Happy New Year t o you all! A lot to update today. First new purchases. From Rally Designs, I bought Caterham steering rack extensions, which extend the rack by 100mm. This means that the Escort Mk2 rack can be used otherwise unmodified. I also bought a pair of their aluminium rack clamps- a bit ‘bling’ but as the rack I have had no mounts, necessary. I have also addressed the steering column ‘problem’ by buying a Sierra column from the Cortina/Sierra on the A17 near Boston. It is just about the perfect length and at £17, much cheaper than having an adaptor machined for the Fiesta column. Finally Father Christmas (AKA Wife) bought me a pair of Sabelt Harnesses - these have yet to arrive though!
Anyway, before christmas, I made the mounts for the seats and tacked the rear bulkhead bracing - not as easy as it sounds as they slant in two directions! Over the new year, John and I made the rack mounts. First we clamped the rack in position and attached a laser pointer to one of the uprights. John then moved the suspension through its range of movement whilst I marked the bump-steer on a piece of cardboard 4m away - you probably can’t see the laser spot on this photo. We then progressively lowered the rack until we found the position where there was virtually no bump-steer at all.Typically this proved a pig to make mounts to hold the rack in this position but we eventually succeeded! Finally we mocked the steering column into position and decided how to attach it!
The next few weeks should see some rapid progress I hope! The hits counter has reached 5000 - they can’t all be John and I so how about leaving a message so that we know who is watching!? Cheers!
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