[BAracer]

#51

"Why is it all so complicated?"


Our Alan makes it look easy. He showed us "the one he had made earlier" in his live hydro-dipping tutorial last week. He was happy with how the ink had applied itself to the body detailing, and no-one could disagree.

John Kitt also made the production of a Porsche white kit look easy. But the detailing of the little things that make things that take something from being good to being REALLY good, like the door handles and gear levers, left all the Chatters in stunned silence...which was only broken when he mentioned the price, and the orders started piling in like a good old fashioned stocks and shares trading floor.

And then things became hard.

Gio showed off all the work has has done over the past few weeks to a TA71 Bentley Continental GT3 body. The trouble is, that was just to get it smooth! And he wasn't quite there yet...and all the time in the back of his head was the weight of it, and how much work he would have to do to get it down to something acceptable in a competitive environment. But at least he was able to show us lots (and lots) of handy tips on body preparation techniques. 

Wayne showed of his free gift from Dennis off all the tyre off cuts from out of his rubbish bin. Both were happy with the deal. How difficult is it to put a tyre on a hub? Very if it is an air hub. Someone had done it and was getting tyre wear where they shouldn't. Nobody could explain exactly why, it could be for any one of a dozen reasons!

How easy is it to create body float? Very. How easy is it to create just the right amount of body float? Not very. Surely you just undo the body screws a little to create the body float? No no noooo...what you are doing there is creating chassis float! With the body acting as a mass damper (especially if it is Gio's Bentley), its the chassis that is floating all over the place. Or as ChrisW explained, imagine going round a sharp corner a heavy bag of shopping in the boot, or as Wayne explained, imagine being in a tall building in a typhoon, or as Alan explained, imagine you are sitting in a train going round a corner...first it's your feet that swing round, then your knees, than your shopping bag falls off the rack. Dennis had the solution, a guide with a bit of play; so the guide goes round the corner, but the rest of the car keeps straight on. Sorted.

How hard is it to find a car with a flat chassis? Very. Boiling water, lots of magnets, and Greg strongly recommends use of a circular saw blade. Put them all in the oven overnight at 50, 80, 100, 200, 240 or 250 degrees centigrade or fahrenheit. Remove and place of wet kitchen worktop. If you can lift it off, then it's not flat. If it's not flat, repeat. If it happens again, dump it in ChrisW's shopping bag with all of his warped Thunderslot chassis. If all else fails, screw chassis tightly to body to eliminate all deflections (and body float).

So once you finally achieve nirvana with a flat chassis, how hard is it to keep it on the track? Very if you are a "SCM". But the consensus was that if you lose it on a banked corner, aim for the ceiling tiles rather than the wall. How hard can that be?