build diary

January 23, 2006:
I spent some cold time in the motorcycle graveyard yesterday and came back with a whole pile of dimensions.
Turns out these linkages are right at the bottom of the bike so they're a little awkward to measure. The good news is that the owner offered them to me for $20/pair. Now, if only they have more than one of each bike! I think there are a pair of Kawasakis, I might pick those up just so I have something to play with as I ponder this. One thing that just popped to mind is that I need to be able to bolt it to my shocks, which means a clevis on the linkage - hopefully I'm using the proper terminology there! The problem is that the motorcycle units like that don't tend to have a central bearing which makes life a little more complex. Otherwise I could just make my own out of two plates of aluminum. That's how Yamaha does it on the R1. What I need is something just like the one used on Fraser cars. They never answered my question about where that rocker came from. It may be a custom piece. Alternatively I could mount the bearing to the frame. Or go custom myself. Ducati has a part that's suitable and so beautiful it hurts.

I've decided that I'm just confusing myself with suspension geometry. My insistence on camber curves that matched roll doesn't make sense and is over-simplified. So maybe I'll just concentrate on cutting down the roll for now. That means bringing up the roll stiffness either through sways, stiffer springs or my pushrod setup. Heikki has already gone this way and stiffened his springs. I've become fixated with solving a good pushrod setup so I think I'll continue along that way for a while. The real trick is figuring out what the ratio between the spring and the wheel should be. I have 3" of shock travel. That's not a lot of wheel travel but it's about what I have in the rear. I've also done some thinking about how to keep the suspension from developing a falling rate. That's important!
entry 1108

January 28, 2006:
A view of the damage to my rear fender.
All the black bedliner will have to come off for a good repair. Sigh.
entry 1109

January 31, 2006:
A set of 10" wheels with 165/70-10 Yokohama A008 tires arrived today.
They're for my Mini, but they're just so cute! A grille for the Seven also arrived courtesy of my friend Chris. Thanks! I'll fit it to the nose of the car tonight and Eric will be filled with joy. Now if only I'd stop being such a baby and get to work on the 'glass repair. It's really just a matter of a few messy hours in the shop. This weekend, I promise.

There's a big project coming up. Eric and I are planning on running the Targa Newfoundland race in 2007. I don't know exactly what we'll be driving yet but I do know it won't be the Seven. Maybe in 2008 after we've had a chance to see what the road surfaces look like.
entry 1110

Finally, some braces for the Seven's open mouth!
This grille was given to me by Chris Fiaccone. Thanks Chris!
entry 1111

February 2, 2006:
I'm monkeying around with the server so it's possible there will be some short-lived problems with the site.
Please be patient with me.
entry 1112

February 3, 2006:
My apologies to those who missed the site over the last couple of days.
Everything should be functioning well now. If not, please let me know. Of course, if it's not working for you, you won't be able to read this.
entry 1113

February 6, 2006:
A good portion of the weekend was spent painting someone else's house.
And working on organising the garage. I'm doing the cleanup that is overdue from the build and installing a new air compressor. It's a lot of work but this will make it easier to finish the next few stages. I did pick up the 'glass I need for the fender repair though...
entry 1114

February 7, 2006:
Lester Seal has added some new pictures of his car to his website.
There's some nice work there on the interior panelling, it makes my car look very amateurish!
entry 1115

February 8, 2006:
Finally, an update with more than just fluff about my garage!
I took a good look at the fender tonight and tried to clean off the bedliner as much as possible. I realised that the paint was damaged enough that this will never be a show piece. I also realised that I could make a nicely functional repair with some well-placed aluminum plates. It may even end up being a stronger setup than it was before. I'll rivet the plates to the inside of the fender. One repair that will probably only work with some metal reinforcement will be reshaping the area right behind the rock guard on the front. It's caved in with surprisingly little damage to the paint, but it seems to have decided it likes its new shape better than the old. A simple solution there would be a thin steel brace to push it back out.

Does this sound as if I'm simply taking shortcuts? Well, partially. I'm still considering a set of aluminum fenders. I'm also hoping that making the Seven mobile again will prompt me to start working on other items such as possibly a front suspension. Mark Rivera provided me with some 3D models of a Hyabusa linkage that should actually do the trick quite nicely, with angles that look pretty appropriate. I'll drop it into the crude suspension model and see what happens.
entry 1116

February 9, 2006:
There used to be a mounting hole here.
A close-up of fender damage.
entry 1117
One simple, non-fibreglass solution.
A plate to spread the load of the bolts. This will be riveted to the inside of the fender.
entry 1118

February 13, 2006:
I have a Hayabusa linkage on the way.
This will let me play with it and get a good mental image to go along with the digital ones. I sort of won it by accident on eBay.
entry 1119

February 14, 2006:
The grille (thanks again Chris!
) fits perfectly in the nose. I'm considering painting a black band around the nose to hide the paint damage. This would be temporary until I could repaint the whole car.
entry 1120

February 15, 2006:
One of my worst fears came true yesterday.
A major error was found in the book. It's in the section about "Understanding hydraulics" and not only did I make one mistake with cascading consequences in the numerical calculations that followed, I also was sloppy with force vs pressure units. The latter is something that really only the physics geeks will find disturbing but the former could lead to some pretty weak braking systems. I've put a corrected version online. Sigh.

