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PostPosted: January 5, 2019, 10:51 am 
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@rx7locost
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@GonzoRacer

Thanks all, gents. Now that I know hardened = grade 8, I'm all set. My local hardware store carries a pretty good selection of grade 8 nuts, bolts and washers. They have standard (SAE), thick, fender and thin washers in grade 8, I believe,

Thanks again,

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Damn! That front slip angle is way too large and the Ackerman is just a muddle.

Build Log: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5886


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PostPosted: January 6, 2019, 1:19 pm 
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A good page on bolt types:
http://www.cousesteel.com/AndysPlace/BoltGrade.html

In practice, you're not likely to find anything other than Grades 3, 5, or 8. "3" now includes 1 and 2 in practice. The numbers are "industry practice" codes.

A metric "8.8" is roughly equivalent to a Grade 5, and a "10.9" to a Grade 8. The metric numbers reference ISO (or DIN, I forget) standard numbers.

Since the 1980s there has been a huge problem with cheap import fasteners and sleazy fly-by-night domestic manufacturers. Whatever is stamped on the head might be an outright lie. I've encountered "ARP" counterfeits myself. There have been several aircraft that have crashed, with fatalities, that the NTSB has traced back to fake fasteners. Most automotive fasteners have plenty of excess strength for their applications, but for things like ring gear or flywheel bolts, buy direct from the manufacturer if you can.


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PostPosted: January 8, 2019, 12:56 am 
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@TRX

Thank you for that information.

Cheers,

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Damn! That front slip angle is way too large and the Ackerman is just a muddle.

Build Log: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5886


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PostPosted: March 3, 2019, 11:14 pm 
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Well, now that my 60-day sentence is over, it's back to work on the build tomorrow . . . yeah, just kidding.

But, I will be starting up again tomorrow. With 2 unexpected months off, I've looked for alternate ways to satisfy my motorhead interests. I think I've seen every Lotus 7, Caterham 7 and Locost 7 video on YouTube now. If fact, I've burned through so much of YouTube that I've been looking for alternative sources of automotive stimulation - and actually found one.

It turns out that the videos that come with Amazon Prime also contains some interesting videos including some fabrication series with interesting material. There are some old movies too. I found this 1941 movie about American racing. The plot is totally sappy. The acting is melodramatic and marginal. However, there is some interesting footage of old European Grand Prix cars like the Auto Union racers in action in Tunisia, Monaco and at Donnington (UK).

It shifts back to the USA and has some old time cars from the late 1930's and earlier plus footage from the Indy 500 back when bricks were still the surface in many places. Unbelievably, the drivers didn't use seat belts back then, and got dumped out on the tracks when their cars overturned - it's in the movie - scary stuff.
Attachment:
Blonde Comet-1941.jpg


So, that's the takeaway here. If you already have Amazon Prime, but never use the free video feed, try searching within them using key words like "race car", "fabrication", "Lotus", "Porsche", etc. You might get a nice surprise.

Cheers,


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Damn! That front slip angle is way too large and the Ackerman is just a muddle.

Build Log: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5886


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PostPosted: March 3, 2019, 11:41 pm 
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Lonnie-S wrote:
It shifts back to the USA and has some old time cars from the late 1930's and earlier plus footage from the Indy 500 back when bricks were still the surface in many places. Unbelievably, the drivers didn't use seat belts back then, and got dumped out on the tracks when their cars overturned - it's in the movie - scary stuff.


Safety is based on "systems" not components. The old guys (I've met a few) might've been crazy but they weren't stupid. Better to be thrown clear of a car than to go for the wild ride and then end up upside down on fire.

Bill Vukovich, 1955
Attachment:
Bill Vukovich CrashPhotoReed.jpg


Johnny Rutherford, 1965 (took his broken arms 2 years to recover):
Attachment:
Rutherford Eldora 1965.jpg


Of course, in 1948 Rex Mays was thrown clear only to get run over....


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PostPosted: March 4, 2019, 2:15 am 
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Was said that Masten Gregory not only refused to wear a belt but would leap from the car if a crash was imminent. Never witnessed it so I can't swear to it. Just something I read somewhere.

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PostPosted: March 4, 2019, 1:22 pm 
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Getting back to my "systems" idea...

