1st March 2003
After helping Craig out with some electrical stuff in the morning, it was time to get on with the bracket. I decided that although it looked tricky, it was worth having a go at bending it myself - if it doesn't work out then I'll have to cut out a new outline which won't take too much time.
So with Craig's blowlamp (and hands and help), we set up the bracket in the vice using some spare sqaure tube steel to brace it. A good blast with the blow lamp along the line where the bend needs to be, followed by some serious clout with the mallet, and the bend is made. It looks quite good and seems pretty strong, so we soon have the second done, and fine tune the angles as required.
I then start to cut the notches in the top and bottom so that we can try the bracket in position in the chassis to ensure that it looks to be ok, before continuing.
Once the bracket was bent and looking good, I spent the rest of the afternoon fettling it by (lots of) filing, and test positioning in the chassis. After a couple of hours of work, the bracket is looking pretty good. The cut outs in the top and bottom have been enlarged to allow some flexibility in the positioning. Also the side cut outs have been trimmed to give some clearance for the prop once the bearing is in position.
Next task will be to look at mounting it in the chassis - drilling the holes in just the right position, getting the packing out right, mounting the bearing, and then accurately measuring the prop lengths required.

2nd March 2003
So after a minor distraction of taking the old props and reverse gearbox to be weighed, it's time to get on with the bearing mount bracket. The next part of the job (after cleaning off all that burned on masking tape - looks much better now!) is to work out and drill the holes where it will mount to the chassis using the existing reverse box mounts. This is simple enough but quite time consuming, since I am careful to make sure I get it all correctly aligned in all dimensions. The finished job looks good and fits well though.
Speaking to a few people, and looking at the car, has made me a little paranoid about the lack of protection from the flailing broken prop, around the area where the reverse box was - and your ankle are. There are no diagonal chassis tubes in the sides of the tunnel here, presumably because it was left open for access to the reverse box?
Anyway, having had a think about it, I have designed a 'prop catcher'. Actually it will be more of a 'prop slower', but is better than the existing protection in this area (i.e. nothing!). I will probably make the panel out of 5mm ali, since there is only room for 1.5 inches of metal between prop and tunnel side panel, as the prop is so offset to one side.
This wouldn't add much weight to the car, and gives me a little more peace of mind in the event of a prop failure - although for it to flail much in this area is quite unlikely (props tend to fail at UJs - there are tubes in the chassis to help contain it near where the UJs will be).

7th March 2003
Well I don't seem to have made much progress this week, but I have just been working on ideas in my head mostly. With the bearing mount now finalised the important thing to do is to take the final prop measurements, and get the prop ordered. This is a pretty straight forward task, especially if you have four hands. The prop should be measured to millimetre accuracy from the front flange face to the centre line of the centre bearing, and the from there to the flange face of the diff. The most important of these to get right, is the front part, since that is fixed, there will be a slider in the rear section to compensate for any vaguearies. Though I have some scope for adjustment in the bearing mount, so can deal with being a few mm out each way.
The next thing to be working out, is how to go backwards. OK, so I know the theory: a ring gear sandwiched at one end of the prop, and a starter motor to engage with it and wind the whole shooting match backwards. So of this, the first problem to resolve is which end it's all going to fit. It's certainly pretty tight at the front end for the ring gear because of the clutch slave cylinders proximity to the engine output flange. But at the rear there isn't alot of room for a motor unit to fit, and the handbrake mechanism makes access particularly tricky.
So, having spoken to Dan about how he has done his, I have a look at whether re-mounting the clutch slave cylinder will provide enough space for a ring gear to be fitted. Some measuring suggests that if I could re-mount the slave about an inch further back, this would give enough clearance for a ring gear something like 40mm larger diameter than the engine output flange.
So I'll have to work out some sort of new bracketry arrangement for the clutch slave cylinder, which clears the sprocket.

Time to get the cardboard out again, for another mock up. I know that the ring gear which is commonly used is about 125mm in diameter - it is the gear from the end of the crank on a CBR600/900, with some machining to fit. So I knock up a cardboard prototype of a ring gear to trial fit onto the output flange, and help to visualise the clearances.
So it looks like a ring gear will fit ok as long as I can work out some new mounts for the clutch slave cylinder. The next thing to work out is where I can mount a motor to engage with the ring gear. My preferred location is alongside the gearbox pointing backwards, since this is right next to the rear engine mounts which I will be able to use. The alternative is to mount it beneath the prop... somehow.

