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Just noticed one thing. If you look at the belt driving the water pump and the alt. there is not a lot of belt engagement there. If this is the way the factory did it and it worked then fine but if this is your layout maybe give it a second thought?
Not only is it not recieving much contact but the engagement is on the coast side.
Overall its a beautiful build.

Wow you're nearly there! Awesome design and execution.

It has been over a decade since I've worked on a rotary but I am pretty sure that is the factory set up.

That is the factory setup. But in the factory application, there is another belt that drives either the air pump, power steering or air conditioning pumps. It follows the same path from the eccentric shaft up and around the water pump essentially doubling the contact area on the water pump. This is why the common setup is to change to a double pulley on the alternator and run two identical belts.

Or so I have been lead to believe.

So when are you going to get working on this more??...It's been a whole week now with no posted progress!

While you're at it, you should put more than 2 lug nuts on each wheel...Wouldn't want you wrecklessly endangering your wife's life by it losing a wheel while she's 'driving' it!

Hmmm.. I've been away from this project for a while..

I've had some fun business in my life.
We are in the middle of a kitchen re-model that has been taking a lot of my time. In the true locoster spirit We bought unfinished cabinets, in stock laminate counters and did all the cutouts ourselves, are face gluing a custom bar top together, figuring out how to use an under counter mounted sink in laminate counters (Cast iron, 13" deep behemoth, but bought on clearance for $75!), etc. etc. to save money. It's working though. We are completely gutting and renoing with new everything (lights, counters, sink, cabinets, drop ceiling, tile floor, barstools (The wife convinced me not to make them.. I tried to get her to let me)) In our ~140 sq ft kitchen (including a downstairs bathroom) we will be into it for ~3500 total. Not bad for a new kitchen/bathroom.
Outside of the kitchen re-model I'm on a big understaffed project at work and have been putting in 50-60 hours a week for the entire year, so that's fun..

There is good news though. My wife and I are expecting our first child in late August so I'm super excited about that, however it does take up some time with planning, Dr's Appt. Trips to visit family, and have family come visit us etc.

Mixed in with this I have cramed in some Garage time. Unfortunately most of it has focused on cleaning the garage. I had simply aquired to much crap and Driven5 is getting ready to start his project and the garage just needed cleaned. I removed 900lbs ($56 worth!!) of scrap steel and junk, two car loads of wood/trash, and made a few orginizational mods to create more space. I built a material storage rack that took about 8 hours with some scrap wood I had lying around. The great thing about this was it was necessay to allow me to purchase my aluminum and steel sheet for the car. Without it the Aluminum would have gotten all dented. It also enables me to wheel my materials around the garage (steel tubing, sheet prducts) rather than have them in the way. I'll post up some pictures of it, as it's fairly simple design ad works real well. So I now have 95% or so of the materials required to finish the car. In the next few weeks I'm going to be able to work on the car some more as the Kitchen is winding down, and I've gone from playing Volleyball 3 nights a week to 1. So expect progress to resume. i'll try to get some pictures of the new garage layout and post a link to Driven's project whenever he gets going.

Thanks,

Daniel

Welcome back

Life does get hectic at times.
Getting the shop organized will pay off in the long run
And you will enjoy the benefits from now on.

Looking forward to progress reports soon

Oooh Yay progress. I've made some progress on the car, and Some changes to the garage. I've been getting out to the garage pretty regularly for 1-1.5 hours at a time. One big project was the garage re-org and cleaning. I've got a picture of the material storage cart I built out of extra 2x4's and some scrap plywood. It's been up for a month and it's still standing. I wish it was a little easier to move, as I re-cycled some casters from an old storage rack that were only swivel on 1 end (2 swivel, 2 fixed). Given the racks 12' length it can be difficult to move it around the garage, but I've settled on a place that it works well in so I'll probably be able to leave it there. I really like how much space this clears up despite it's size. It's holding alot of wood/metal and will keep my sheet goods ding free.