Today's fire suits and rapid response teams wouldn't mean much if cars still had 50-60-more gallons of fuel on board in a tank that, when ruptured, spilled the contents quickly (no foam). HANS devices wouldn't be helpful w/o todays belts, and none of that would work w/o today's helmets. and....

But yes -- back in the day, driving a car was akin to today's insane Isle of Man TT races, etc. Except the cars would trap you as the fuel burned. In the words of one modern driver (Alex Lloyd) when he drove Mario's 1969 IndyCar... took more balls to drive 'em than he had.

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PostPosted: March 4, 2019, 1:51 pm 
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Sorta brings this to mind! https://vimeo.com/20247765 :shock:

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PostPosted: March 5, 2019, 3:39 pm 
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@ngpmike

I watched that video, Mike. It's a little grim, isn't it? Watching it, and the car fires, reminded me of something I haven't thought about in years and years and years.

In 1965 I took my girlfriend and a couple of friends to the CanAm race at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. The course was laid out around the ballpark, mostly in the parking lots, but using the Candlestick access roads too. It was a big deal because the modern Chaparrals were just emerging in CanAm, and the Bay Area had some hot race teams in the series at that time. One local, a fellow named Bart Martin, was one of them in his Ford/Brabham. It was a sort of "furiners" versus local "good guys" kind of thing.

It was really a ridiculous course for those cars given their speed and power, and there was almost no spectator protection, just a low chain link fence with a single row of hay bales in front of it, here and there. This is a SF Chronicle shot with Jim Hall (I believe) leading and Bart Martin just behind him, almost hidden. You can see the typical spectator setup in the background.
Attachment:
Chaparral Leading.jpg

We got there very early and parked along an access road where I knew I could park my old '59 VW right near the fence, facing the track. I sat on its roof with my girlfriend. We sat with our butts just above the windshield and our feet on the cowl. We could see quite a bit of the track. It was one of the few areas with a real, permanent, chain link fence about 5' high. A line of telephone poles ran just in front of the fence.

Not too many laps in, Bart Martin managed to get into the lead. It was just as they approached our location. They were really flying. Then something happened to Martin's car. It went out of control, contacted the fence, jumped up onto it, and slid along it until it hit a telephone pole and literally went vertical, contacting the power lines strung to it.

His car went up onto the low fence literally right in front of where we were sitting. The telephone pole it hit was to our right about 25-30 feet away. When his car contacted the power lines, it went off just like a bomb. It was a big fireball and hot as hell. It fell down onto the pavement right after it exploded. It continued to burn.

The really grim part was that Martin was still sitting in the driver's seat, both hands on the wheel, looking straight ahead. Mercifully, he must have died instantly. My girlfriend totally freaked out. We both got light burns on our exposed skin from the fireball. Here's a Chronicle photo of the scene.
Attachment:
Bart Martin Car.jpg

In the lower right, you can see the dislodged power lines. We were to the right,out of the plane of the photo, about the same distance away as the policeman standing in the background is to the dangling wires. The race was cancelled. At that time, I went to all the SCCA events where spectators were allowed. However, I didn't go to another event until Sears Point opened up in 1968. It was pretty traumatic for young teenagers, I'll have to say.

Like I said, I haven't thought about it in many years, but now I see why I have a sensitivity to car wrecks and safety.

EDIT: Spelling error


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Damn! That front slip angle is way too large and the Ackerman is just a muddle.

Build Log: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5886


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PostPosted: March 5, 2019, 11:13 pm 
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Actually Lonnie, I think It's VERY grim. I glad they've made such progress with the safety gear that we have in racing today. What really struck me from that vid is the scene where they're running formula cars through a Peristyle. WOW! :shock:

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PostPosted: March 5, 2019, 11:26 pm 
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By comparison... Sebastian Bourdais' crash at Indy in 2017 started out much like Gordon Smiley's fatal 1982 crash -- an overcorrection leading to a crash almost perpendicular to the wall. Sebastian's crash probably was 20 mph or more faster.

But I talked to Bourdais a few days later when he had a press conference. He's broken his femur, but even then was still walking and talking. And if he'd had one of the newer tubs, chances are that he'd have walked away completely (Bourdais tub broke in a known weak spot that was fixed in subsequent revisions).

