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1/12 Camaro Radial Tire - Chassis & Rear Suspension6-22-17


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Hello everyone. Some of you might remember that last year I started a 1/16 Pro Touring 69 Charger as my first build after 30 years. I dived into the project by chopping the entire body apart, like I would a real car, which create a lot of work for me and I ran out of steam making jigs and templates for it. I also realized that plastics is NOT a easy media to work with and even though my heavy background in metal fabrications helps me a lot, its not enough. You just cant work plastics exactly like alloys. My biggest defeat was expecting plastics to hold its form like alloys do after working it. It does not. I ended up overheating some pieces and making them worse. The good news is all the important pieces, like the body, are fine and 99% of the work I did a year ago still looks great. I decided to box up the kit til Im ready to dedicate the time to building better fixtures and such........

So onto the Radial Tire Camaro we go. Ive been doing a lot of research for this car, as far as class specs and available parts. The main focal point of the car, the tires themselves have been a big issue. I want rubber tires. Period. And all I see thats available are 3d printed plastic versions, which look nice but they are not for me. Ive sent out a few emails to people who some of you have suggested for me, and I hope to do business with Joseph @ Fireball on them. Many details havent been ironed out yet, other than a single turbo smallblock, powerglide transmission and a ladder bar suspension. The front and rear tires/wheels are holding me up on getting the project really rolling, but there is plenty to do otherwise.

The car will be based upon (for the most part) on the X275 class @ Budds Creek (Maryland)

I started with the rear mini tubs. The rules state that the original chassis needs to be used from the front motor plate/front axle to just behind the rear wheel openings. Frame rails can be notched for tire clearance. So I pushed that spec right to the edge with the rear frame rails being notched to a point, just behind the rear opening. It look like I have plenty of clearance for a 315 tire if I choose to go that route. I used a drill press, 1/8" drill bit and a fixture that slides on a back stop, to cut the chassis for the mini tubs. I simply started with a drilled hole on one end, and then took a little bit off at a time til I had a good clean line. Then using the same drill bit, I "routed" the line smooth to mount the vertical section of the mini tub to. Then with a hacksaw, I cut the remainder of the existing wheelwell, leaving about 1/2" to attach the mini tub to. I used .040 styrene for the vertical section and .020 for the tub and glued it in place. The tubs are obviously .020 smaller now, but since this is a x275 project, the ride height will be close to original specs. This method saved me a lot of time and produced a cleaner look.

Next was removing the leaf spring perches. I went the same method as the mini tubs by drilling them out and added a piece of .040 to the back to seal them up. Looks pretty much to what removing the perches would look like. Ill drill the mounting holes to finish them up.

I wanted a smooth firewall, so I sand down the original firewall and then glued a sheet of .040 to it.

The subframe has been striped down to the rails. In the class specs, this area has a lot of wiggle room for interruption. You can use a aftermarket subframe or k member, as long as the shock and control arms are in the original position. Wheelbase needs to be +/- 1" ( X275) or +/- 2" ( X315). So thats the rules. I will capitalize on the wheelbase and shorten the lower control arm a bit, to make more room between the framerails. x275 cars use very little suspension travel, usually around 1/2", so having a set of control arms that are closer to being equal, will not create a major handling issue for the most part. The original rails will be cut to the lower control arm mount, and a removeable front frame section will be fabbed. The frame section will support the nose of the car, turbo, intercooler and fuel cell. The front motor plate with support the dry sump system and the mid plate with support the transmission cooler, so that the whole assembly can be removed/installed in pretty much one piece. I hope to have the tire situation solved soon, as its holding up the majority of work that needs to be done.

Thank you for looking and comments are always welcomed.

 

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Edited by John Clutch
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Here is the major components of the coil overs. Since the pic, I made a proper fixture for the springs, as these are hand wound here. I forgot I broke a few drill bits on other projects, so I couldnt get to drilling for the shafts yet. They will be similar to Koni's electric shocks when they are finished.

Could someone refer me to a site where I can pick up 1/8" shank drill bits? Right now the only place ive been using is McMaster Carr and if I could find a place that sells them cheaper, that would be great. I had to drill these with a standard bits and you know what happens when you try that, they walk. Thanks.

Thanks for looking and comments are always welcomed.

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Edited by John Clutch
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John... great looking parts. I would highly recommend using some center drills to get your location and then drilling with a drill bit. I use McMaster alot for work but we also use MSC Industries alot as well. depending on the size drill you are drilling with you could get different size center drills. 

I would recommend one of the following..it all depends on the diameter you are wanting to drill

#0 has .03125 drill size

#00 has .025 drill size 

#000 has .020 drill size

#0000 has a .015 drill size

#00000 has a .010 drill size

Here are two links to center drills on McMaster just so you can see the size and style.  You can order from other places... micro Marka also has them just not sure what they charge. Ypu cam also Google and I am sure you will find many places for center drills and drill bits 

http://www.mcmaster.com/#combined-countersinks-and-drills/=13hcgds

 

http://www.mcmaster.com/#combined-countersinks-and-drills/=13hcigb

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Thank you Mooneyzs. I literally got off the phone with McMaster less than 20 minutes ago. I wish I saw this before than LOL I didnt even think of center drills. Thank you very much. The only center drills i have is a 0 and 1, never thought to check for pieces smaller than that.

