Esprit Turbo project car - part3 - the further continuation

[Lotusfab]

Thanks. Tricky to get out of the mould. No appreciable shrinkage. Needs a lot more work to get up to standard. I need to complete the three other racks and then getvon with the mechanism. The intension is these are just fairings and the mechansim below takes all of the load. We will see what happens. I'm please how it has turned out. Failthful to the original, but so much stronger.

[Lotusfab]

[Lotusfab]

Thanks to Andy(blue ski racks) I dont have to experiment with the fixing method. Im going to make nut plates to mimic the other fixings on the car. Some of the material removed to keep the weight down.

Top nut plate bonded to underside of rack with closed cell foam mounts.

[LOTUSMAN33]

Looks fantastic Fabian, are you sending them to Neil for final paint or getting them done locally with Neil supplying the mixed paint?

Are you going to drill and secure to the Bootlid or bond with something like Sikaflex 221?
 

Dave  

[Lotusfab]

Hi Dave, was planing on Neil supplying the paint and my local guy to spray. Wasn't going to bond them permanently, just bolt on with nut  plates. Just about to lay up the other side. 

[ANDYR]

Hi Fabian,

Your racks are looking great.  You've got the angles 'just so' too.  Awesome.

I easily got up to 60mph on M25 with full ski's aplomb and didn't notice anything move.  There is a slight vibration at the tips, but not, I think like a leading edge of an aircraft wing for take off   Funnily enough I considered testing all this out for you when I read the post last night, but travelling around Berkshire in an Esprit with skis on won't be seen by our local police as "an essential journey" in these times, so best an experiment for the wee small hours or not at all for now...

Keep in mind my skis (and those of others) are 165 length on average.  Your Olins will be 230? so x4 of those pointing into the sky might well have an effect on noise and vibration.  When I drove back on first test I also had a few cable ties pulling the skis together latching one to the other as well as the car.  Might be worth doing and you can hide the cable tie along the back of the rack so it's not seen.

I give credit to my mate Christian who suggested the tree rubber thingy.  I was going to use a whole bunch of locks and poppers but keep it simple and less moving parts to go wrong or snap undone - best way.

Fotos show the bolts. they are 6mm diamter.    I use a mixture of 70mm in length and 100mm.  The heads I chose are allen key style as they match the smaller bolts I used to affix the steel plates at the ends of the cradle.  These go through the steel tube.  Internal diameter 6mm (just over.  something like 6.05).  I got them off eBay.  easy. The steel plate is 2mm in thickness.  Poor Max Hurst had to cut from my template.  https://max500.com/  

The rubber bands are 300mm in length.  Again, 20mins on eBay and you'll find them.

When it comes to positioning the racks onto the car. the holes on the outer skin of the vehicle are 6mm (loved drilling into my pride and joy!).  These go through to the underside of the tailgate.  Are they at an absolute 90 tangent? probably not. The drill bit went through into the second layer as it was long enough and we did it all by eye.  There is enough play for the bolt to go in at a slight angle and still emerge safely on the other side.  It was here we realised the tailgate shrinks as you tighten the bolts and of course for a trip to the COOP and back, that's fine, but a long haul trip to the Alps or long term mounting the paint will crack and the body will eventually give out and perhaps part of it, your skis and the racks all fly off at speed.

I've yet to totally bolt all this in place in full.  Right now it's all mounted loosly on the car but the idea is to 'trap' the steel tubes within the tailgate; creating x4 'collars' per rack (x16 in all) that spread the load.  If needed we can spot weld the tubes to the steel plate for 'winter with' and 'summer without' ski rack options. 

You're essentially creating x4 floating racks in space ( a bit like oil rigs) with the tailgate happening to exist in the space below them.  No pressure on the tailgate.  We're going for collar lengths 2mm smaller than the tailgate distance to allow for everything to crimp and knit together nicely.

Will post some other piccies later.

I'm in awe of your engineering here.  too much for me with the engine work, but conversations like this are cool.

 

Andy

[Lotusfab]

Superb work, thanks Andy will be invaluable. My Olins are 205 cm long.

[Lotusfab]

Here you can see why the top racks were so tricky to make. They are anything but symetrical. I currently prepping the second mould. It distorted slightly so I have to use filler to correct.

[Lotusfab]

Gel coat on, now just need to,wait till its tacky and finish the second rack!

