Bitsa cheap as Open wheeler

[rodoe]

Thx Roy. Off to Pick n Pay less Monday morning on way home from work.
Nothing has gone easy on this project -nothing ever does when you've got no idea what you're doing and you're learning as you go 😁- but MAY have had a win in that diff has ended up in a position where i might not need to alter half shaft length if i use rear track standard shafts give.

[Roy928tt]

If it was easy everybody would be doing it...

Unless you've done it before, you will not know what you are doing, BUT, you will learn fast and before you are finished this one you will have a damn good idea how to do it better next time....which is a bit of a bugger, because you didn't want to do it more than once...catch 22

[rodoe]

"because you didn't want to do it more than once"

Yep, still love those 60's racers and keeping enough left over bits in case that oportunity comes around.
Often check out your build for motivation Roy (and inspiration- may need to copy your pedal box- simple).

[Roy928tt]

Pedal box starts with a balance bar from Mcgill.....

[rodoe]

Yep. Waiting till VEE front end is sold to pay for balance bar, rod ends etc and maybe even steering wheel.

[rodoe]

Could well be a BT 21...for some reason I had 19 in mind. Somebody told me they sectioned about 3 in out of the body to get to the FV size.

Well, a long time between drinks. Financial ups and down, employment security issues etc, and all means nothing when you can't get race cars out of your mind.
So I've stopped work on the first chassis as it just doesn't appeal to me as much as the 60's style racers. Then, while my wife and kids were visiting the mother in-law in Japan, I stupidly bought a little open wheeler which was too cheap to let go. Even came with a trailer. It is based completely on Renault 12 running gear on a simple ladder frame chassis (yes I know). Although rather a cleverly conceived car, in a budget conscious kind of way, its very agricultural in execution and has required quite a lot of work to get it up to scratch. eg- front top A arm 'trailing' rod Rose joint mounted in single shear, to give a healthy castor change on braking, front bulkhead suspension mounting points held on with 4 tack welds each, steering rack held in with more tack welds. I've redesigned and rebuilt the whole front bulk head and mounting points, gear shift mechanism, engine mount, made a dash fascia so the gauges are set in properly and not just hot glued onto the horizontal dash, complete re-wire, made a proper seat and safe harness mount points to minimise submarining, etc you get the drift. Removed the front and rear wings, which, although pretty, were really just huge rakes. The front being a flat 'flap' the rear being a curved sheet of 3mm alloy. Some downforce, but mostly drag.
The yellow photo is how it looked after being built originally. The Black paintwork, quite nice actually, 13x10 and 13x9 wheels and the wings added by second owner. I will possibly put some wings on at a later stage and make a new nose cone as radiator is behind seat.
About 60-68 horse power stock (depending on which Renault enthusiast you ask) and about 400kg. Nothing to write home about, but it's a start and will be fun.

Then, I accidentally came across what I had been searching for while picking up a formula styled seat. An affordable 60's styled open wheeler body. In fact, the very same Standfast that SPAMMY was talking about on page one in this thread! Exactly what I was looking for and all for the princely some of $50 and it is brand new out of the mold but sitting for a few years (as opposed to $2000 for a second hand beat up Lotus 18 body offered to me last year)
The plan is; finish fixing up this 'new' car, Log booked as 'Froggy', run it at GEAR days at Wakefield park and the odd hill climb and track day, while starting and building my dream car, roughly based on EITHER the Brabham BT21 or, one of my favourites also, the Honda RA272 ( gotta keep the Japanese wife happy) . Once that is finished (hopefully), then flog off the Froggy.
In the mean time, picked up an accumulator for the ZX12R engine and will go back to standard sump so I can run stock exhaust under the engine thereby side stepping the massively expensive OR headache inducing exercise of making my own headers.
So, now I have my old chassis back up for sale. I have sold the Formula Vee front end but still have the chassis up for sale, the one you see also on page one on this thread. I will be keeping the steering rack I think but the chassis, which is really quite awesome, is up for $500 of anyone is interested.

[Roy928tt]

Great Stuff! That fiberglass bodywork looks sweet.