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Yes, the rear is just tacked together to get an overall idea of what it will look like and to see if the motor and gearbox would fit. The hatched areas with be paneled in with 20 ga steel.

After an almost month and a half hiatus from working on the Europa, I managed to get a bit of time this weekend. The basic frame is almost fully welded, and the minor bits will hopefully be done next weekend. Also, I finally got my finger out and ordered some brake discs and an axle, with said parts I can figure out if my current rear upright design will work. I'll post my design/findings next week.

Managed to get some work done over the weekend, fabbed the front suspension and tack welded the steering rack mounts in place. I'm missing the nuts to hold the upper ball joint to the upright, so every time i tried to move either corner they would part ways with the upright. Anyone have any idea what the thread would be on the Caterham ball joint (also fits such exotic cars as a Lada).

When you were doing the front suspension, did you figure on trying to improve the bump steer? This is my only complaint with Europa handling....the dancing steering wheel. The trick is to just let it jump around and not try to control it, but it can be somewhat annoying.

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Parts left out cost nothing and cause no problems!!

That looks so cool. I'd be tempted to leave it in my living room as a conversation piece.

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-Andrew
Build Log
Youtube

The rack appears to be almost spot-on in terms of length, or at least it appears that way in the CAD drawings. But I do want to see if the length and placement work in real life. Once I find the nuts for the upper ball joints, I'll play around with the rack height and see if I can get the bump steer down to a reasonable level. I've only just tacked the mounts in place, so if they need lowering it shouldn't be too difficult. If I find that the rack needs to be moved higher than say 1/8", I'll break the tacks and move them up. If its less that that, I think I might just shim it.


Andrew,
Just wait till the rear suspension is done, it should hopefully look even better.


Cheers,
Rod

Based on your past build history I don't doubt it.

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-Andrew
Build Log
Youtube

Could you turn the rack mounts 90* and make a slide mount? I like what you have come up with !

Maybe that would be a good donner body for a Subaru powered mid?
Randy

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American 7 5.0 T5
Lotus 15 ish?
914/H6

I hadn't thought about that, but I'm not too keen on sliding mounts. I have a fear of the fasteners coming loose and parts start sliding when they aren't supposed to.

As for a Subaru powered one, other than redesigning the rear portion of the frame, it should be doable. I don't think you would be able to use the stock trailing arm set up, or even the set up I'll be using. But, if you were to go with wishbones, it should work just fine.

It's been a while since I've updated this build log, so here's an update. I haven't done too much work on the car lately, but this past week I managed to get some plates laser cut for the rear uprights. I fabbed some caliper mount brackets back in August and had my machinist friend weld the brackets to the bearing housings, then machine the housings to accept the bearings and snap rings (VW Golf Mk 3 bits). So this weekend I fabbed up a jig to keep everything in place and tacked the laser cut plates to the bearing housings. I'm hoping to have the uprights fully weled this week, though I've decided to have another friend do the welding (my 110V machine just isnt good enough). Here's some pics:







The caliper is mounted to two threaded bungs that will be welded to the caliper bracket once the uprights are mostly completed and are loaded with the bearings. This way I can centre the caliper on the brake disc.


Rod

I ,like it ! Very nice.

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American 7 5.0 T5
Lotus 15 ish?
914/H6

Is the tube for the bearings staying round while yo weld on it? Those are beautiful uprights, let us know how they work out.

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Marcus Barrow - Car9 an open design community supported sports car for home builders!
SketchUp collection for LocostUSA: "Dream it, Build it, Drive it!"
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I'm hoping it will stay mostly round. I had the housings machined with a .0015" interference fit with the bearing, so there is a small amount of material that could be honed or bored post welding. I'll post my findings after welding.

Fantastic project

It might pay to spin up a plug , copper grease it and push it in the housing as a dummy bearing. That may help to retain shape.

just thoughts.

I have always fancied building a Europa like this one but never managed to find a shell.

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Build Log viewtopic.php?f=35&t=16640&p=187700#p187700

Mancave http://s1116.photobucket.com/user/mypic ... ow/mancave

I spent this past weekend redoing the lower reversed wishbones. Two weeks ago I fabbed up a pair without modelling them in CAD, which turned out to be a big mistake. I hadn't done my checking properly and made them 1 7/16" too long, but it did give me the opportunity to improve on my jig building skills. Anyways, I managed to get both reverse lower wishbones fabbed, along with the four trailing links, single upper link, clevises, and conical spacers for said clevises. Next step is to tack weld the suspension pick-ups to the chassis and see how it all behaves.






And, after looking at the pics, I really do need to clean up the shelves in the garage.