The battery tube has been a source of frustration and a lot of learning has happening.
The original battery tube in the above pictures has been tossed in the bin. It needed enlarging slightly on the inside diameter to fit the battery carriers. I thought the easiest way to do this would be with a hone as I did not have a boring bar that would do this job.
I was wrong as the hone wore itself out without really doing a lot to the inside diameter.
I decided to then make a boring bar and grind a piece of tool steel to do the cutting. When machining the inside diameter with the new boring bar the tool steel would lose its edge without really doing any cutting. It took far to long for me to realise that the cutting edge was being dulled from the hone stone that must have embedded itself in the aluminium.
The trash can came beckoning.
A new battery tube was started from scratch. The below picture is of the home made boring bar made from a piece of 1’’ round 1020 bar.
The length of the cut was about 165mm.
And at last we had success.
The weld was then machined down so the switch area of the head would screw on.
The pill section was placed in the chuck to hold the battery tube so the profile could be machined.
The thread for the tailcap was then machined and the tube surface turned flat. There was a slight mistake by me setting the levers for the thread pitch. Istead of the original 1.25mm pitch it is 1mm pitch which means the standard tailcap will not be used.
The tailcap is made from a piece of 63mm diameter brass bar.
The inside of the tailcap was machined ready for threading.
A neat thread is always welcome.
The power hacksaw was again put to use.
A mandrel was turned up to hold the tailcap to allow the end to be machined up.
If I did not have a full time job and a spare shed I’d love to get into Anodising but at the moment unfortunately no. Acid here is also on the banned list of items we can purchase.
I’ll leave it up to the owner of the torch if he wants to get it anodised by a third party.
I wont be doing anything to the stock components so the torch can be converted easily back to standard.
I’m a bit of an old sentimentalist at heart.
Appreciate the comment.
The head assembly is the only used item from the original torch.
Theres not a lot left to do. The tailcap to finish off and then assembly. Just need time.
There was a 12 hour race on idiot box yesterday that got in the way.
I was at the Bathurst 12 hours yesterday i watched about 6 hours from half way. It was so damn hot. I went for a walk to see if i could find Mick Doohan but could find him.
It was steam powered when l was using it as the shed was a sauna. Micky Doohan was in the 888 teams garage and the Mercedes area. Not sure he ventured much further than that. Was a good race on the tv.
How was the noise from the different engines? The Bentleys were a rockets at one stage. Shame the driver stuffed up twice at the end of the pit lane.
Yea most of the cars where not to loud compared to other events like V8 supercars or F1. Loudest car was the mustangs freaking deafening you could also hear the turbos spooling comming around the bend. Like the aston and merc must have been big bores they where just rumbling.
I think the Aston Martin is a V12. The Porsche GT3s didn’t sound that great but they got the job done.
The end was good safety car came out with a few laps left. I seen one of the Aston Martin retire with a few laps left i think. Also the KTM came back on car carrier with a few laps left. Bloody Nissan i didn’t see what happen but they hit some one and got disqualified.
I was at the start of the main straight where the start/finish is. I bought the mountain pass drove up but not much room by the time we got there so i headed back down.
Took my esky and fold up chair and decided to buy a beach umbrella from bunnings. Lucky we did it was a crazy hot day. I had a tarp and rope with me was hoping to set up under a tree lol.
The Nissan got disqualified because they did not come in for a drive through penalty. Just kept on going around.
Talking about being hot. Someone had a temp gun and pit lane surface was 69 degrees.
Sounds like you had a good time. Thanks for the update.