i did a little more than him After a month of thinking about things , and not doing anything on the car it was time for action.

two main changes have happened to this project now ,

1) The engine is being moved to the front !! still RWD
2) Its going to be a pickup !!!

First take off the F18 gearbox , if anyone wants a F18 , i have one for sale !

First find yourself a carlton gearbox :

Cut the back off the mini , as i dont need it for a pickup !

Then build yourself a bench , yes i know i still have not cleared my garage , atleast i have a bench now to put all the rubish under !

sweat trying to get the engine onto the bench ! , i hope the bench is strong enough.

Then try and get the cut down shell onto the bench , now owe my wife a new pair of boots, as she has oil on her ones now ! but thanks to my
wife for the lift up !

The bulkhead had to go ! , but there lays the new layout , do you like it ?

Front end : , engine will come more forward yet. But seems plenty of clearance at the moment.

God , its tight ! lol ,

ok , a bit more waffle , just to make this update worth reading…
Going to make a space frame chassis out of 25×25x3 box section , will be loosly based on the locost chassis. Will make my own suspension arms (double wishbone) , will try and make my own uprights as well.
Next stage is to order some metal up , get hold of a rear diff , attach the gearbox etc… ! lol

well its been a long day …… should amuse some people what i have done ! lol

For anyone who is about to move to ADSL , i would highly recomend plus.net ! , good price , lots of extras live virus checking , spam filters etc , also i get a refering fee , which will help my projects ! :

Super-fast broadband

ps , about the project .. big changes are being done !! will all be shown very soon , or when someone signs upto adsl with the above link.

i could move the bottom nuckle joint inwards by a inch … Chip did saw he did this on his RWD nova to fix a suspension problem…. wonder how much movment is in the vuaxhall CV joints ?? And can i move it enough?

ok , maybe putting a bulge into the wing would not be to bad … if i replaced the rear side windows with the opening ones , i would then allways leave them open, and would have to make a bulge something like this wonderfull photoshop :
The green bit would be new metal curved around to miss the coil over.

At the weekend i decided that the car needed lowering to help the drive shaft angles , i did this and dropped it by 5 inchs ! lol , this also means the front end is scrap and i would have to re-think that…. but it got worse..

I still can’t get the rear struts to squeeze in the mini body , well i can … but the camber is terriable ….

so really not sure what to do :

1) Scrap the project and take up knitting…
2) put some ugly bumps in the rear windows !
3) Use a different car .. BMW mini ????
4) widen the shell ??
5) think of a different suspension layout that does not cost anything ?

hmmmm … off to have a good think .. feel free to through ideas at me… (cheap ones) lol

Tried firing the engine up at the weekend , but no luck , it looks like i have a immobiliser problem ,as the ecu light just flashes when the ignition is turned on ( allthough i do get spark ?? )

I have taken the key and immobiliser ecu from the donor car , and stuck them together , i have then followed the instructions on mig on wiring this up :

brown - earth
black - ignition +ve
red - 12v
blue / red - to ecu … the one closest to the red wire.

any sugestions ??

Matt

got all the wheels on , tacked the rear steering arms on just to stop the rear wheels from turning , and out it came, (once i cut the rear arches a bit ) :

Rear shot , going to be wide !! :

now after rolling it out , i started looking at the drive shaft angle , and thinking i should drop the whole engine , then i noticed that the rear subframe was not level , so i have not dropped the rear mounts about 3 inchs , and this has brought the drive shaft angle down.
Front shot :

Ok tacked in the last strut mount last night , and got the car sitting on 4 wheels . Got some suspension issues now , ie the struts are sitting on the bump stops ! lol

Now i have two or three options
1) raise the car (body ) but need to lower the engine as the drive shaft angle gets too much otherwise :

2) I might be able to move the strut mounts up … maybe
3) Convert to coil overs which are a smaller diameter so will be allot easier to mount them higher. (but would need to buy them)

will leave it on the bump stops for now and cut the arches a little to clear the tires.. then roll it out to see whats what.
Also the steering arms seem to over lap ? which as i am using a std vauxahll subframe the struts cant be that far out ? so why do they meet in the middle ? are there different length steering arms ??

Doing anything to help my wifes business , please check it out :
Horsham Tumbletots

ok sorry for no updates over xmas , never got much time on the car in the end , most of the time that i did get was spent moving the rear part of the cage forward by 2 inchs to get the wheel base correct .. i must use a tape messure next time ! lol
But once that was done i got onto tacking in the rear strut mounts.
I have added a rear hoop section to the rear diaganals , this should help keep the strut mounts in place :

sorry about the pic , got currupted when uploading , will take another shot soon.
here is a close up of one of the strut mounts tacked into position :

Once that was done i cut a bit of 30mm box and tacked that in accross the to diags to create a mounting point for the track rod arms :

this is when i noticed that the rear cage is quite not in the middle of the car but I wont tell no one if you dont ! lol
Really want to get this car on its wheels and roll it out of the garage to get a good look … but have to do the last strut mount next ….