It's final position is between the garage doors. The left door is my access door, the right door is rarely used, so I set it up sheet side to the right in between the doors. The subaru Shell got a new dolly that doesn't protrude from the car at all so it takes up a lot less space and goes next to the material rack.
ON to the car!
The steering column has been frustrating to me. It's been one of those mental barriers you build up during the project. There was no clear way to mount the column because I had no space to use the stock mount. I devised a plan and slowly worked on it piece by piece. The issue is to get the column out it has to be lifted about 1/4" to clear the shock mount. This requires either a large hole that can allow the column to lift, or a removable corner of the cars structure. I didn't really have the clearance for that, so I decided to make a removable corner.


Add a little CAD (Cardboard Aided Design)


And you get this


It attaches with 3 bolts into 3 different directions, and is quite stout. Here you can see it's removable an the area that it occupies.


Overall it turned out great and works really well. I will drill and rivet the top of the foot well along the flange, as it makes a flat plane with the rest of the foot well. Obviously it would be difficult to remove the column (the master cylinders and then the top of the foot well would have to come off) but how often do you have to do that?

I also created the diff mounts. They are really simple, and use the same bushing I'm using for the A-arms. The only issue is I have to remove the diff mount from the diff to get the bolt out of the bushing. It's not to big of a deal though. I"m going to add some webbing to the left side of the mount to re-enforce the bushing.


Thanks for Looking

Daniel

Nice progress!

I realized that the next step was to begin fitting the bodywork. I've been both excited about this and dreading it for a while now. It's obviously exciting because the car really starts looking like a car. I've been dreading it because fitting the body seemed like it would be really hard. Well getting everything to fit wasn't that bad. I'm sure MOUNTING it will be worse, but I have a few good ideas for all of the panels, so I think it will work ok. I don't have many detail shots of the modified bodywork, however the frame required no modifications and the rear end fit like a glove on the chassis, so It proves I can at least measure correctly. Details on the bodywork will come as I get it mounted. The good news is all of the wheels seem to be in the right place, my WB matches what it was supposed to and it looks like everything will be able to clear.

I'll just post up a few of my favorite shots. As usual some more are available at http://s33.photobucket.com/albums/d51/Nocones/midget/



This is one of my favorites. It shows how insane this is going to be.



The car is quite low (3.5" ground clearance) however this shot you can see the difuser plane pretty good. It winds up about 13-14" tall.



Here you can see how low the car sits on the wheels. At ride height the wheel wells have been releaved of 4" of fender. Once I add in some contour and bump travel the fender flares will end up even with the top of the fenders..



This car is so tiny. I only have 8' ceilings in my garage and it still looks small from this "distance"

Anyway, thanks for looking

Daniel

niceeee..

are you going do do some fender flares, or extensions like they run in japan, or were you thinking of cutting the bodywork in half down the middle and welding in a piece thus widening the whole structure.?

It's going to have massive fender flares. Think DTM car.
I thought about widening the body, but I don't like the look of it, it's really hard to get the two seams right, and I would have to widen the windshield by ~12". It's not a flat piece of glass and the frame is a pretty complicated part to seam.

Nice progress...Time to update your avatar!

Fantastic progress!
I really like your materials storage solution.
Most of us probably have similar space limitations and your answer is excellent.
I will have to build my own version soon.

The solution for your steering column is very clean and tidy.
It will work out great.

And to see the body panels where they belong is art!
Cover up the skeleton with the beautiful skin.
The bones look great, but without a body of some type, the car looks unfinished.
The At-om style probably has the least "bodywork" of any car to make it look finished.

Keep up the great work!

Great job, I ike what you did w the frame and I would love to be the one doing the flares on you car
Anyway, i hope you don't just do "something" to cover the tires, I I may sugest something......if you are going to use fiberglass, build a "box" around the tires w carboard, fill it with expanding foam and let your ideas flow.
I put an old style mini cooper body over a 1st generation MR2 and that is the way I went, the foam is easy to shape and you cann always add more and make changes.
here is the minitoy

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=5990

Tony