Week Seven - On To Testing!

Hey guys!  As far as I know, the car started driving after I left last night, which means that the next few weeks will be full of testing!  It also means this last week was crazy.

Tuesday was a little slow, since there weren't that many jobs that I was able to do.  For the first couple hours I was there, I made a bracket to hold one of the pedals in the car.  I started with a square steel pipe, which I cut with the horizontal bandsaw to the proper length.  Then, I coved out both ends, one with at 1" diameter hole saw, and the other 1.25".  After making sure it would fit snugly onto the chassis, I measured and drilled a .25" hole every .75", so the pedal could be moved if needed. Finally, I used the vertical bandsaw to cut it down the middle, so the pedal would fit between them.  After the parts were done, the team welded them onto the chassis.

For the rest of my time that day, I helped Alan make a plastic piece for his deliverable.  He had made designs already, so I merely assisted with the machining (on a lathe).

Thursday, I didn't have much to do, as I was there only 4 hours, and 1.5 hours of that was spent in the team meeting.  I did get to drill out some new tabs for the chassis, and I helped cut down and rivet together the splash guard for the rear of the car.  That's a couple pieces of steel that sit around the gas tank box and prevent any liquid from flowing into the engine or the driver.  It's slanted downward so anything that does spill or splash onto it will run off the back.  I've heard that in competition, the judges pour water over the back of the car to make sure the gas tank is airtight, and thus make sure the driver will be safe, so the team was trying to gain points in that section.

Saturday was the big final push.  Arms were getting welded together, panels were fitted perfectly, and all the little things were getting tidied up.  The main hold up for the car being drivable was the brakes system, which yesterday was focused on finishing.  New brake lines were installed, and the system was going to be bled after I left.  (Bleeding brakes is when all the air is removed from the lines, so the fluid moves around correctly).  I helped take the wheels off in the front to access the calipers.  Once the new lines were put on, the brakes still slipped a little, so I made four homemade washers to use as spacers.  The brakes lead, Stephen, picked out an appropriate thickness steel to compensate for the slipping.  Then, I cut out small squares and drilled a hole in each of them the same diameter of the bolt that needed to go through them.  To make them smaller, I used a grinder, until I had nearly-circular, MacGyver-style washers.

Anyway, that's all for this week, but I will definitely have pictures once it's running next week, and I don't have to spend every second there working.  Until then!