I let this thread stay dormant over the winter since no progress was made.
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Originally Posted by Beemer Nut
That car must have a longer range than I thought,
he was must of been farther than 5 miles away to 7/11 for more brandy.
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I'm more of a scotch man myself. That and a nice cigar. Unfortunately I only enjoy such things when my neighbor to the left invites me over for such which is about twice a year.
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Originally Posted by Beemer Nut
It must be one of those Me to Me gifts.
Hope your birthday is soon so you can ask for tooling.
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My birthday is in May, and you're welcomed to send tooling ;-)
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I pulled everything out this morning around 6:30am, and looked at the fiberglass uglyness. Easily fixed up yes, but after shaking my gallon can of resin and the 1/2 gallon can of hardener, I realized I'd have to purchase more from West Marine. Since this is epoxy-based stuff, it's expensive.
So I decided to forego fiberglassing any further and make it out of pin and glued MDF and belt sand anything that doesn't line up perfectly.
First step was to cut another base out of 3/4" MDF. Easily done, as I just had to remove the rear axle and the motor, flip the chassis upside down onto the MDF, trace, and cut it out with the circular saw.
http://frederic.midimonkey.com/booto...r/IM002317.JPG
Since the MDF base is thicker than the fiberglass body's base thickness, I decided to weld the hat nuts into the chassis holes so I could reuse the bolts I had before. Not that bolts are expensive but by the time I drive through heavy traffic, find what I need at Home Depot, then stand in line for 20 minutes it was much quicker just to enlarge the six holes, hammer in the hat nuts and weld them to the chassis. These nuts had "prongs" to go into wood which got flattened nicely when I beat them in with a 5lb sledge hammer.
http://frederic.midimonkey.com/booto...r/IM002318.JPG
After some more effort with the circular saw to cut the panels to the desired shape, I glued and clamped everything as square as possible, then drilled 1/4" holes in the edges and hammered in 1/4" diameter oak dowel sections. I hacked them to 2" lengths on the bandsaw, then stuck one end into an electric pencil sharpener for a second not to make a point, but just to easily round the edges so I could pop them into the holes easily. Much better than rotating a 2" long 1/4" dowel on a belt sander that's upside down on your lap.
My son is all excited about this project, as you can see he's holding the grille insignia that eventually will be routed and epoxied into what will be painted to look like a grill. Unfortunately, he plucked that off the grill of my crewcab when I wasn't looking. Clever little guy.
http://frederic.midimonkey.com/booto...r/IM002322.JPG
Here is the body, pinned and glued with the slot for the steering shaft cut, the bearing mount I made last november installed, and the steering shaft also installed. I've decided to make another steering wheel as the first one I made turned out to be somewhat crooked. Beating it with a 5lb sledge hammer to make it less crooked turned out to be a waste of time, as I hammered the wrong side making it worse. I may try to find a cheap go-cart steering wheel on ebay instead, and weld on a flange and simply bolt the steering wheel onto that flange instead.
http://frederic.midimonkey.com/booto...r/IM002324.JPG
And here is the car standing on the tailgate, showing the metal chassis underneath and my mediocre attempt at triangulation, which should help the MDF stay glued together. The chassis had very little flex when I took one tire off and stood on that corner, so with the MDF base attached it's even stiffer.
And here is as far as I got today. The hood is pinned and glued (and clamped in this picture), so that's done. I also installed a short panel (pinned and glued) just behind where my son will be sitting, and two slightly shorter uprights just behind that panel which do not show in the picture - which will be the support for the non-hinged side of the bed floor. The floor of the bed will flip up so I can remove and install the two body bolts, as well as monkey with the batteries, chain, and other things that this will cover. Makes servicing that much easier. Since that cover will be much lower than the top edge of the body, it will act as a pickup bed. Remember, this is an MDF F350 crewcab
http://frederic.midimonkey.com/booto...r/IM002326.JPG
What was really cool, aside from what was accomplished today with my son hanging on my leg, is he actually helped out quite a bit. About a third of the 1/4" dowel pegs I made were hammered in by him and him alone. I had to start them by pushing them in by hand, and he smacked them in with the ballpeen hammer I was using for the dowel work.
I also kept him busy "sanding" the MDF with 400 grit sandpaper. He could sand all day with no noticable effects and he had a blast using "tools". Plus while he was "sanding" his car I could cut more panels in another area of the garage without worrying about his fingers, or his usual desire to run down the driveway. He really got into the sanding! Not bad for a 2 y/o.
It's likely that I'll finish roughing out the body tomorrow, depending on how much my son sands versus carries my tools across the lawn.
I have to finish the bedfloor, cut the seat slides I have, install the roll bar inside so I have something to attach the harness to, and of course cut out the door panels based on a template I've already made this evening. It's only going to have two doors, one per side, and I'm going to "paint" two doors on each physical door, so it's a cheesy crewcab. Only because he keeps pointing at my truck and says "Daddy Crew Truck" then points at what I'm making and says "John Crew Truck" so it has to have four doors
I also made a new wiring harness a few months ago, which takes the ignition switch out of the main current wiring, driving relays only. This new harness also operates the entire vehicle on 24V because that's what the motor's rated at and running it at 12V actually works fine, except that the motor controller's heat sink gets so hot one can boil an egg on it. At 24V it gets fairly warm but you can touch it without blistering your skin. So 24V it is. Included in the wiring harness is another relay which when energized by an external 12V battery charger, disconnects the car from the batteries and removes their series connections and rewires them in parallel, for 12V charging. This allows me to plug the thing into my cigarette lighter to recharge, use the battery charger in the garage, and other more common 12V sources. After extensive hunting on ebay I found 12V 5"x5"x4" batteries that will fit perfect between the motor/chain/drive assembly and the two rear wheels with plenty of margin for heat and/or shifting. The new wiring harness also has a 12V 5A regulator (gross overkill) for powering the horn and the lighting that may be installed at some point. I've been looking for "tractor trailer" flush-mount LED lights on the cheap but no luck yet. I have two such housings which I could shove a perf-board in and solder on some super-bright LED's I have in my junk drawer but we'll see if I can find something cheap thus saving me the aggrevation.
Anyway, that's the scoop thus far.
