Very nicely done Robin, it really is making a big difference to the stock parts.

Mark

The first task needed to continue the pipe work to the cylinders was to knock out some connecting nuts and a three way junction for the copper tubing to the front brakes (shown arrowed in Photo 20). There were a pair of brass compression nuts for the left hand and master cylinders and a different rounded connector for the right hand cylinder. I did try to create the compression nuts from a length of hex styrene rod by securing a short length in my Mantua mini wood lathe and filing down the rounded top as the lathe spun around. I did get some pretty good looking nuts, but the effort required and the difficulties in getting a consistent finish convinced me to look for an easier solution. That solution came by way of a supplier of sub-miniature nuts and bolts on Ebay as shown in Photo 21. These are ‘Acorn nuts’ machined in solid brass and are even threaded on the inside. They were my second attempt, the first being a set of ten M1 nuts. As the copper tubing was 1mm I assumed the nuts would be just right – they were TINY! As you can see in Photo 22 they are miniscule up against the new set, which are M2.5 (and they are not cheap!) As I would be needing quite a few of these nuts overall I decided it would be easier (and far cheaper) to cast them in resin which would be much easier to drill out as well. The nuts are shown temporarily glued to a Lego base plate with Deluxe Card Glue, once set, I built a Lego brick wall around them and simply poured in some mould rubber to create a simple casting mould. The process of creating the nuts is shown in Photo 23. After mixing a small amount of resin I used the mixing stick to drop some resin into each nut mould on the little block of rubber. Then each one was prodded with a cocktail stick to remove any air bubbles and allowed to cure. Once solid we have a selection of acorn nuts, each on its own little round base. The top of the rounded acorn was then gently sanded flat before a 1mm drill bit was hand drilled down through nut and base. Finally the hollowed nut was pressed up against the side of a cutting mat and with the mat holding it steady, a safety razor cutter was held flat against the base of the nut and slid forward slicing the nut clean off as seen on the right. Gripping the nut in a pair of tweezers it was then gently rubbed over fine sandpaper to clean up the bottom ready for priming.
With those underway, I could then think about the copper pipe connector, which was bolted to the front chassis plate between the two fluid tanks. Photos 24 and 25 show the first version of the design. Two pieces of styrene rod were joined into a ‘T’ (one being filed with a round diamond dust file on the end until it fitted snugly to the other). A larger diameter rod was then also filed the same to fit on the top of the ‘T’ with a sanded down resin cast nut super glued on the front. The three arms were then drilled out to accept a solid smaller rod (this one was about forty plus years old) which then had a drilled out steel nut from the spectacle repair nut and bolt set glued onto the ends as shown in Photo 25. The rear of the top section was also drilled out from the back and a bolt super glued into place (why you’ll see later!)
My initial intension was to cast the whole thing in resin, unfortunately I hit an unplanned snag! When cast, I then had to drill out the moulded nuts to push in the 1mm copper micro tubing. What I hadn’t allowed for was that the forty year old styrene rods behind those nuts were about 1mm diameter themselves so when the nuts were drilled through the section behind was so thin they would break off with the slightest pressure (a real ‘Doh’ moment!) As shown in Photo 26, the Mark 2 version did away with both the resin nut and the thinner section behind, I simply drilled right through with a 1mm bit and now the copper tube itself provides the thinner piece with a drilled out steel nut replacing the resin one. Remember that bolt glued to the original? That was so I could push a bolt of the same size into the rubber mould before adding the resin resulting in a ‘cast in’ metal fixing point to secure the connector to the plastic chassis front . The plastic plate was drilled and the connector literally screwed into place (a very tight fit it was too!)
The next job was to bend the micro tube into the complicated shape necessary to a) attach the bottom nut to the connector, b) curve back up from the bottom of the connector, passing over the gold frame and down into the cylinder via the resin nut. After an entire evening spent trying to persuade a one inch piece of copper tube to do all that I decided there must be an easier way (actually it was more like ‘ to Hell with this, there MUST be an easier way! ’) And there was! Back to the craft and hobbies section on Ebay and I found a coil of copper plated aluminium wire – looks just like the micro tube but is much easier to bend into shape. I think it was about a ten metre roll for just a couple of pounds or so. This is shown fitted into the bottom of the connector in Photo 27 and down through the resin nut and into the drilled out cylinder in Photo 28. Note, I went over the copper plated wire with a thinned down Vallejo acrylic Copper just to tone down the ‘bright and shiny new pipe look’. The two other copper pipes, which come in from the sides, have to wait until the front wheel struts are in place as their fixing points are part of the struts, (or will be once I've added them on).
Now for the right hand front cylinder connection. That one was different to the other two in that it doesn’t have an acorn brass nut on the end. Instead there is a strange looking brass connector that looks more like a heavy duty electrical terminal than a hydraulic equivalent! I forgot to put in the photos of the parts going together but as you can see in the following photos it was made from two diameters of styrene rod, liquid poly glued together with the fat short piece drilled out for a 1mm brass rod to glue into the cylinder with a thinned down resin bolt head glued over the top and the longer thinner part drilled to take the 0.5mm wire painted brown to match the ref photos. Before adding this on however it was first necessary to drill out a fairly big hole into the triangular box as shown in Photo 29. The insert pic shows the actual part on the real thing. It should really be a ‘D’ shaped cut out rather than a round hole which I could have done earlier before gluing on the box – if I’d known then I was adding all this stuff on! Using a drop of super glue, the end of the brown painted wire was glued into the drilled out hole after first threading it through the hole in the chassis front as seen in Photo 30. The hole was drilled large enough to glue in a short bit of the rubber sheathing to act as the rubber ‘anti-rub’ grommit. A small resin nut was then drilled out for the wire to pass through, painted brass and threaded on to the wire as in Photo 31. Finally, the wire was shaped into position to reach the cylinder through the brass connector and the excess snipped off before gluing the end into the connector and sliding the nut up to finish it off (Photo 32).
In the following instalment the white tube in the middle is added in and work begins on something else (I have no idea what it is), but it seems to be connected (literally) with the rear brakes (somehow)!
Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!


