Yes, the Stylus is off the road for the Winter, so the DVLA owes me 5 months road tax. I took it out for a last run this evening to test a couple of things.
Thing one was a new camera mount that raises the cameras just above the roll bar, so it can see more of the scenery & less of the dashboard. It's a little "leggy", but I have a plan for that.
The other thing was an steering wheel.
The car came with a D-shaped black suede item from "OMP", which I didn't think went well with the car, so when my brother offered me the wheel from his HotRod of 50 years, I put that on. it looked great, just the job & I hung the OMP one on my kitchen wall as a conversation piece - which was fine, but I really wanted an older looking one. I looked around the Autojumble, where many wheels were to be found in pretty poor condition for £lots. However, I stumbled upon (literally) a wheel claiming to fit a Mini, in good condition for £30 & bought that. Then I started thinking. My brother's wheel looked good, but when touring I found the rim a little thin & my hands ached, also, I'd never been very happy with the look of the adaptor I'd made. But could I fit the new one & hang the older wood rim wheel on the wall?
When we got back I summoned up my inner Aircraft Fitter & drilled out the rivets holding the spokes onto the mounting ring, I countersunk the holes & rivetted it back on, now with a smooth underside, drilled holes for bolts & there it was, fitted - ish.
Of course the centre looked ugly, so I set about drawing up a new centre cap using "OnShape", as ever with me, it ended up a little "complex" as it had to fit over all the uglyness.
There were rebates for the bolts, for the arms and for a square rubber plug to retain it in the square hole in the centre of the wheel. That I will admit was a little genius. How do you hold a centre cap on without bolts & without it vibrating & buzzing? I used the square hole to fit a TPU (soft polyurethane) block I'd drawn & printed, which wedged into both the wheel & the cap - job done.
I set it printing at about 9:30 that evening, then had a "better" idea. I could put subtle coloured rings on it! So I sat up late & swapped the colour to blue, then set my alarm & an hour later, re-set it to silver.
Then after another hour, orange, then silver again.
Obviously by this time I'd had broken sleep all night & it was a rather jaded Blatter that staggered down stairs the following day & was rather pleased when he found the display on the printer showing 99%.
I peeled it off the print mat & tried it on the wheel - perfect!
This was a good thing after a sleepless night.
Isn't that the cat's nightwear?
How did I manage without a 3D printer?
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