[Lotusfab]

2nd rack finished. Will separate it tomorrow. Can't describe in words how much work has been required to get this far. The racks have taken me much much longer than anything else on the car including the engine an gearbox.. I had to take two trips to the states to chevk out the car in the museum and then several failed plugs which take ages to make. If this separates ok then theres only the two bottom ones to do. I will never ever do this again! 😫😫😫😫😫

[CHANGES]

11 hours ago, Lotusfab said:

2nd rack finished. Will separate it tomorrow. Can't describe in words how much work has been required to get this far. The racks have taken me much much longer than anything else on the car including the engine an gearbox.. I had to take two trips to the states to chevk out the car in the museum and then several failed plugs which take ages to make. If this separates ok then theres only the two bottom ones to do. I will never ever do this again! 😫😫😫😫😫

Fabian , Don't knock it , this sort of work does take time ... Making any plug from blank, even when you have a picture or pattern to work from can be quite daunting..   Its always been the same with anything like this , speed is your enemy...  When I hear people say how fast they have done complicated things, I always cringe and wait for the cracks to start..   So far so good ,  its all seems to be working  and you can always tweak the final moldings to suit your needs.. 

If you are getting distortion , its because your mold off the plug is not thick or rigid enough..   That is an experience thing you gain over time working the products, or going on a coarse.   But in your case as a one off you can muddle by and get the results needed .. 

Getting easy separation of the molds and moldings is a lot to do with the angles and shapes.  90' is where it starts to grab , which is why when you look around your Esprit you wont see any within the main mold except on split sections..  You will also find using a release agent on top of your wax a great asset. 

Take your time and keep going...   My wheel arch plugs took 6 weeks to perfect, then another 2 weeks to make the molds.. no one said it was easy...   

[Lotusfab]

Thanks Dave. I made the moulds one layer thinner to save time, as I am only making one copy using each. I sprayed release agent over the wax but found it pooled into droplets. I cleaned it off and applied nore wax. On the second mould I put many more wax layers on, so I hope it releases ok! Will be interesting to se how easily it comes away from the mould. Not sure if the distortion also resulted from applying lots of layers quite quickly and the heat generated messed it up.  I was able to correct it with filler quite easily, just added more time.

I have a design now for the upper racks. The skis will be gripped in rubber using a beefed up version of the original idea. I'm planing on aluminium sections with riveted steel ends. It will also have cam locks and the same pins as the original ,so the skis cannot be removed without the key.

The lower racks are more of an issue. I'm deciding whether to let the fiberglass take the load or build a metal bracket within. Once I have made the fiberglass bits I may take a break and go back to the engine. 

I'm still waiting for the cylinder head to be returned and wategate. The current Covid problems have delayed them. The wastegate is having a new valve made out ofvtye same material as the new cylinder head exhaust valves. The original sleve with then be bored out slightly to remove all corrosion and a 10 thou clearance used. I could not find the repair manual for the wastegate online. There is one but as always finding a copy is an issue.

[Lex Templar]

This is brilliant fabian, attention to detail is great. I'm sure there will be many Esprit owners that will be wanting you to put these into 'production'!

 

[eeyoreish]

Will they work for transporting lengths of 4x2" timber? I might be interested..🤔

[Lotusfab]

Well second one done. Well they are moulded but need finsihing.

[PhilW]

Wow.  Just wow!

 

[Lotusfab]

1 hour ago, Lex Templar said:

This is brilliant fabian, attention to detail is great. I'm sure there will be many Esprit owners that will be wanting you to put these into 'production'!

 

There won't be any more. I will never go near fiberglass again once the bottom racks are done! 

[williamtherebel]

Except when you decide to make the aerofoils for your submarine project !! Keep up the awesome work..  

[williamtherebel]

P.S. Does anyone know why are the indicators/side lights on the submarine the wrong way round? Even the Corgi model has them the correct way???? 

[Lex Templar]

Fair enough Fabian I don't blame you!

Meanwhile at Q-Lab, they're putting the white car back together.

[Lotusfab]

7 minutes ago, Lex Templar said:

Fair enough Fabian I don't blame you!

Meanwhile at Q-Lab, they're putting the white car back together.

Looks great!

[v8vantage]

Nearing the end Fab, I reckon once your done you'll be looking for another James Bond replica to do. I see an Aston Martin V8 in your future, done to match the one from The Living Daylights in 1986. Hopefully you can make all the gadgets work! It even has skis.

 

[Lotusfab]

11 minutes ago, v8vantage said:

Nearing the end Fab, I reckon once your done you'll be looking for another James Bond replica to do. I see an Aston Martin V8 in your future, done to match the one from The Living Daylights in 1986. Hopefully you can make all the gadgets work! It even has skis.

 

Wow thats excellent!

Who car is that? Was it at a show in the US?

[v8vantage]

They built 4 cars to use in the movie and 7 fiberglass shells for various stunts. That's one of the fiberglass shells. Aston still own one of the movie cars, Deezer collection has a couple. EON still have 6 of the shells.

[Lotusfab]

Just working on the first bottom rack. Waiting for gel coat to go off. Its a complex mould. When its done I'll leave you to ponder over how I made the entire thing from fibreglass- it required some thinking outside the box!