My Elio Alternate Project Is Underway.

[3wheelin]

I lengthened the strengthening plate, the distance of the yellow lines, because it didn't quite extend past the engine mounts to my satisfaction, my blunder, I should have measured better.. i.e. as they say, measure 38 times, cut once.

And as you can see, the suspension is basically mounted, including lateral brace from mount to mount that you can't see.




View attachment 26692

The more I see your progress, the more I like it! Everything is neatly placed. Can't wait for that all important "skeleton run". Go, go, go.

 

[Duger]

The more I see your progress, the more I like it! Everything is neatly placed. Can't wait for that all important "skeleton run". Go, go, go.

It is looking good. Can't hardly wait to see it run. And then in full dress.

 

[Mark BEX]

I had to modifiy the lower control arm crossmaber assembley, because the steering tie rods were too close.

You can see the scallop I have taken out, and increased the strength of the assembly some, and to the right, you can see in the CAD drawing where the tie rod routes, and why the scallops.

And finally the hot weather is breaking, as it darn well should by the end of August.

 

[Mark BEX]

Exciting news for me, but sorry to say I am away for 4 days.

I am going to Xinjiang, not as tourist, but a business trip for Rong, and it's very close to the famous "4 Borders" of China, Russia, Mongolia and Kazakhstan.

Burqin County to be exact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burqin_County

 

[Mark BEX]

Because this trip happened suddenly, I left the factory today without taking pictures.

The front suspension is fully mounted, and the 2 x main engine mounts are done.

Starting to look like something again, but this time with production specific pieces going into it.

 

[Mark BEX]

and I am back ...

 

[Mark BEX]

As I mentioned, I got the front suspension mounted before I went away on my trip, but forgot to take pictures, and today got the main engine mounts finalised.

Unfortunately I have to fly to Beijing tomorrow, but it's only for one day.

 

[Mark BEX]

Back again.

Trip to Beijing was for 2 reasons, and one of them was to help secure the BEX's financial future of which talks went well.

 

[Mel]

Very encouraging!

 

[Mark BEX]

I've always liked the concept of rivnuts, which are tube nuts that are crushed fitted into a hole, but in the real world they have a tendency to work loose and spin in the hole while tightening them. It's also a big issue to remove them when needing to repair, as drilling them out is a pain because they spin with the drill in the hole and damage the hole.

However, recently I noticed hex shaped rivnuts that can not spin in a hex hole, and you all know the ease I have with producing parts with the laser cutter, so it's logical to move to these as a joining method, and here is my test of this method today ..