Diffuser in place!

First stage; Your Reward System wakes up. You feel that you need an English Wheel for the workshop urgently!  No logic thoughts at this point.

 

Second stage: You check if you have the money required for the purchase.

 

Third step: You buy it! Pure happiness.

 

Forth step: A mild feeling of regret suddenly comes over you. Was this really necessary?

 

Fifth step: At this stage your mind is working furiously trying to justify the expense. But deep in your heart you know that there is no reason apart from the Reward System and your creativity. But you keep arguing.  

 

Final stage (a happy kind of Nirvana moment): You managed to make use of your latest tool. In our case; The Wheel!

The result: The end of our belly pan, the Diffuser. Yes it looks flat, but since it has a small bump for the differential, the English wheel was an absolute necessity...

 

From another angle and in a slightly different light.

Fever!

Salt Slush approach: Buy an English Wheel. Correct the fabrication errors. Look at it for 5 minutes. Start use it and hope for the best. How does this wild strategy turn out?  Rather good actually.

Here we go. This is our diffusor with rear end bulb. 

Angle grinding makes a man feel fine. Anders  enjoys a sparkling moment.

Our aim; Measure all tempratures with the Holley EFI.  The 3 Wise Wizards of Electronics worked furiously until they actually could see temperaturs on the laptop screen.

Magnus is for a while happy with the outcome. But then...

...he checked  his own temperature...Fever!

Go to bed or calibrate the sensors with boiling water? 

Magnus chosed to later option.

One Bourbon One scotch One beer!

There were one of these magic evenings...when it all came together. When the magic 3 formed a mind blowing, eye catching, blue smoke'n unit of bursting freedom as they made the old Gothenburg Industrial area come alive. All of a sudden, the last summer night became real as if there was no tomorrow.  



One Hemi, One Flathead One Two stoke. A Wednesday Night Special.

What's happens here? American & Swedish graffiti? Well, the race is on...

The Nobel Art of debugging a Race Car.

Oil is dripping from a pressure connection, there's a pool of water underneath the vehicle whilst the engine control unit has lost the connection with the laptop. On top of this, there's no more coffee to feed the coffee machine, you've been working all day and the beers in the fridge aren't cold yet. 

 

Normally, this means that you're heading towards a, life sucks situation, but as usually, there are exceptions....like when all of the above is true, but there's a determination and a crave for speed in the air. Then suddenly, from nowhere...commitment and self confidences shows up big time.  

The sun is shining, a friend Salt Slush (P.A), Magnus, Anders and as well as the f'nk laptop are all aligned. When this happens, problems are evaporating like the budget in a race project!

 

Big Wheel keep on turning; English Wheel !

Are we about to become a victim for our dreams...?

The answer is of course YES! But it happens in a nice way and it's been going on for a long, long time...there's always a new project or challenge to take on.

What started as a phone call and a question;
- Why not build a race car and became Salt Slush Racing?
has become something else.

As we started to promote and sell boosting devices to race and street cars suddenly we had Salt Slush Racing Speed Shop going.... and now...with a another dream...we're about to kick off Salt Slush Racing Dreamworks.....maybe you've seen Magnus weakness for charmfull machines... we might start to talk about Salt Slush Racing Engineering....

Don't hesitate about our ambition and determination to deliver and enjoy the SSR Amazon at El Mirage. But when the car is shipped to US, we need new challenges to survive dark Swedish winters and to avoid drugs and golf .

So instead of surfing the web and watching you tube clips, Anders and I took a sunny trip to Verktygsboden in Borås to buy an English Wheel.

On a mission sent out from the SSR World headquarter ! This is sunny by Swedish Standard.

Determination, determination, determination. Preparations are made.

For Salt Slush, the English wheel is like a dreamcatcher. We will see it every day and it will reminded us of the fact that it's up to you and yourself to bring the dream to reality.

We have a planishing hammer a bead roler and a stretch & shrink and...Anders bought some 1,5 mm aluminum sheets the other day. We're good to go!

Loading the dream catcher 

In Swedish, but still understandable. English Wheel for Professionals, 

On the other side of the package, you can read; Made in China.

Ahhhh the box ready to be opened by Petter and Anders 

Strong emballage ! Heavy as a lead, almost 160 kg.

We are of course aware of that there are high end tools out there, like Lazze tools but they are inside the US of A  and or outside our SSR budgets, so instead of waiting we thought; Let' get started! With something...

This is not a box of chocolate, this is a box of English Wheel. 

Petter and Anders are searching for all bits and pieces

Looks good for the esoteric few.

Boxes, Boxes, boxes and excitement!

Some Fika was needed 

Anders had made some dreamwork the day before we picked up the wheel. 

This is a paper bulb for the rear axle in the belly pan.

Step by step it comes together and by the way, a RAM Hemi pickup bed is one of the best work tables existing.

I couldn't help myself. When we were at Verktygsboden I bought an electric shear, not a fancy one, but instead something to get started with...

