Electric Car Model Suspension Starting To Take Shape

A very busy day today at the Tinker's Workshop.  More design work on my 1/6th scale electric car model with tweaking done to the front suspension and parts being cranked out on the Makerbot 3D printer.  Another seven hours onto the design time for a total of 87 hours so far.  Lots of tweaking to say the least.  

This image is a good view of the front suspension and steering setup for the project.  I will need to print out the parts that mount to the upper shocks and the connectors that will hold the rack arm for the rack and pinion steering .  The wheels will mount on to the hubs with internal 10-32 bolts threaded into their centers.  These will hold the wheels, disk brakes and calipers in place on the model. 

Here are the components for one side of the front suspension.  Upper and lower suspension arms, wheel mount  (disk shaped object) and working shock absorber. 

 The parts put together makes more sense as to where what parts go where.  This is the right front suspension ready to be installed on to the chassis once it is printed.

These two photos are of the steering rack and matching steering shaft gear.  The rack is 8 and 1/4 inches long and just fit onto the Makerbot 3D printer. The gear and rack matched up very well and should work great to turn the wheels with the steering wheel. The gear will be mounted onto a 1/4 aluminum shaft directly to the steering wheel.  I have to modify the gear so that it can be easily mounted on to the steering shaft with a set screw.  The steering wheel will be set up the same way.  Also on this shaft will be a spacer mounted on the shaft so that it will not slide out of position once it is installed into the final assembly.

  I plan on assembling the model with hardware wherever possible so that it can be disassembled for modifications or repairs if need be.  The lucky thing with this model is the sheer size of it which makes assembly easier.  Bigger is better and in this case simpler too!  I am still playing around with a design for a fiberglass body for the model and am getting closer with that end of it. Just have not found that perfect shape I have been looking for. Like I said more tweaking to do.... a lot more.