Blooze Own: An F355 Six Speed N* Build Thread (Page 90/126)
Sage JAN 16, 07:42 PM
Looking good!

Bearings and zerk fittings look great. Reminds me of the time we put an additional 36 fittings in a TD8 dozer. Not sure why they didn't put them in to begin with, (other than cost), but when finished, all moving joints could be individually greased. But that's another story.

You know, I think you could fit one more hole in there for weight savings without compromising integrity or strength..... (J/K...looks great!)

Anxiously waiting to see it in place, doing it's job.

Thanks for continuing to share your project.

HAGO!
RCR JAN 17, 07:15 AM
Great stuff, Blooze. Always a pleasure (and learning experience) when checking in.

Bob
Bloozberry JAN 20, 10:21 PM
Gotta say it... Sage and Bob, you guys are two of the most loyal posters in my thread and I really appreciate the feedback. So an extra special thanks (and a ratings bump) to both of you.

Back at the bottom of page 21, I started covering the fabrication of the lower bell crank mounts but stopped when I realized I couldn't complete them until I had first sorted out the trailing link mounts, the upper frame rail modifications, and the bell crank itself. Well, those are now complete so I turned my attention back to the mounts over the last couple days. I started by finishing up the LH lower mount. I drilled the 5/8" hole for the bell crank pivot bolt, and then I drilled a large hole to be able to access the head of the pivot bolt with a socket wrench:



Then, I carefully aligned the lower mount on the frame rail stiffener and tack welded it into place. I make it sound like it was a quick and dirty task, but it probably took me an hour or more to make sure it was perfectly aligned.



The next step was to temporarily attach the bell crank and get some fine tuned measurements for the shape and location of the upper bell crank mount. So I first attached the crank to the top of the pushrod:



Then threaded the bell crank pivot bolt up through the hole in the lower mount and added one of the special spacers I bought just for this purpose:



Then slipped the bell crank onto the pivot bolt and added the second spacer:



And was finally ready to spend several days (and more than one painstaking attempt) at measuring, making, and fitting an upper mount... which I'll cover in my next post.

fieroguru JAN 21, 06:32 AM
Looking good!

You might want to put a drain hole in that vertical mount though. With the access hole on the other side, water could enter the tube and rest on top of the lower frame rail.
RCR JAN 21, 07:12 AM

quote
Originally posted by Bloozberry:

Gotta say it... Sage and Bob, you guys are two of the most loyal posters in my thread and I really appreciate the feedback. So an extra special thanks (and a ratings bump) to both of you.




Thanx for the call-out. It's a true pleasure watching a craftsman create something and you taking the time to document it is just fantastic. Thank you.

Bob
bubbajoexxx JAN 21, 10:16 AM

quote
Originally posted by Bloozberry:

Yay! PIP is up and running again! First order of business is to thank Sage and Don for their kind comments... I get energized by the feedback.

Second order of business is to finish posting the photos of the bell crank build up. Here's a close up of one of them showing just how hot things got to assure good weld penetration between the 3/16" plate steel and the hub which measures 9/32" thick. I find the heat patterns left on the steel are a good clue that there was even penetration. The other thing you can imagine is how disappointed I was with all the spatter, especially after making all the parts so clean and tidy!



After chiselling off the little blobs of molten steel everywhere, attacking the cranks with a sanding disk on my angle grinder, and finally giving them a quick wire-wheeling I managed to regain some of the aesthetics lost to the welding process. At this point I decided to locate where the grease grooves on the bearings would line up with the hubs so that I could drill and tap the hubs for zerk fittings. It would have been a simple process except that I naively believed that I could coax a dull and chipped 1/4" x 28 tap into making threads in four little holes. (You can probably see where this is going.) The first two holes were painful with the tap clicking rather than smoothly inching its way down into the holes I had just drilled. I thought to myself "What the heck... two down, two to go". About halfway through the third hole, the clicking sound abruptly ended in a "SNAP". Followed by a strange sound that sounded like "Mother-@$^*&$% SH_T!". The tap broke off even with the outside diameter of the hub, but was sticking in about 3/16" on the inside bore where the bearings need to go. It wasn't looking good and I had visions of having to remake an entire bell crank. With unbelievable luck, I was able to break up the remnants of the tap using a hammer and pin punch and got it out. I was even able to salvage the threaded hole with a (brand) new tap and make the zerk fit nice and tight. Whew!