Smiley's injuries... "fatal" doesn't do it justice.

So yes... SAFER barriers, carbon fiber, etc etc etc.

Attachment:
fixed_DSC_7688_resized_stamped.jpg


https://www.google.com/search?q=bourdai ... e&ie=UTF-8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPCNKW5JR3I


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PostPosted: July 6, 2019, 12:05 am 
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Life is a little complicated right now. My wife, Anne, just finished her course of treatment for Stage 1 lung cancer in April. That was her third bout with cancer; a different type in each of the last three years. I've been her care provider, kept the house running and tried, with limited success, to build my Locost too.

While handling those three, I neglected my own health. I had problems developing, but I have a high tolerance for pain, and took Aleve (NSAID) pills to mask the pain I did feel. I eventually got up to 6 Aleve a day, every day, week after week. Last Christmas, a nurse friend of ours had a frank sit-down with me and told me I was risking serious heart and kidney damage from long term NSAID use. I took her advice seriously and went to my family doctor.

Several specialist referrals later, my issues turned out to be: osteoarthritis in both thumbs and wrists; carpal tunnel syndrome in both wrists; chronic tendinitis in my left elbow; and three areas of spinal canal narrowing (stenosis). Two of the narrowings are in my lumbar (lower) spine. Both of those are considered “severe” in medical terms, and are impinging upon important nerves running into my right leg and groin. My ability to work on the Locost, as well as do some ordinary life tasks, has been impacted. I've been advised to take NSAIDS a maximum of once a week, so my pain relief regimen is gone unless I want to take powerful prescription drugs, which I do not.

I started an extensive physical therapy program in February. Even so, without NSAIDS, I was only able to work on the Locost perhaps once a week, and only for 2-3 hours at a time. I thought I'd have to quit the Locost project altogether and started to look for a 7-like car to buy instead.

That hasn't happened, but after 6 months of physical therapy, I'm finally at a state where I can work again fairly consistently. It's only 4-6 hours at a time, and no more that 3 days in a row, but it's progress. My at-home, physical therapy routine takes about an hour and fifteen minutes: heat; stretching; core exercises; and TENS to conclude. I never wanted to quit the Locost project. I think I can finish. I'm simplifying some of my ideas to speed up the build process, but trying to make future improvements easy to do. Fingers crossed!

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Damn! That front slip angle is way too large and the Ackerman is just a muddle.

Build Log: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5886


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PostPosted: July 6, 2019, 3:00 am 
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Well Lonnie all I can say is that's the shits.

Wrote a long message but after re-reading it it's gone. You have a handle on this. Old sailors can take about anything.

I'm a long way away but I offer all the help I can from here.

Cheers

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PostPosted: July 6, 2019, 8:27 am 
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benny_toe wrote:
I'm a long way away but I offer all the help I can from here.
Yeah, what he said! I'm here to offer moral support... Although, any number of references would testify that my morals won't support much, they can barely stand up by themselves... :mrgreen:

Hang in there, Bro... Stick with the physical therapy stuff, work on the car when you feel like it, keep on keeping on... You can do it, even if it's a little bit at a time. We're all pullin' for you!

:cheers:
JDK

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Quinn the Slotus:Ford 302 Powered, Mallock-Inspired, Tube Frame, Hillclimb Special
"Gonzo and friends: Last night must have been quite a night. Camelot moments, mechanical marvels, Rustoleum launches, flying squirrels, fru-fru tea cuppers, V8 envy, Ensure catch cans -- and it wasn't even a full moon." -- SeattleTom


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PostPosted: July 6, 2019, 9:51 am 
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@GonzoRacer

Thanks for the moral support gents. That's about all anyone can do at this point. It's pretty much up to me as to what happens going forward. I didn't want to say anything until I figured out if I could finish the car, and I believe I can.

All of us have seen some incredible stories in the last few years of our veterans overcoming enormous obstacles and long, long odds to accomplish big goals. I am truly humbled by what they've done. My challenges are nothing compared to theirs. It definitely keeps a person from feeling sorry for themselves.

Thanks again for your support, moral or immoral. :mrgreen:

Cheers,

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Damn! That front slip angle is way too large and the Ackerman is just a muddle.

Build Log: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5886


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