This last few days I have been piecing together the front suspension of my 1/6th scale electric car model. This so far has not been a difficult build. Challenging yes.... difficult no.
The design work that I put into the computer model paid off during this portion of the assembly as the front shocks mounted work perfectly in the front suspension. The outer disk is the steering knuckle where the wheels will be mounted.
The challenge in this portion of the assembly was how to put the disk brakes together so that the disk would slide into the caliper and still spin. The disk shown here is mounted to the back side of the wheel hub first.
The hub needed to be able to slide the disk brake into the red caliper shown in this view. But this was impossible with the center hub mounted into the tire as the red caliper needed to be mounted to the knuckle disk first.
After some thought I figured it out. I had to disassemble the wheels completely and install the rear wheel around the mounted disk brake caliper first. Then mount the disk brake and center hub making sure that the disk was seated into the caliper. I was able to slide the inner portion of the tire and rim far enough inward to allow the disk brake to fit into the caliper. Then a two inch 10-32 bolt was inserted into the center of the hub through the disk brake and was tightened down to the mating inner steering knuckle disk.
The disk brake works as it should so that when the wheel turns so does the disk brake and the red caliper is mounted to the inner knuckle disk so that it does not spin. The wheel assembly did not need any glue as it is a nice tight fit and all parts simple snapped together. Only the center 10-32 bolt holds the wheel on to the suspension which it does perfectly.
This view shows off the full functional suspension with the two front shocks. The center plate with the six bolts in it is a mounting plate to join the next section of the assembly to the front suspension section of the frame.
The steering in the suspension is smooth and tight (no slop). When I push down on the upper mounts for the shock the suspension moves as it should with the shocks working correctly. The width of the assembly at this point is 12 1/2 inches. So it is a BIG model or it will be once I've completed it. I will have to do some modifications to the rack and pinion steering but will not do this until I have the frame farther along so that I can get it lined up correctly to make it all work perfectly. I don't think this will be a big problem as I can see where changes can be made without a lot of hassle. Again this is a good reason why I bolted this assembly together instead of glue everything. It makes it much easier to make changes if needed.
Lots of parts to be made yet on this project. I think I am past the most difficult portion of this build with the front suspension and steering coming together nicely. Total time on this project for those of you who are keeping track like I am now comes up to a grand total of 142 hours 23 minutes. This includes 102 hours just in design time on the computer. I am still doing design work on the fiberglass body that I will build for this project. It seems to change daily but with each change it is getting more refined with each passing hour. Another sunshine day at the Tinker's Workshop even if it is raining outside. Stay tuned for further progress reports.
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