Iterating on designs for a more "aero" replacement battery cover and the rear bumper
Restomod Day 27 Building
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Iterating on designs for a more "aero" replacement battery cover and the rear bumper
Today was focused on quickly iterating to getting a functional rear bumper designed for extra airflow.
The first round of chassis dyno printing is done. During initial testing I noticed that the car did not track straight, so I added guides to some of the rollers so that the car would be encouraged to remain centered on the dyno and not roll off into the sunset when I wasn't looking. It also makes higher speed testing more boring (in a good way) where the car has less of a chance (but still a chance) to jump off the rails and drag around higher voltage cables.
The suspension work continues! The rear design is now printed in a high-shell configuration. This leads to (mostly) nicely aligned filament.
The suspension work continues! The rear design with short arms plastically deformed after the first flex, so I ended up changing to a more complicated design with longer arms. The new design should also allow for equal length and thickness arms on the front and rear designs.
Today focused on simplifying the suspension with a printed design. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the existing XMods suspension, but I do think there's room for improvement. For example, the existing suspension limits its own range of motion and has relatively poor ground clearance. Also, I've taken it upon myself to replace most of the front clip with printed parts now that I've gone off the deep end and printed the uprights.
Replacing the skid plate for the steering rack
Photos from Day 15: Printing a new front upright and new axles
Photos from Day 14: A replacement half-shaft and a broken front upright
Old Body Style, Next Generation Power and Suspension
New wheel design! Inspired by the Alfa Romeo 8C
Pictures from Day 11: Replacing the axles to enable using metal sleeve bearings
The triumph of the day was proving out the concept for creating custom wheels. The center hub uses a D-shaped drive and is sized so the wheels snap-fit into place.
Today's focus was on replacing the wheels for the XMods. This has two purposes: I've wanted to play around with printing my own wheel designs and I wanted to experiment with replacing the wheel axles to see if I could reduce slop in the wheels that comes from a loose fit between the axles and the hub.
The latest design has almost all of the features that I'm looking for, with support for some more interesting customization to go beyond the style of the original bumper.
Before and after pictures, the design is almost a good fit. There are some spacing issues at the wheel well but visually the layout and the headlights are close to the original style.
The first attempt at curvature got close, but the dimensions didn't line up with the hood as expected.
With the first prototype, I focused on getting something that would fit the 3 mounting points on the standard body.
With the first prototype, I focused on getting something that would fit the 3 mounting points on the standard body.