Oops! The English Wheel was delivered with bolts marked with strength 4.8, bolts like that are not to be found in Sweden, we start at 8.8 and take it from there. 4.8 are slightly stronger than cheese. Soft cheese.

Tada! Ready to be tested !

Ok. Let's get started.

And yes, of course, what we need is training, training and training on how to form metal.

But as always, we start with the skills we have and take it from there. We will learning visit some skilled people and discuss our dreams and learn more.

So, all in all, start to build your skill and use The Wheel in order not to lose it. The dream, The flow.

This is what Salt Slush Racing Dream Works is all about !

By the way, before Sunday became Monday, Anders, jack of all trades, master of some things, made the first part for the Salt Slush Amazon. We like it! What it is? It's the  aerodynamic shield for our rear axle that will be joined to the belly pan. Well, we needed to start with something.  

Dreams becomes reality day by day, step by step.

Digital help to precision and the art of being lazy

And now to something completely different.

Well it is still a mix of make shift fabrication and workshop philosophy, but applied to something else. Beware this will take some time to get thru. I'll show you how I took my fabrication possibilities into the space age. Space age was the 60's wasn't it?

I have an old Bridgeport milling machine. Well worn (clapped out is probably the correct thing to say here) but a very useful and flexible machine. But I have been wanting a digital readout DRO for years. So finally I got my thumb out of my ass and bought a kit. Yes I took a chance and bought it from China. Why? Well I did buy a kit from Asia for my old mill and that was absolutely trouble free. Also I wanted a DRO that could show all 4 axis in one unit. When I looked at the brand name DROs they were pretty expensive when it came to the 4-axis units. 

I got the kit and it was quite clear from the beginning that I did not want to use the supplied hardware. I needed to make custom brackets, just as I did on my old milling machine. I looked around on the web to see how others had done. I found some pics of how others had done it and I thought about it and this is my version. It’s not an how-to-DRO your Bridgeport but some pics of on how I did which could give you some ideas and inspiration.

My thinking was of course to mount as much as possible on machined surfaces which should be flat and parallel or square to each other. In the case there was no machined surface I wanted to make the mounting brackets adjustable enough to get the scales mounted straight.

For the quill there was a bracket supplied with the kit. I could never figure out how that was meant to be used and actually it was of a bad design. I had already made a bracket for a magnetic read head mounted on the the quill depth stop. I cut that down a bit and reused it. But it would be just as good to use the stock hole in the quill stop and glue in a piece of metal with a tapped hole for mounting. My bracket for the read head has a radius that matches the quill depth stop diameter and the mounting holes are elongated so it can be adjusted to be parallel with the scale mounting surface. On this bracket there is a second plate that holds the read head and gives some adjustment side to side and for tilting. I mounted the scale on the same surfaces that holds the stock scale since they where already machined. If you do this take out the mechanism for the feed stop when you drill and tap in the lower mounting pad. Also use screws that only go in about 3mm (1/8”) or it will pinch the bushing for the feed stop shaft. The lower mounting block is probably not needed but it will give me a good surface to mount a chip guard in the future.

I tried to get the scale to sit as high and close to the milling head as possible to avoid unnecessary obstruction and hitting it with my head and other parts I don't care some much about.

Unfortunately I will not be able to use the hand wheel for the quill feed without modification. But I don't have the wheel anyway.

The x-axis was straight forward. Just mount it in the back of the table and the read head on the saddle. Some shims and everything was aligned. 

The y-axis was a bit harder but luckily the side of my knee was flat enough to get the scale mounted straight with a few washers as spacers. The bracket for the read head was also something I had made before and could reuse with some modifications. That’s why it looks a bit odd. There was a machined surface on the side of the saddle, so mounting was easy. This bracket just clears my x-axis feed.

Read head mounted to a secondary bracket for adjustment. The mid section gives some height and tilt adjustments.

The most complicated axis was the Z. No machined surfaces and where the scale needed to be it was not even close to flat. I thought about it for bit and considered different solutions. One thing that could work would be some kind of arms mounted on ball joints that could be locked after alignment. But I opted for brackets made of several parts that can slide and swivel in the joints. This way I had a possibility to do small adjustments of the brackets in all directions and all angles. For this axis too I had already made a mount for a magnetic read head which I could modify and reuse. This has 3 mounting screws and 3 jacking screws for alignment. This design works, but if I had redone it I would make the bracket more like the Y-axis bracket since it was easier to align. After the read head was set straight with a test indicator it was easy to align the scale. With all the screw in the brackets a bit snug but not tight I could drive the knee up and down and it almost aligned itself. Some final adjusting using a test indicator and I was done.

Some final thoughts on how I would do it if I did it again. The basic idea for all axis was OK, but I made all parts the fly. Some dimensions proved to be a bit tight and some screws are hard to access. I might change the x-axis scale for a magnetic since it limits my travel by about 15mm. But overall I’m quite happy how it turned out and all parts was easy to make using scrap pieces of aluminium. Now I just need to screw down all cables and make chip guards for the scales.

