Car transportation unit - Leg supports

After taking R5 to a few events now, I realise that he need's better restraints for the transporting in the rear of the car. Either new ankle leg locking stands or something.

R5 is too tall to go in through the rear hatch when in three leg mode, requiring outer feet and centre leg/foot assembly to be removed. I had made a 'stand' which fit's up inside his skirt [centre leg removed] and this is what he sit's on whilst in transport.

But even with him strapped down, he is still unstable going round corners. So new leg/ankle supports are a must. These can be bolted to the legs for support, using the original T-nuts.

So I dug out his original wood internal frames and started cutting these up to fit the new angle they need to be to sit level with the floor.

Now working on the second leg support.....

It's the little things that are sent to try us.......

Yesterday I cut some lengths of thin hardboard to be fitted into the channel of the outer feet [internal]. All good. Angled edges, then primered & silver sprayed them up, nice. These will be screwed into place eventually, as they would need to be removed to get the feet off.

So, whilst waiting, I thought I'd test fit the inner feet & outer feet shells, plus the battery box 8).....only to find they they didn't fit!?!?!?! They were a snug fit before, but didn't think anything wrong as it ment no 'play' between the leg and channel when clamped together with the leg/foot bolt! But the extra paint on the foot internal channel walls, was enough to make the snug fit an interferance fit!!  :(

There wasn't anything I could do about the internal channel walls........so out came the junior hacksaw and started on slicing off the inside face of the leg ankle [bolt area]. Got so far, then had to swap over saw as then had to try to cut through the brass bush I'd fitted. This wasn't any good as the amount needed was the same width as the blade which just slid off. So out came the drill on it's slowest speed [so as not to make any noise, as it was midnight in my garage lol] and fitted with a countersunk bit, slowly drilled/grinded the bush down. I could then finish sawing the wood down.

This was just enough for the internal foot channel to fit over the leg, bolt section. Phew. Of course, this means I need to re-spray this area, but with not so many coats this time, as you won't see this area once assembled.

I then had to repeat this operation on Leg No.2. Not so bad as this one wasn't fitted to R5's body!!! hahaha.

Determind to reassure myself all was OK, I fitted his centre leg, and fitted his outer foot. And am please to report that it all fitting and looks........ fantastic :D
Put a bit smile back on my face I can tell you hahaha.

I'll post up pictures at weekend :)

Leg No1, almost fully assembled :)

I got hold of some nice long cap head bolts.

These will be what I need to fix the Leg's ankle to the Outer Foot's internal support.

And just cause it looked good lol, here are a few photos.....

In this picture you can see the cap head bolt, as the top piece of the foot shell was not bonded in at this point. Leg bolted to internal frame.

The frame will be sprayed up white once all is done.

Here's a teaser front shot :D

Here's the side shot.......looking good [in all it's basicness lol]

 

And just to test the strength / tighness of the bolt and also that the internal stand's base area is large enough to support the leg without tipping over..........

I angled the leg over to almost touch the top of the Outer Foot shell. I took this photo with one hand and one eye, the other two were ready in case anythin decided to move!! Lol :D

Outer Feet 1.7 - Ankle Slot work

I marked out the position of the Ankle Slot and then cut it out. 

 then got to work on making the bottom of the slot, using two pieces of wood, 18mm & 8mm, which is the thickness of my Leg's Ankle.

These were screwed in place at the same height as the Slots cut in the Foot Shell.

Also the last piece was bonded into place on the shell.

 

I've also got hold of some longer cap head bolts for fitting the Leg Ankle to the Foot.

More in the next post.

Outer Feet - 1.6 - Display Feet internals

Untill I can afford motors etc for R5. He will need something to 'take the weight of his feet' when being displayed lol :D

So this is what I've come up with.

I made a cardboard template to fit inside foot shell. Transferred it onto 18mm thick wood. Cut out the three parts & with counter punk holes, screwed them together. Now, as i don't want anything to go wrong by using plan dimensions, as my build is slightly unique lol. I made another template of the leg bolt hole and measured it. This dimension i then transferred onto the temp foot internal's. I then drilled one hole dia 10mm on one side and a dia 12mm hole on the opposite side. The 12mm hole then had an M10mm t-nut fitted.

 Photo no.2 shows where I had to remove material from the edge, this was due to the bonding of the panels.