With that out of the way, the next step was to give the bell cranks a quick coat of self-etching primer and press the bearings into the hubs. I had to use an arbour press to get the bearings in the bores despite them being only finger tight earlier. I suspect the hubs deformed slightly due to the asymmetric weld, but it worked out in my favour. I didn't end up using any Locktite 680 to bond them to the hubs.



The last step was simply installing the snap rings to positively retain the bearings in the hubs:



I installed the bell cranks to the QA1 coil-overs just to take a few pics and to get an idea how this was going to look. I think it was worth the effort so far.



booze I hat to tell you this but the weld holding the bearing holder is going to fail as you did not knife edge the joint between the cam plate and bearing holder this is a big mistake as all the force is going to be on the weld and looking at the joint there is very little penetration of the weld and all the force will be on the weld only

this should have been knife edged then tig welded for max strength as it is the most important weld in the constrution of the cam
Bloozberry JAN 21, 12:08 PM
Thanks Fieroguru for the suggestion to put drain holes in the lower bell crank mounts... I probably wouldn't have thought of that.

Thanks too Bubbajoe for your opinion on the bell crank welds, but I don't share your concerns. The forces that will be exerted on the welds will be in the same direction as weld beads themselves, not in bending, across their cross section as you seem to suggest. I have assured myself that a fillet weld is perfectly fine in this application, that the weld penetration was excellent, and that the licensed, certified welder who did the work knew what he was doing when he MIG welded them. (BTW, I'm not sure if you're aware that you don't need to quote an entire post with all the pictures like you did above... once you select the "QUOTE" button in someone else's post, you should delete all the photos and text that were inserted in your post that aren't necessary to get your point across.)
Will JAN 21, 12:40 PM

quote
Originally posted by Bloozberry:


I installed the bell cranks to the QA1 coil-overs just to take a few pics and to get an idea how this was going to look. I think it was worth the effort so far.




Umm... Well it looks like you only welded them on one side of the plate. When placed under tension that will result in a "peel" force on the weld, with a greater stress intensity factor than would result in a tension only load case.

Also, you didn't weld the ends of the plates to the spherical bearing shell in the top photo above, which can also serve to increase the stress intensity factor.

Stress intensity factor is a geometric factor that adjusts stress calculations and is very useful in calculating fatigue failure modes.

Is there a reason beyond access that you didn't weld both sides of the plates?
Bloozberry JAN 21, 06:29 PM
Thanks for pointing out the tips of the bell crank that didn't quite get the weld wrapped around the edges Will. I'll address that with a touch up. The inside surfaces of the cranks weren't welded because of inaccessibility (as you guessed), though I suppose the beads could have been wrapped around as far as possible. (I can take constructive criticism, I just get a little sensitive when the only comment (from the previous poster) other than "it's gong to fail" is "do yourself a favor and ditch your design" (back on page 15).)

Anyways, the upper mount proved to be a bit of a challenge for several reasons. The first was that I had to precisely bridge the space between two objects (the upper frame rail reinforcement and the upper bearing spacer on the bell crank) in 3D space. The upper mount had to be made of several pieces and as anyone who has ever welded steel knows, the parts have to fit bang on or else the first weld will skew the pieces and throw your dimensions. So I started by making the rectangular end plate and the body of the main mount slightly oversized in all dimensions:



My plan was to secure the end plate to the bell crank pivot bolt to give me a platform from which I could take better measurements to the upper frame rail (don't pay attention to the ratty nut I used... it was the only non-locking nut I had in that size):



...and in a slow iterative process I fitted and trimmed the main body portion:



What made it challenging was that the upper frame rail reinforcement that I welded in earlier wasn't precisely vertical, nor was it perfectly parallel with the centerline of the car, and the end plate (of course) was at an odd angle to boot. At one point I ignored the old adage "measure twice, cut once" so I ended up ditching my first attempt and making a second one. I was more careful the second time around and was able to get the part to fit really well:



At that point, with the main body portion of the mount tightly clamped to the upper frame rail, I tack welded the end plate to the upper mount body:



...and checked to make sure the bell crank still swivelled easily and had plenty of clearance:



But I wasn't done yet because I still needed to install the wheel to make sure the tire wouldn't rub on the new upper mount throughout its travel in jounce... remember I said there were "several" challenges to making the upper mount?
pavo_roddy JAN 21, 07:59 PM
HI all

I was wondering what you are doing for a front and rear suspension?

Thanx,

Ear-ick

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