TOPIC:

While we were awaiting the guests to arrive yesterday, I had the time to build steering components and to assemble them...


Then, I went back to the chassis assembly and added a lot of joints...


And other joints...



Next started to add the shocks...


But the fronts gave me issues... (for quite a while)



At the end, I let the bottom of the front shocks unattached, as there was issues with the joint...


Some elements remaint to deal with : lateral decks, pinion cover, steering servo attachement... Started with the left side deck. And it was easier than what I thought it would be...


The right side still need some work (MSC and servo clearance, battery door)...


I will tackle the remaining details later...


I finally found the reason for the front shocks issue : I need to review the shock tower as otherwise it's not in a parallel plan to the arm attachement...


And now I can play with the suspension range...
As per my analysis, the only limitations on the supsension range are the shocks.
Rear visualisation (which is probably a bit exagerated, but I will have to rebuild my car to be able to be sure)


And front which looks even more exagerated... I guess I will need to review the short limit of the shocks...


As said, a few things remain to do, and this will be for later...

Wanted to finish this...

Pinion cover first. That was easy (compared to the rest)...


The battery door and its lock was also added... And while this version of the part is with the cuts for the MSC/servo, I have one with the battery door and without those cuts...


I also added the belt visit doors...


The chassis is now complete.

I do not have the sway bars. Maybe one of you have them. If it is the case, a few pics of the setups front and rear would be good... The bodyshell and wing will be next. There is no repro of this one, so it might be a good fit to use CAD to deal with this...

As mentioned earlier, I have no body and wing for this chassis. I will try to do something...

The wing is quite simple, I made it in solid, and it would be directly derived into a mold easily...


For the body, it is going to be more complex, and I decided to go for Surface mode. First, I bring all defining components into the design : chassis, shock towers, wing, motor plate and pinion cover.


Then I draw the center line of the body... There is a certain logic in the design


Next, I defined the driver dome...


And next is the rear center surface...


And that's where I am currently... But I can already say this will be complex, as at some point, I will need to join those surfaces together...

Well... After the lunch, I went back to my laptop after the lunch... And decided to pursue this venture...

Draw many and many sketches today... too much, and there is even some fail attemps in the timeline. Ultimately, I decided to work this out part by part... (some pics of the WIP)







Unfortunately, it's not perfect : there is no way to thicken the body done in Surface mode currently (that's often the case for complex bodies... I'll try to see if I can still do a mold from it.

I was not happy that I can not render it properly, so I decided to try something... And that worked : I have at least a solid window, which means I can put some material property and do proper renders...


Here is other pictures...



And just to show how much this car is short and large...






The fact there is nothing in front or at the rear of the car is even making this more visible. Very modern in the approach, and this car is from 1987... Out of its time by many standards... I may find it slightly attractive, now
 

And some renderings...







I will try to do a mold from the bodyshell surface and will call it done, until I get to the rebuild stage...

You are crazy Marc!
I will never understand how you do all this.

Well! I'm not even sure I'm understanding myself

Beside the front shocks, what is problematic for this car is that I don't have a body. I did the model, so I decided to try to do a mold for it...

Once you have the bodyshell surface, this is easy. I mainly used surface patches to make this happen...


I reveiewed it slightly later on so the the body line is easier to identify... And I also did a mold for the wing... 


Both mould should be super easy to print without need for supports... And if I find someone with a vacforming machine, I can get a body

My friend yogibear who has both a printer and vacforming machine proposed to run a test... I sent him the STL for the bodyshell mould... He printed it and he advised that the areas that I patched at the rear need revision. 


I modified the body accordingly and reapplied the mould elements. It should be better now. Lesson learned for surface mode here : Patch as smallest areas as possible when using patch, and used small faceted areas (triangles) to address the big angle changes. This definily helps. Second thing is that I could have spot the issue earlier if I had done a section analysis before sending the stl to Johann.


Anyway, he reprinted the rear with the new version, and it is much better now. Angles are still a bit rough, but that should be workable...

I also reviewed the mould for the wing following the design change.


The bodyshell mould print is in progress... (adaptative layers are used in order to reach the best possible quality, which is the reason the slicer preview looks this way)


Results tomorrow...