Robin.

Many thanks again Mark and you're closer to the truth than you realise!
This instalment should have been posted some days ago but I had to completely re-do it as I made a major boo-boo as you'll see below and had to pull everything off and start again!

However, before all that happened...
Before carrying on with the next part of the brake system it was necessary to jump ahead of the official build schedule and screw the top and bottom sections of the chassis together. The reason being that many of the extra parts going on lead from one section to the other so it made sense to join them up to avoid any unfortunate ‘coming aparts’!
Photos 33 and 34 illustrate the positions of the four fixing screws – two at the rear, which are hidden by the firewall when that goes on, and two in the floor to be hidden by the seat later on.
Photo 35 shows the centre cylinder with the white tube or cable in position. As this follows a much more curving route than the brown one fitted last time, I made the white one out of a length of thin solder painted white. It passes from the centre cylinder under the blue hoses and up through the same hole as the brown to finish in the same cut out on the chassis side. The extra mechanism to be added for the rear brakes is shown in Photo 36. It begins with a metal rod attached to an offset cam on (the driver’s) right shown by the left hand arrow (or so I thought) and then goes into a black rubber tube indicated by the right hand arrow. The tube then passes through the front chassis panel above the brown and white tubing where (from what I can tell) it passes back through the cockpit on the driver’s left, along the side of the body and back to the left rear brake where a steel cable exits the tube and is attached to a triangular plate on the brake mechanism. How it gets to the other rear brake I have yet to discover! The cable will come much later when the rest of the engine/gearbox comes together but the front mechanism will be going on now. Photo 37 shows what I thought I was looking at! The red outline covers the brass end of the brake mechanism and what I took for a cam coming off the gold coloured bracket cylinder. So off I went happily making up the mechanism shown in Photo 38. Aluminium micro-tubing to make the metal slide thing and the ring attachment on the end with styrene tubing and sheet with a tiny length of micro copper tube to make the cam which then fitted into a larger styrene tube glued to the front of the metal cast bracket. After much hard work I ended up with the completed system as seen in Photo 39. It really looked the part too! So on I went with the next stage, adding the wheel struts so I could then add the final part of the brake line connectors, (which is why they are actually in place in Photo 42!) It was only when I was putting the photo pages together and bringing the build diary up to date ready to post the next instalment that I suddenly realised why the same area looked different from the back angle – I’d completely miss read the reference photo – as shown in Photos 40 and 41, there wasn’t any cam on the gold bracket, the sliding thing was actually bolted to the black rocking arm piece which is attached to the shock absorber! You’ve got to laugh haven’t you! (hint: NO!) Ah well, off it had to come. Fortunately the reconstruction wasn’t as difficult as I’d feared, the actual mechanism was fine, it just required a longer black rubber tube to allow the attachment ring to reach the new location which first needed to be drilled to take a brass ship building pin to form the new ‘bolt’. Photo 42 shows the plastic anti roll arm having been drilled and fitted with the brass pin. Behind it is the tube extension on the bracket which would have to be removed as well and a new front section fitted over the ground down ‘stud’ that was there before. The existing mechanism is shown being passed down the brass pin in Photo 43, once glued in position up against the rocker arm the excess pin shaft was snipped off leaving just a mm or so proud of the ring. A slightly bigger resin nut was then prepared, before priming and painting with Vallejo Brass it was drilled out on the reverse to allow it to fit over the protruding brass pin and then super glued in place as shown in Photo 44. The composite Photo 45 shows the new attachment from the rear together with the darned ref photo that caused all the bother! Now they finally match up! In order to fit the flexible rubber hose to the chassis front plate I took a small piece of aluminium micro tube (same one as made the larger sections of the mechanism itself) and epoxy steel glued it to the chassis as shown in Photo 46. After leaving it overnight to set fully the end of the hose was simply push fitted into position. I had also super glued it onto the aluminium spigot first time around which meant some careful scalpel work to get it off again! Once in place (unglued this time) I then cut a small section of the rubber tube to glue on the inside of the chassis front as shown in Photo 47. They are not connected at all but give an optical illusion of passing through the plate. When the chassis is complete I’ll glue the long cable, probably of black electrical wire into the short rubber piece and lead it back the side of the chassis to the rear brake. It’ll be in the way if I do that now. Finally, in Photo 48 we have the re-located mechanism, now in the right place! The only piece I needed to replace was the rubber hose with a longer section, which wasn’t too bad at all. It actually took far longer to re-write and re-photo the diary than it did to change the model! DOUBLE CHECK YOUR REFERENCE PICS!!!
In the next instalment its time to put on the wheel struts to fit the brake line connectors on to.
Until then (further ‘errors’ permitting), Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.