Adoom

Can I make a brake calliper bracket from aluminium? How thick does it need to be?

So I bought Sheepers old Link G4. I had forgotten how much the looms cost GEEEEEEZ$$$$$ Since I can't leave shit alone, I decided to change the Stepper motor idle control valve that needs 6 outputs, to a Solenoid idle control valve that only uses 1. I just happened to have a random nissan one, so I used that. I chiselled an adapter plate out of some 100X40 bar. A combination of the 4 jaw in the lathe and the 12mm end-mill in the mill. I could have done a better job aligning the middle hole of both. I had to adjust the hole a bit. First time tig welding Aluminium. Not sure I had the settings right. It worked okay, but looks a bit poo. The cable tray is a bit in the way. But it fits okay.

You been watching Jafromobile on Yootuub or something?

Just C-Notch your shins at towbar height.

The hub is already machined, so everything fits and nothing hits. But the machining has weakened the hub. With an unmachined hub, the disc sit's 4.5mm further inboard. The subaru caliper bracket(red) is underneath the mounting lugs(blue) on the upright. There is only half a gnats nut gap between them. My adapter plate ties them together. For the caliper to line up with the disc 4.5mm further inboard, the blue and red have to merge inside each other. The green line, AFAIK, is how the 4 pot WRX caliper would fit, the red bracket is no longer needed(I still have to get a hold of one to measure). But it might be the solution to my problem because there is nothing in the way of moving it inboard. But "WRX" = $$$$. EDIT: This fopar happened because when I was mocking up and measuring, the upright I used had a small ridge on the spindle and the bearing wasn't properly seated.

So it turns out machining down the mounting face has weakened the hubs.... Cletus said he'd fail it. Waaah I cut a spare/scrap one in half to check. So the options I see so far are. Make new hubs from scratch. Which will be a lot of machining with plenty of chances to turn my part to scrap if I make a mistake. Or, get some WRX 4 pot calipers. Because they don't have a mounting bracket that interferes with the mounting lugs on the upright and that would allow me to move the caliper inboard to line up with the disc in its previous location(before I machined the hub). AFAIK the mounting hole spacing will be the same as the current calipers, so I can modify my existing adapter brackets. The WRX ones look like this.

I can't, the caliper mounting lu gs on the upright would occupy the same space as the caliper frame thing. It looks like you could move it in the photo, but there are raised ribs in the way. One possible option could be to use Subaru 4 pot calipers(only from WRX??), if I can find any for not stupid money. AFAIK the mounting bolt distance is the same on all calipers, but since the 4 pots don't have that bracket, they only have mounting lugs, I should be able to move the caliper back. This option might possibly cost less than the materials and time to make custom hubs.

Dang it. If i were to machine some hubs from solid. Do i need to get design approval first? Do i make them from cast iron, or steel, or could i even use aluminium?

Cert/brake modification question. So maybe you have been following my triumph project thread... For my front brake conversion I machined down the back of the hubs where the discs bolt on, by 4.5mm, to get the disc in the right place in relation to the caliper. Some times after doing that I realised that the interior diameter of the hub is larger in the middle. I was slightly concerned that machining the disc mounting face might be close to breaking through to the interior. I had a spare hub, it was scrap because I machined the disc location diameter undersize..... Soooooo I cut it in half with the band saw. I've drawn in the 4.5mm that has been removed. The thickness has gone from 6mm to 3.5mm. How thin is too thin? The disc is bolted to the wheel side of the hub so I don't think that area is loaded during braking. Is this going to be okay/safe? What would @cletus say?

And I got the rubbers on my way to work. Thanks Greg at MPAutoparts. It wasn't cheaper, but I get instant gratification, and I'd rather give Greg money than 'Murica. I rebuilt the calipers after work. I dunno, but with the rubber gloves and the lube and the rubber parts and trying to fit things where they just don't seem to want to go, but then they do and it feels good, rebuilding calipers just seems slightly lewd. Here's the left one, I'll let you imagine the right one, or you can just look at your screen in a mirror.

I've also cleaned and painted the calipers. The pistons can be reused, but the rubbers are knackered, so I've got to get a rebuild kit before I can assemble them. They are 2003 Subaru Impreza 2 pot calipers. The rebuild kit from rock auto is really cheap, ~$17 with all the springy plates too, but freight is about $40. Surely I can get a rebuild kit for less than that locally?

I did actually do stuff to this over the xmas break. But I didn't take many photos. I finished modifying the front cross member and permanently mounted the rack. The easiest option ended up being to replicate the factory brackets. With the sump modified, I could lift the rack back up(still lower than factory) 16mm which meant I could remove the spacer between the rod end and the steering arm. This also gave me loads of clearance between the rod end and the wheel rim. When I finished the cross member I thought, well, I guess it's time to take the suspension off the yellow car(where I was mocking up) and put it on this car. I looked at the suspension and thought, I don't want to put those dirty, rusty parts on.... I guess I'll clean and paint them first. Cleaning and painting took ages. I used it to justify, to myself, buying a blasting cabinet. I got new bearings. And ball joints for the lower arms. I had a bit of a WTF moment when I tried to dry assemble the hubs with the discs and calipers.... And the calliper brackets didn't fit, like not by miles. After being confused and sad, and sleeping on it. What I think happened was that the hub I used to make the caliper brackets had some ridges worn on the stud axle that caused the bearing to sit 4.5mm proud. I decided that to only way to fix it was to machine 4.5mm off the back of the hub to move the disc. Now it all bolts together. I

