Hi Ralph, aka the Flanders Pigeon Mudererer!! Thought you'd got away with eating old Speckled Jim, eh?
Thanks David, that's a nice positive way to look at it... if you'd have seen me sweating and cursing 5 mins before I started cutting the radii, tapping the damn lump all over the shop with the Plastic Hammer of Doom (or, in this case, the Plastic Hammer of GO WHERE THE FOUR-LITTLE-ASTERISKS YOU'RE TOLD YOU BAS-MORE-ASTERISKS LUMP OF YET-MORE-ASTERISKS!!!). But, alls well that ends well, in the end.
Had I got my backside out of bed & down the workshop at a sensible hour, I'd have finished it tonight.... but since I didn't get started until 2pm, it didn't quite happen...
So, here's the penultimate (probably!) episode.
First job - drill 2 holes I'd forgotten, the ones that bolt through the "wings" into the engine. Also, while I was there, I enlarged the mounting holes from 6mm (a very tight squeeze for a 6mm cap-head bolt) to 6.5mm, to give a little bit of "wiggle" room. A trial-fit on the engine had showed that this was needed:
As you can see, it's another precarious setup, with a massive overhang... fortunately, it was only a few holes & all went well:
So, with those jobs out of the way, time to cut those slopes:
It turns out, this job makes quite a mess of the workshop. Lucky I've got plenty of space and a large brush!:
Those of you who have followed this from the start (actually, more likely someone who has just ploughed through all of the 12 pages of this monster story) might find this photo familiar. Certainly, I got a sense of deja-vu... Yep, cutting bl**dy slots again!:
It's worth it though, as the first fins emerge:
I finished them off with a ball-end cutter, just a little blingy bit that'll never be seen, since this thing will spend it's life 6" off the tarmac (or gravel, grass, etc.). I also milled off the ear at an angle, just to tidy that up a bit. So, next job was to flip the sump around, arrange on the mill so I could do the whole job under power feed, set the angle plate, and get cutting. Due to the amount of material to remove, I really pushed the mill & cutter as hard as I dared:
[devon accent] Propper Jaaahb [/devon accent]
So, after a while of that, I made the first mistake of the evening & reset the angle plate (and moved the piece) to cut the second wing. What I
should have done was cut the fins on the second angle, while it was all set up & in the right place. Ho-hum.
As a result, I decided to call it a night. That and the fact it's very late o'clock.
Therefore, this is where we're up to:
Final jobs are: Cut the fins in the rest of the bottom; drill the last two holes in the upright piece (I will have to fit it to the gearbox to find the location); Finish any deburring; test-fit on engine; lightly sand the top surface so it's absolutely flat; thoroughly clean and de-grease; make large wooden base and fit sump to wall - no way is it hiding under some car after all this effort!!
OK, all bar the last one then.
Weight (including back piece) is now 13kg; still a lot (and it won't get much lighter despite the fins), but there's loads of spare metal which - if I had bigger cojones - I'd mill into. But I'm absolutely paranoid about a breakthrough at this late stage, so I'll stick with the heavyweight version.
Fingers crossed, one last push tomorrow and it's all over!
