Finally I was able to prepare some new pics. Have been rather busy with the garden, as usual in the springtime, so didn´t do much on the model in the meantime, and the pics show what has been done before. Sorry for the long delay
Anyway, this is the story of the (still unfinished) front axle:
The knuckle and the spindle data were sent to a 3D print shop for producing master models for lost wax casting by another shop. This way it was possible to reproduce even the part numbers on the castings. Here are the master models having been returned after casting. You may note a pin having been inserted in the spindles to avoid air being trapped. The aluminum plugs in the knuckles were added when it turned out that the (one man) casting shop couldn´t handle holes of the particular depth to radius ratio.
Unfortunately, the casting guy had slightly misjudged the castability (or his skill). Apparently, my parts were thicker than anything he had handled before, and came out with a lot of shrinkage cavities. In all, he cast each part six times (I had ordered two), but still was not happy, so he gave me the best pieces for the price of the metal. Here the knuckles:
And here one spindle already in the mill:
The next step was a bit tricky. The original ball joints for the tie rod and the steering cylinders have a conical insert end and there is of course no drill bit available in the needed size and conicity. Reasonably I should have given up at this point and made a simple threaded hole, but this time I was so determined to stay to scale, that I decided to make my own set of conical drill bits. Below you see the spindle arm for the tie rod connection being drilled.
Whereas this was relatively straightforward, said spindle arm unfortunately obstructs access from above to the steering cylinder attachment point. Consequently, I felt compelled to take yet another step towards insaneness and make this hole by means of reverse drilling. This requires threaded drill bits and an arbor. I suppose the next pics explains this better than more words:
Next, I turned to the clamp on the tie rod ends. In order to test the design I hand made a single sample from 0.5 mm (20 mils) stainless steel sheet which was glued to a larger bar for ease of handling. It turned out to be a bit on the weak side, so I´ll probably have to increase to 0.8 mm, but that´s still in the future.
During box assembly I apparently forgot to take pictures
. This is the only one I could find:
Front hub parts:
The remaining pics show pretty much the current state. Tie rod ball joint seats as well as cylinders for steering and wheel lean still have to be made.
Stefan