Project Schism - another offbeat '23 Ford T

[toddshotrods]

Kez was gone for a few months, finishing up her last year of school. Now that she has graduated, and caught her breath, she came out for a few hours today and reminded me just how freakin awesome she is, by doing the final fit on the upper control arm mounts. Precision. Craftsmanship.


Evan did the initial cut-n-grind, then carefully sculpted these pieces to shape; Amanda and I did some manual machining on them; then Kez brought it all together - Team (Inhaler) work!

We just need to drill the mounting holes, finish the bore on the headlight holes and fit that piece to the frame, then chamfer the weld areas and clean them up, and this will all be ready to tack together. We are steadily inching our way towards a roller...

[toddshotrods]

Mesh time (again).


Curves are a beautiful thing...

[toddshotrods]

Evan's metal sculpting and Amanda's machine work have the front suspension coming along very nicely. I'm definitely having the dad watching his baby being born moments seeing this stuff come to life.



Their progress has enabled Kez to move her precision work back to the roll cage, and start stringing the front bars. This one is oh-so-close...



The end goal here is a heavily triangulated roadster chassis, with dual funny car cages over the occupants - not funny car style tubes incorporated into a traditional full-body cage, real twin funny car upper cages.

[toddshotrods]

Technically, this isn't much different than the last pic I posted of the front suspension; BUT, it's a milestone because, at long last, the front upper control arm mounts are tacked in place, and officially a part of Schism's chassis!


I have a few things to tackle, at once, now. I can get the team started on mounting the steering rack; I need to make temporary bushings to positively locate the lower controls arms, so we can finish those; and I can finally start on the coil-over locations and mounting.

The push is on now, to get it rolling! I simply cannot wait to see Schism roll out into the aisle, crank the wheel (remember 1.5 turns lock-to-lock!), and feel/see it change directions!

[toddshotrods]

Now begins the serious challenge of fitting all this stuff under Schism's missing bonnet. To get the ball rolling, I made CAD drawings and cut plastic sprockets to mock up the electric-drive "transmission". I knew I would, but now that I actually see it, I l-o-v-e it!


That's a 20-tooth sprocket on the motor, mounted on a hub that fits the motor's splined output shaft, leading up to a 25-tooth sprocket on the outer end of the jackshaft, a 15-tooth sprocket on the inside, turning a 45-toother on the diff; 630/#60 chain. If my math is correct, that gives me a 4.25:1, single speed, reduction. That should allow both around town and highway driving, on all-electric power.

[GregWeld]

So the electric is going to be chain drive???

[toddshotrods]

Originally Posted by GregWeld

So the electric is going to be chain drive???

Yup! It has a conventional diff, that will be limited slip, but driven by chains. The hypothetical original build year has regressed to 1913, and my goal is to build a rabid horseless buggy.


I like the 33, btw - I am subscribed, of course.

[toddshotrods]

A little more work on the grille. I think the "shell" might be a two piece, front and back half, deal that bolts together, clamping the mesh bars between them. Each bar would have a small ball on the end, that would fit in a dimple in the shell halves. I would position and model the balls and sockets so that you can see the sandwiched ball-end bars kind of floating in the shell. The bolts that actually clamp it together would be exposed too, to match the other trim pieces (pedal pads, fuel filler, horn button, etc).

[toddshotrods]

My faithful, dedicated, talented, awesome, Team has literally whittled out a foundation for me to begin doing "my thing" - extreme design concepts. I am winding up...

At this point, I am still exploring the feasibility of what I have in mind for Schism's grille. I design in my head, and CAD is my first tool of choice to translate it; with the fringe benefit of being the next logical/best step towards making the ideas a tangible reality. I can print drawings and patterns, or cut/print directly from the CAD models.

This is the ball and socket design I see in my head. The green areas are what you would not see as that would be inside the material of the "shell". The gray flip side of those surfaces are the socket, that would be machined into each shell half. The gap between the mesh bar ball and the socket surface, are the thickness of the carbon fiber cloth. They would not actually float, they would be effectively trapped by the sockets, when the grille halves are clamped together. The visual effect is for them to appear to float though. That flat, abruptly cut off edge of the sockets is the inside edge of the grille shell. So, you would see the ball "floating" in the sockets, in kind of a cutaway, like those awesome drawings and actual sliced engines that let you see the internals.


From this point, I have enough actual physical data to begin exploring machining and printing processes, to determine how feasible, or not, this idea actually is. For example, the surfaces of the sockets will require a small diameter ball-end mill, which adds substantially to the time each shell half will be on the machine; and how much hand finishing work is required to produce the desired final result. That is always a balancing act between how much the machine does, and how much the man does. Time is money. Also, this shell is supposed to be curved, swept back towards the cowl, at the top. That can be done on a 4 axis machine, from a rather substantial piece of billet, or post machine process, by actually bending the machined part; but it has to be bent precisely and perfectly or the machined part is ruined - time is money. I will eventually model the entire shell and test both routes, digitally; unless I find that the whole idea is completely unfeasible for this project. I am kind of hoping it adds-up, because what I see in my head is pretty cool, and I would like to see it in real life.

We should conduct some of the first feasibility tests this evening. I will prepare one of the ball-ended mesh bar models for 3D printing, so we can run it through the machine software and get an idea how much time we'll actually spend there. Additive manufacturing makes the most sense with complex, dense, parts so I have an idea for growing a little forest of these bars, that would be pretty cool - if it adds up. Might be a cool project to do a time-lapse video of...

[toddshotrods]

Finally getting back on track with the CAD/CNC stuff! It appears that the problem with the CNC router is the tech who came and "tweaked" the machine was a little overzealous in removing the "slop" from the stepper motors' gearboxes. Mind you, the machine was cutting with perfect accuracy, but he determined the gearboxes, especially on the X-axis, were horribly loose. As a result, the machine would appear to bang off a solid physical limit, while machining in 3D (lots of quick direction changes, and constant movement). He eventually offered that area of his professional services as a possible culprit, and suggested I shut the machine down and try to manually push it in the three axes - I had to put a LOT of effort into moving it in both X & Y axes. Then, it would let go, suddenly freewheeling. My guess is this is what was happening in machining, and the hard, audible/visible, bang against the imaginary limit was the stepper motor catching again and basically snatching it out of freewheeling - but out of position (original origin).

To test my theory, I painstakingly machined all 38 of these little slices one-by-one, limiting the machine to a small area, and at fingernail-chewing, thumb-twiddlingly slow, speeds; to allow it to remain "connected". It worked, and perfectly. Two days (twenty-nine hours of machine time) later, I walked away with the rear stringer for the rag top. (I didn't actually sit in front of the machine that long - I would program/setup a slice, start it, walk away, and come back later to start another...)



In the meantime, Riley, our new high school intern worked on the aluminum sheetmetal inner frame structure.


These will be TIG'd into a sculptured little "angle iron" frame, and bonded into the carbon/foam/fiberglass/aluminum composite "rag top".


I am going to run a couple air cuts of the window frames, and if the machine has loosened up enough to stay focused, or (if not) after we re-adjust the gearboxes, I will be able to cut them, and finally assembly the rag top frame. Schism really close to making the transition from a pile of parts to an actual car.