Axle - AGAIN!

 Yes again I'm afraid. It had been leak free, but then I took it to Peterborough & there was "evidence" when I got back. So I had the axle in bits again & put in another of the 2mm cross section O-Rings & this time ran a file round the edge of the axle to make sure there were no burrs in it, covered it in "Hylomar Blue" & pressed it in very slowly.

It cut a sliver off the O-Ring.

"Perhaps the Hylomar will hold it" I thought - no, it didn't. When I put it on I read the instructions "allow the solvent to evaporate off before assembling" OK, any clues for how long? Not long enough as it turned out. it appeared to have dripped a single drip, but it had dripped.

I ordered more O-Rings, this time 1 1/2mm cross section, then looked up the Hylomar wait time on the internet - 10 - 20 mins. I dry assembled the 1/2 shaft, I put an O-Ring in the groove on the bearing & dry assembled it, I put an O-Ring at the far end of the bearing rebate in the axle as well & dry assembled it making sure that didn't put load on the bearing retainer plate.

I put a bead of Hylomar round the bearing & the O-Rings & pushed the 1/2 shaft in - then pulled it out, ensuring the coating was thin & even. After 10 mins I pushed it back in & bolted it all up.

(sigh)

It's been out a couple of times since & no leakage yet. The jury is still out & my fingers are still crossed.

In other news I've been ferreting away at cameras again. I have a camera mount right in the nose cone & I really like the low view it gives, but up to now using it has meant stopping, moving one of the cameras into the nose & setting it going on battery, driving for a bit & then swapping it all back. As my lovely girlfriend gave me new cameras for Christmas, it occurred to me that one of the old ones could go in the nose, but experiments with battery life suggested I'd not get much of "the good stuff" if I set it going before I got in the car. I considered powering it from a USB but a hole in the case would mean it would fill up with water in the inevitable showers.

So what to do? I had a matt black GoPro case that I'd not used because it had a large rectangular hole in the side for putting a USB cable in through, so I drew a box to fit snugly in there, then a round open cylinder with "bead" on & printed it in rigid plastic. Next, a conical "boot" with a matching recess for the bead printed in rubbery stuff. Having glued the rigid part to the camera shell, I can plug in the USB & pop the boot in place & it's waterproof & operable from the remote on the dash.

It actually looks quite techie. What would I do without my 3D printer & On-Shape?

The boot in 1mm thick 90 shore polyurethane is just right & stretchy enough to force the pug through a 4mm hole so it seals against the cable outer, it's a simple thing, but my videos should be a bit more interesting & I won't have to stop & re-arrange the car to achieve it.

 

MoT Time

 ...Well Almost.

While looking around the car as the MoT is coming, I noticed the rear No. Plate light was dead. 

It was just a little thing I knocked up myself out of three white LEDs & a 3D printed housing. This time I thought I'd spend some actual money, so arranged for the excellent folk at Car Builder solutions to send one of their tiny lights the same as I used on the Fury. Again I've put it in a printed housing. When I got the car it had a standard "Lucas" lamp, so I got rid of that & fitted mine up under the boot lip so it's invisible, the new one fits the same way.

It lights the No. plate "sufficiently" & there's no clutter on the back of the car.

Vented

The Stylus came to me with three "shark gill" type vents on each front wing, they are rakishly angled to the front, but to give the vents some depth (make it look as if the holes were flanged inward), the original builder had glued MDF to the inside of each wing, cut out the holes & sprayed it all blue. This probably looked great at the time, but 25 years later the MDF has cracked & doesn't look good at all.

So what to do. When I bought the car I just got rid of the mesh that was falling off the inside & replaced it with the small weave stuff you can see in the pic & not really having a clue beyond that, I left it. Shark gills? I had bigger fish to fry.

It was a similar story with the tail lights, but then I thought of re-setting them inside the body with a 3D printed silver lip, I've been astonished at how well this has worked, so it started me thinking & what I thought was something round the vents to match the tail light bezels.

So I drew something using "OnShape", a free cloud-based CAD system.

Then, because I wasn't sure & because I can, I tried out three on a representative background.

I liked it, so I printed a prototype, tested it, made a few changes & printed three for the near side of the car, with three very thin polyurethane gaskets to sit between the trim & the paintwork, I did this with the tail lights & while they hardly show, they make the thing look far more "finished".

With the prints done, one was a good fit, one fitted nicely at the bottom, but swung out at the top, one was loose, so I needed a way of holding all three in place while the glue cured. As is so often the case, two bits of wood &  ratchet strap worked rather well.

So the passenger side is all blinged up, the trims for the driver's side are on the printer even as I type.