The display was mounted with the arm in the kit. I will ad a plate that will hold the collets and tools I most often use. Lord Vader is watching.

The table is usually not this clean

As a bonus I can show the modification (hack might be the contemporary term) of my old used and abused Brown and Sharpe horizontal mill. I'm not really sure if it really is a Brown and Sharpe, but looking in the old catalogs dimensions and features indicates it could be a B&S Plain milling machine size 1 or 1-1/2. It does have a B&S no 10 or 11 taper also. But it might be a clone.

I have a shaper head from my old Vilh Pedersen milling machine. I took some scrap metal and made an alignment collar and a shaft so I could mount it. Works great. This is only step one in the bastardization of this old mill. Maybe there will be an update in the future. But this was a nice step in the right direction. I have been wanting the possibility to do internal splines for some time now.

Shaft with key

Lube it up

Looks almost factory... If you turn around and close your eyes.

OK until next time. Wrench and repeat.

The DDT Cure

Keep you DDT spray gun ready and be prepared ! Just kidding, DDT was a part of yesterday. In those days it was used for normal gardening with some consequences...
I found nevertheless an old empty DDT package, when going through some old stuff.

What could have been better than DDT Elite?

As I understand it, was forbidden for use in Sweden already in the 70's. In the beginning it was very popular and highly appreciated but after some thinking and understanding it was reevaluated and forbidden.

Today we only use it to threaten bugs...and it work...so so.

Film time! We're in Second gear!

The shake down constantly continues. When the sun showed up after days of heavy raining, the Salt Slush team took the opportunity to drive up and down the street with two purpose.

 

1. Find & Fix problems

2. Enjoy the amazing feeling of driving something that you've created yourself.

 

After all the milling, welding, thinking, dreaming...Driving! Nerves tensed, mind focused while the soul is furiously... Happy!



We're in second gear! Too lean combustion, but still, in second.. 

Swedish-English translation: Magnus make a modest remark on brake performance. Yes', we'll fix it. After we've tuned the engine. There's a natural order of priority.

Happy wife is a Happy life

Yesterday me and my best friend -the love of my life- my dear wife Catrine, passed by our friend, a car wizard and super duper painter (just to mention a few of  his qualities). we went there have a look on the work that he's doing on her 68´Camaro convertible.

As it turned out, the body work was complete ant he prepared for the next, upcoming paint job. What that means? Well, it will get a darker, more elegant red colour, combined with a black interior and a black canvas top.

When all the old paint was off, it turned out to be cheaper to buy all hang-on body parts new, since the old one were rusty and repaired beyond recognition and rather hacked up.

The good news is that the parts are imported by VP parts directly from the manufacturer in Asia who seems to own all the tools. All in all ending up with a lower price than in US with todays dollar to SEK exchange rate and a high logistic cost.

We're now starting to have everything in position and ready for the primer, some more left door to front fender adjustment and the we're up for primer and next step...

The standard 68  Camaro grill rill fits nicely. The body part under the grill is -67 RS and yes, we will shut the RS light holes before paint.

Meanwhile, at home in the garage I'm collecting parts for the assembly and preparing the engine, a Corvette 94 -LT1 take out with automatic transmission...

The Chassi is ready to go with new brakes, chassi kit from CPP etc...

It will be a very nice, drivable Camaro.

A look back: 

It was for sure a lot of paint, filler and putty on the car

It had been green, white, butternut yellow and a number of reds

Here's some of the new sheet metal from VP autocrats is on, still a lot of work to fit and align everything 

A door could might be an easy start... you might think...

More parts added and still a lot of work needed to fit and align

Bonneville is good to go this year !

This year it seems like the Salt flats are ready for the upcoming speed event's. First Speed Week on the 13-19 of August and then World Finals on the 27 - 30 of September.

If you search the web, you'll find plenty of information about the event and the ones preparing for it.

 

One very ambitious and good example is Danny Tomphson who is up for a record attempt at the Speed week. If you know you Hot Rod history you understand the level of history in the making. Bonneville Salt Flats august the 13 - 19 2016. It's been a long journey...

At the same time the beyond all Swedish brevskrivning, The Rudezon Amazon has been test driven, they were up for some drag race event at Power Hot Rod Reunion in Sweden but had transmission issue and had to go back to the workshop.

Cosy and Snuggy High Speed Interior.

To feel comfortable when driving, its important with safety and comfort. Hence we've tried create a nice atmosphere in the drivers compartment of our Amazon Landspeed racer. 

The Tunnel of Steel, which also serves as a comfortable armrest, is now in place. This propshaft tunnel fit's together with the coolant tank and the drivers seat...after some minor tuning. 

And yes, the tunnel is reinforced with Domex (high strenght steel) since we want to avoid being slaughtered in unlikely event of a high speed propshaft break down.

 

Still naked, but the Amazon body is waiting to find it's way back to The Beast.