So... something like 12 years ago I bought my vice 2nd hand. I was missing one of the jaws. Buying or making a replacement jaw should be straight forward.... right? I never found anything off the shelf that was the right size. Probably because the vice is polish. Since then I made do with only the one jaw... After a few years, the one jaw broke... But I continued to make do. Finally, yesterday I decided that the tools and materials I have, had reached critical mass and making replacement jaws was achievable. The old broken jaw... The 50X50 aluminium bar I chiselled it out of. It took a REALLY LONG time to saw this. My bandsaw doesn't really go fast enough for aluminium and the only blade I have is like 18tpi and kinda blunt. The mess I made. This is the first actual thing I have milled since I got it. I had only really used it for drilling. I used the 50mm face mill for the big flat bits and 12mm 4 flute for the ends and some of the surfaces. I destroyed one 12mm end mill when I discovered that it doesn't handle climb milling with the quill extended quite far. Chipped all the points off the end. Oops. I didn't have an end mill large enough to countersink the socket screws, so had to use a 14mm drill. And the finished jaws. The originals were 12mm thick. These are about 20mm. I guess if they get all gouged up I have enough meat there to mill them flat again. It took surprisingly long to make these. About 4 hours.

Motor arrived already! Unfortunately, the packaging(probably china original) was insufficient and there is a big dent in the fan shroud and in the wiring box. But it's just cosmetic, so I CBF doing anything about it. I've installed the motor. And I've installed the 15Amp overcurrent switch that came with the first one I blew up. The motor is supposed to draw 13.5Amps. I mounted it to the main switch so it was easy to get to. I also put in some cable strain relief using p-clips. The overcurrent switch works too.... Turns out it draws too much when it tries to spin up to 800RPM, but it will do 528RPM just fine. I did a test cut on some 50mm round at 528RPM, 2mm depth of cut and that was fine. I might be able to get it up to 800RPM if I cut the power, reset the over current switch, then power on again before the chuck slows down too much.... maybe. Going by the theory that it's drawing a shit ton of current just to accelerate all that weight. The speeds I get are ~double what it says here because the original motor would have been 1400rpm and I'm using a 2800rpm motor to make it go faster. But if the fastest I can run with the 3HP motor is 528RPM.... It would have been better to use a 1400rpm motor and have more torque at lower speeds. Le sigh....

Possibly I imagine it will cost almost as much as a new china motor.

I fucked up. When I wired in the forward/reverse switch, it wasn't obvious how to include the over current switch... Here is my $260 mistake. The smoke was/is acrid as fuck. Really burns the eyes.

See my sight glasses.... I also got an Aloris style wedge type tool post from EBay USA. It came with 7 holders. I thought it was a lot of money.... then shipping and unspecified "duty and taxes" got added, which doubled the price. So I'd been trying to think of an excuse to buy a 3HP motor to upgrade the 2.2HP motor. The 2.2HP had a noisy centrifugal switch.... The 3HP motor arrived this afternoon. After removing the 2.2 and finding it really hot, I realised the centrifugal switch was stuck on.... so the starting capacitor was always connected. The 3HP is wired up now, it's much quieter. It was getting late...I still need to align the pulley and I want to see if I can find matching belts as they are slightly different lengths.

I used silicone when I put it back on, after making sure all the..... selector forks? fingers? spades? blades?.... were in the appropriate slots. I get to fill it with oil tonight.

The replacement china sight glasses finally arrived. When I drained the oil out of the carriage, it didn't drain very well. I found that there was a thick layer of watery oily filth sludge in the bottom. So I unbolted the base plate to clean it out. Fortunately it cleaned up quite well. I also discovered that there was a broken spring. It had rusted at one end because it was under the sludge. I replaced the spring and its retaining screw. Tonight I tried to flush out the feed screw gearbox. I discovered it was pretty filthy too. So I moved all the levers to the left and removed the front plate. There's a couple of gears in there.... And then after cleaning. There was a paper gasket. I'm not sure if I want to try make a new one, or just use silicone since it's probably not going to be removed again for many years.

I just open them in MS paint and use the resize option. 35% works for me. Still big enough for forums, but file size much smaller.

I forgot blowing up sheep by constant clicking. I do remember "stop touching me".

Cool! "glitteringprizes" "fogofwar"...not sure if this one was a cheat....

Yes. It was very effective. Especially after the tuner replaced the water with 100% E85. I think there might have been ~10 degree temp drops after the injector. But, the jets that came with the Aquamist system did not supply a consistent/repeatable amount of E85. So I replaced it with an inline fuel pump and additional injector and it was retuned. When the E85 injector was running, it reduced the 'normal' fuel at the primary injectors. It was reliable... for a few weeks/months until I took it to a track day and something failed with the E85 system. Since the ECU had no way to know there was no E85. the fuel mix went REALLY lean and shit melted. That's my story.

I took the lid off so I can de-rust it. Looks okay in there. Everything is oily. There's no obvious wear. The brown/orange streaks are not oil, it's almost like dried varnish. I suspect it's some kind of liquid gasket/sealer.

These guys had what I needed. https://www.tinkr.co.nz/