In happier news, the car is now sitting on its own front wheels again. Is it because I needed the jackstands for the Mini? Well, yes. But once I bolt that rear fender back in to place I'll actually drive the car for a bit. The Hayabusa shock linkage will be here in a few days and then the real experimentation begins.
entry 1121

February 21, 2006:
The Hayabusa linkage is here.
It's a nice piece - but I forgot that it was designed for a shock with a clevis (is that the right term?) instead of a round bushing. I might alter the shock (yikes) or try a couple of other options. I'm also going to try cutting my existing hood and turning the louvres around. It's a cheat but it might work. Rivet lines around the panels in the hood will be less embarassing than having backward louvres.

Car and Driver is going to be doing an article on Locosts. If you happen to have one and are able to make it to the Southwest Se7ens Festival taking place in Texas in late April, please let me know! I'll be at the event as a guest speaker.
entry 1122

A Hayabusa shock linkage.
Will it work on the Seven?
entry 1123

February 27, 2006:
Guess what? Actual progress is being made!
The Seven is alive again.

Once I took the time to start drilling and riveting, the fender repair ended up far better than I had hoped. There's almost no sign of damage now that the part is back on the car. My aluminum plates are hidden in the dark wheel wells and painted black, and only a couple of rivet heads are visible at the bottom of the leading edge of the fender if you know where to look. In fact, the repaired fender looks better than the "good" one thanks to a new stone shield made of 0.050" aluminum instead of the thin battered one on the other side. The front suspension was set up to an approximate ride height and after a bit of help from a spare battery and a new set of plugs, the car roared into life. Ahh, I've missed driving this little critter.

Since there is an appointment with C&D coming up, I'm trying to decide how much work I should do to make the car look good. Currently it has a high level of patina - Moab mud in every possible crevice, stone chips on the fenders, missing paint on the nose and front fenders. Little problems like a coolant gauge that jumps around at high RPM and a tach that only works sometimes (I rely on the RevLight when driving anyhow) should probably be rectified. A bit of tidying up is definitely in order - but do I go as far as new paint? I certainly need to fix those louvres in the hood, they're a real problem.

Tonight the new muffler will be welded in. Hopefully it'll be the last time I do this. I'm also going to fit the grille which will make a huge difference to the look of the car. Less than two months until I have to be in Texas, time to get to work!
entry 1124

It's hard to believe this is the same battered fender.
You can see the scuff mark on the side of the car from the cone as well as on the dirty fender. The worst of the damage is hidden behind that stone shield.
entry 1125
The visible damage from the cone hit.

entry 1126

February 28, 2006:
Almost.

I got a late start on the Seven last night due to some entertainment with the brand new 2006 MX5 that just arrived at Flyin' Miata.
I can report that a 225/50-16 tire will fit without difficulty. Anyhow, once that was over and the Seven moved in I started cutting up the exhaust. About halfway through I realised that it really wasn't too bright to maroon myself at work if something went wrong but I just kept plugging away. It's the third time I've built the exhaust for this thing, you think I'd be good at it by now. The typical number of little bumbling mistakes and it was ready for paint.

While the paint dried (I couldn't bring myself to watch), I installed the grille. Three well-placed studs on the backside, three slightly oversize holes and wow! It looks so much more finished. Eric is sitting back and saying "I told you so", but it's true. A huge thanks to Chris for donating this to me.

Paint's (almost) dry so I bolted the exhaust on. It looks appropriately sized to the car and will hopefully sound good. I don't know yet because the car decided to simulaneously foul all four plugs and wear out the battery. A jumper box solved the latter but the plug cleaner had vanished into thin air. So had the charger. So the Seven was abandoned in the shop. I'll find out tomorrow if my muffler experimentation is finally complete.
entry 1127

Studs to hold the grille on the nose.
They're not quite as splayed as the wide-angle lens makes them appear.
entry 1128
The grille on the car.
It looks quite different from this morning.
entry 1129
No grille, old exhaust.
entry 1130
12 hours later.
New grille, new exhaust.
entry 1131
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