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Years ago, a friend suggested on a RC plane.......

Drill a blind hole the width of the rivet. Then fill the hole with gorilla glue and wipe it smooth. The gorilla glue will expand and form a rivet head :D

I havent tried it yet but you can beat I will soon !

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Nice start to what sounds like a great build John.

I hope Joseph @ Fireball can work something out for you regarding tyres. Keep the pressure on, without being a pest. :D He's a great guy to work with and made some 1/12th Mickey Thopson's for me. Up-scaled from his 1/24 tyres. ;)

Cheers

Greg

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Hey John... You are welcome. I need to pick up some of those center drills myself. As far as rivets go I was going to suggest taking a look at www.scalehardware.com They have a bunch of nuts, bolts, rivets. I just tried to their site and for some reason its not loading for me but they have a bunch of great miniature hardware products. 

And as far as tires go you can always check out TDR Innovations... you can check their web page or go and look at what they have availiable at shapeways. you will see on their web page it will link you over to Shapeways who is the company that does the print services for them. the only one thing I will say about looking thru their list on shapeways is that I haven't found a way to search in a specific scale you are looking for but they have 37 pages of parts or so. You can take a look at all the goodies they offer.

Direct link:

https://sites.google.com/site/tdrhtmllearn/

Link to TDR on Shapeways

http://www.shapeways.com/designer/tdr_innovations/creations

 

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Nice start to what sounds like a great build John.

I hope Joseph @ Fireball can work something out for you regarding tyres. Keep the pressure on, without being a pest. :D He's a great guy to work with and made some 1/12th Mickey Thopson's for me. Up-scaled from his 1/24 tyres. ;)

Cheers

Greg

Stump, thank you. And yes, i will  contact Joseph again soon.

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Hey John... You are welcome. I need to pick up some of those center drills myself. As far as rivets go I was going to suggest taking a look at www.scalehardware.com They have a bunch of nuts, bolts, rivets. I just tried to their site and for some reason its not loading for me but they have a bunch of great miniature hardware products. 

And as far as tires go you can always check out TDR Innovations... you can check their web page or go and look at what they have availiable at shapeways. you will see on their web page it will link you over to Shapeways who is the company that does the print services for them. the only one thing I will say about looking thru their list on shapeways is that I haven't found a way to search in a specific scale you are looking for but they have 37 pages of parts or so. You can take a look at all the goodies they offer.

Direct link:

https://sites.google.com/site/tdrhtmllearn/

Link to TDR on Shapeways

http://www.shapeways.com/designer/tdr_innovations/creations

 

i believe the hardware shop is on vacation.

Ill be sure to pick up a few products from.TDR but tires will not be one of them. I really want rubber tires

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Small update. I didnt get much time this weekend to work on it. I made some functional ball joints for the control arms. I bought .050 brass finishing nails and 1/8" brass balls. I turned down the head of the nail to .055 and drilled the balls to .052 and drove the nail in with a hammer. I had push pins with a round head on them, but the were oversized for my 1/8" ball mill and would have created a lot of work to get them to run smooth. They are based upon QA1's screw in style ball joints . I think Im going to redesigned them as I made the top section as a cap. Now that I think about it, I should make a plug for the bottom instead so I dont have to worry about the ball stud topping off the cap down the road. The white styrene tubing plugs with be replaced with black tubing.

I also did a little bit of work on the shocks, adding the adjuster dial on the bottom of the shock body. This part with be made of black tubing instead of the white, but I didnt have any black and wanted to see how it looked. And I figured out a simple way of making the adjuster screw itself (no pics here). I cut a piece of brass nail with a pair of dykes, and was planning on sanding it smooth and with a chisel, punch in a line. I dont have to do that. The dykes themselves left a nice line. Its raised instead of recessed but it still looked great to me.

Thanks for looking and comments are always welcomed.

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Thank you Red rocket 10 !!!

This is my third attempt at posting on this thread, as I keep getting error pop ups, as soon as I hit SUBMIT REPLY, so here is the really short version as my patience does not exist any longer.

A few hole patterns.

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Edited by John Clutch
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Sorry. Ran out of patience and time this morning.

 

SBC mid & front plate,  and 9" third member. My plan with to make the third member out of sytrene, and all those extra holes are pin locations so i can glue up the stiffening ribs. I got home and decided to make the whole thing out of aluminum now. Working on fixtures now. 

Edited by John Clutch
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Thank you phantom1!

A bit more about the hole pattern pictures.

The front and mid motor plates are for a small block chevy. My ultimate plan is to build a LS motor, but I figure I would make plates for the kit's motor, even if I dont use it. I have a drawing for the front of the LS motor, but nothing else at this point. The X275 class requires a motor diaper or pan. Im planning to build a pan, that will tie into the front and mid motor plates. Once I figure out the motor location in the chassis, I will build a pan that would accommodate both SBC and LS motors. At that point, I can build the chassis k member around the motor pan and start finalizing the front suspension.

The last picture is the bolt pattern for a 9" ford third member. My plan has changed to make the unit out of aluminum.

Thanks for looking and comments are always welcomed.

Clutch

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