8th March 2003
First thing today is to take some better pictures of the area around the clutch slave cylinder, so that I can electronically pick some brains to help find a solution to designing the new mounts required to move the cylinder back by an inch or so.
I've decided to take a break from working on the reverse system, and make a start on the new dashboard. I have got a plain blank ali dashboard from Westfield, which I need to fit to the car - sounds simple, but I will have to be careful to ensure I correctly align the fitting points to the rivnuts already fitted to the scuttle.
First thing I decide to do however, is to remove the ignition key lock barrel from the steering column. I am going to convert to having a dash mounted ignition switch and starter button, with the immobiliser taking care of security - the car definitely won't start without the immobiliser fob, cos I've tried and the ECU is very dead. With a few extra notions to security (removeable steering wheel and battery master switch), I think the car will be no less secure - probably more, since the wires on the standard barrel can be easily reached anyway.
The barrel is simply removed by drilling out the de-headed bolts holding it on the steering column.

Onto the new dash panel now. I retrieve the scuttle from storage, and fit it onto the car, this is needed to ensure I line everything up properly on the dash. The first thing to do to the panel before I can align and drill the fitting holes, is to create the hole for the steering column.
After much careful measuring, and using the previous dash panel as a reference, I have got the hole marked up, then it's a simple job to drill and file the hole out to the appropriate size.
The next part is to drill the holes where the dash panel will fix to the scuttle. This is a bit fiddly and requires plenty of marking and measuring and triple checking to ensure I drill them in exactly the right place. They have to align just right with the rivnuts in scuttle.
After this, I start to cut the holes for the instruments. The two large ones, the speedo and rev counter are first to be done. Again I spend a fair amount of time measuring to make sure I postion them right - to do this properly I had to get the drivers seat out and sit in the car with the steering wheel on, so I could mark up where I can see the dials which had been partially obscured when the smaller steering wheel was fitted.
Again, this takes some time to cut correctly, especially since making the large holes requires me to drill lots of smaller holes around the edge of it, then plenty of filing to neaten it up and ensure it is just the right size for the gauge to fit through.

9th March 2003
Time to get on with more dash panel cutting today. First up is the second large hole, this one is for the tacho. Again it starts with drilling lots of holes, then using the file to create the required size and shape hole. Before too long I have both holes done, and trial fit them into the car, with the steering wheel - the view from the drivers seat is spot in, with both gauges fully in view now.

Next holes to cut are those for the remaining gauges. I am adding an oil temperature gauge, so I now need four holes. If I put them all in a line, like on the previous dash, they will end up too far away to read, so I am arranging them in a 2 by 2 fashion. This will then put the less important switches a little further away but still within easy reach.
Just a couple of smaller jobs, the first is quick and simple, positioning and drilling the hole for the indicator toggle switch. Again, this is done by trying it all in the car and working out where the best reach is from the drivers seat.
Next job is a little longer, making some small brackets to mount the immobiliser, but I'm not going to say much more than that about it here.

13th March 2003
The lack of updates here sort of indicates the progress made on the car. Though I haven't been doing nothing, there's no real progress to show for my efforts. I'm just focussing on trying to work out the reverse mechanism. The problem is that no one has really done it before on this engine in this car - and certainly not without more major modifications than I am trying to do. I am trying to make it so that there is nothing done which isn't reversible (sic), so no chassis mods, retaining the hydraulic clutch etc.
I'll report on here as soon as there is anything significant or definite to report.
Anyway, I went over to Bailey Morris at lunch time to collect the new prop. It is rather lovely, and looks to be very nicely manufactured. Hopefully the extensive measuring and bracket making will pay off when I try to fit it - i.e. it will fit! It is certainly going to come out a fair bit lighter than the previous setup.

15th March 2003
Absolutely lovely weather today, a perfect day for going for a blat - shame the car is in no fit state to do so! Oh well, and I've got a splendid headache to go with it, for some reason (no, not that reason!), so I'm a bit sloth-like in my activity today.
But given that it is a lovely day, and I've got the new prop, I decide to de-oil the the car where the reverse box has breathed on it. So I need to take the car down off the axle stands, roll it out on the drive, put it back on the stands, use Gunk and a good hosing to get the oil off, take the car off the stands, roll it back into the garage, and put it back onto the stands.
What a pfaff, but well worth it, the results are good, as the oil slick along the the underside of the car and down the tunnel are now gone. Before I did the clean up job, I drilled some extra drain holes in the tunnel, and the rear of the floors of the cockpit (which I can access now without seats).
Whilst the car is out of the garage, I took the opportunity to tidy the garage up a bit. I got fed up of keep moving the battery charger around so decided to seize the moment and make up some brackets to mount it on the garage wall. With the charger here, it is simple to just plug in the charger to the car when parked up, and switch it on. Nice.
Just time for a little bit of working on the dash, before I give up to rest my head. I have got a couple of new bits for it, an aircraft style covered ignition switch and an FIA battery master switch. So I can create the hole for the ignition switch, which is to be fitted next to the smaller gauges. I can't get alot further with the dash until I know if any buttons or switches will be needed for the reverse, and until I've got a couple more switches (i.e. need to decide on the starter button!)

©2002-2009 David Hackett UDM4