Build 1

The usual convention with blogs is to have the most recent posts at the top of the page but that is just the opposite of what you want with a web page devoted to building a clubman car so You will find the build notes all here from beginning to the end and for the latest update go to the bottom of this page.

Engine and transmission of course with out an engine you don’t really have a car . Because of the regulatory
environment here any builder is obliged to use a very modern engine and all of the emission equipment that comes with it .the problem for any builder of a seven style car is that most modern cars are front wheel drive and it is not a bolt up option to mate a compliant engine to a rear wheel drive gear box .
Most people want a five speed manual transmission, well I have done a lot of miles and years driving manual cars but in recent years I have had a daily driver with an auto trans and have come to appreciate the virtues of that type of driving . So early on I made a decision to use an auto in the seven. a friend of my brother was converting a RWD Toyota Corolla from auto to manual and was happy to give me the auto in exchange for a bottle of Bourbon which seemed to be good value as the transmission had just been serviced . With the transmission on hand I was able to make the transmission tunnel of the chassis. I was at the time planning a Toyota engine and believed that the trans would match the bell housing. a fellow builder let me trace the spacer plate from a 20 valve 4AGE and I was not so happy to discover that it did not match at all. Realising that I would have to make an adaptor plate any way I decided that my engine choice could be anything that would be compliant.
Needing an engine less than 5 years old meant that the best option was to buy a car that was a statutory write off from the auctions. In the end I bought a 2001 Nissan pulsar N16 and it cost me $1800 delivered to my front garden . It had been wrapped around a tree and the driver’s side was stoved in by a good foot , the odometer being electronic was not viewable but when I connected the battery up it said 40,000 k not much at all for a modern engine .

Pulling it apart took a week or so because of rain and the need to get some assistance from my brother. I saved every thing that could possibly have some use in the project, even the bent and twisted front seats. Eventually I had the engine sitting in my workshop and had to work out how to mate it to the Toyota Transmission.

free at last! the engine and trans in my workshop

Adaptor plate

Some people think making an adaptor plate is a mystical black art but as long as you hold on to a few basic principles it is not such a big deal. Firstly the crankshaft and the input shaft of the transmission must be absolutely coaxial, and the flex plate must mate to the toque converter .I consulted a friend who’s a fitter and turner and after some time measuring both the engine and the transmission he took away the flex plate and proceeded to re drill it on an indexing table and make three little spacers to mate it to the torque converter. He also made a new spigot bush for the crank shaft. His work was just superb, but you may find that when some one does a favour for you that it can take a long time too get the parts back and the job finished. I waited month’s .In the meantime I made a plate from 4mm thick steel that fitted on the engine and provided a mount for the starter motor. When I finally got the flex plate and spigot bush back it was fairly simple to lower the transmission onto the engine and with the torque converter now bolted to the flex plate it was centred correctly and then it was just a matter of drilling the adaptor for the bellhousing bolts, not by any stretch of the imagination rocket science.

engine and transmission together, the adaptor plate has since been trimmed to remove unnecessary metal .

Suspension

Ron Champion’s book bases his design on an Escort donor and Ford Cortina uprights. Both are getting thin on the ground here in Australia. After some one on the Yahoo North America suggested Toyota vans for running gear I found one very close to my home . The rear suspension was made as per the book a basic 4 link set up with panhard bar , the trailing arms and panhard rod were made of 25 mm x 25 mm x 2mm wall thickness RHS . Axel brackets were made from some 50 mm x 50 mm x 3mm wall thickness and welded as per the book taking particular care that they were orientated correctly before final welding. When mounting the panhard bar to the chassis I carefully made sure that the diff was centred and that the panhard rod was level with the diff at ride hight. This required a small plinth at the chassis pick up point.

the panhard bar should be level at ride hight

The rear suspension basically by the book was fairly easy but the front suspension and steering was somewhat more complicated.

One of the reasons I wanted to use the Toyota uprights was to have all of the braking components from the same vehicle and thus matching and designed to work together.

Cortina upright

The Toyota upright is a little taller than the cortina component suggested by Uncle Ron.

The Toyota upright

a schematic of the toyota upright

this schematic shows how the Toyota upright requires the upper A arm to be articulated higher on the chassis side than the Cortina one.

Some careful measuring determined that the lower A arm needed to be 15 mm longer on each side to ensure that the track was the same on the front as the back. I redesigned the lower A arm to use the standard Toyota Ball joint. and made a jig to suit .

my jig with an upper A Arm awaiting Tig welding

Discussion on the “Locostbuilders UK” site and with other local builders makes it clear that Uncle Ron’s specification for the A arms of 1.6 mm tube is not up to the job for a road car. I used seamless tube 3mm thick.

All together brackets just tacked but looks good

Coilover shocks

The majority of builders here use GaZ shocks for their cars which are very good but at $1200 a set a bit to expensive for my budget . So I have used motorcycle shocks . On the rear a set of Hagons intended for a Harley Davidson and on the front two monoshocks originally from a RGV 250 Suzuki and during a dry run assembly they seem to have about the right spring rate . Time will tell if they have suitable Dampening.

Steering

the above schematic shows what sort of relationship between the steering and suspension is needed to ensure minimal bump steer. In Australia it is a requirement that there be virtually zero bump steer.

Another thing to consider is what is called Ackerman steering . which is fundamentally the difference in the steered angle of the front wheels to ensure smooth cornering

This schematic explains how rack placement causes bump steer

a typical Locost rack placement and note that the rack has been shortened to bring the inner pivots of the rack into alignment with the A Arm pivots as per the first schematic .

Here is my steering rack mounted in the front of my car . You will notice that it sits some what higher than is typical. This works because my chassis is 50mm wider than the book design and by raising the rack I can get my inner ball joints of the rack into the correct place in relationship to the A Arm mounts.

There is just enough clearance for the rack bellows to clear the front of the chassis

The rack can go where it needs to be because I have used Ford Escort MK 1 Steering arms , swapped from left to right and installed upside down. They are mounted on adaptors made from 12mm thick steel that bolts to the uprights. No welding was required (or would have been permitted)

After it was roughly together I used one of those small cheap laser pointers held to the grove in the stub axle with an elastic band this projected onto a piece of graph paper taped to the wall about a metre away showed a deflection from the ideal of only 2mm which amounts to negligible bump steer over the full travel of the suspension .
My car uses the steering collumn from my N16 Nissan donor and it connects to a short extension piece that relied on a squared shaft. By grinding flats on an Escort steering shaft it was possible to connect the rack to the steering without the expense of having new splines cut in the end of the steering shaft.