Million Dollar Skunksworks Kirkham

[David Kirkham]

Originally Posted by Don

David, should you desire to publicize the accomplishment, via an interview and article, consider MotorSport, i.e. international recognition and exposure

http://www.motorsportmagazine.co.uk/

Simon Taylor writes terrific articles. He interviewed NicK Mason, drummer for Pink Floyd, on the CD " The Sounds of Goodwood " For those that are not familiar with MotorSport, a very high quality publication, a natural for the vehicle being constructed.

I was just scanning through for spelling errors and came across your post! Sorry I missed it. I guess I was posting too fast. Thank you for your kind words.

I think it would be cool if other people were interested. Right now I am just focused on getting the car done, getting it done right, and making my customer happy.

David

[David Kirkham]

Here are my final posts for the night. As you have probably already noticed, there are a zillion bolts in this chassis. So, you have to be careful to make sure you have tightened them all correctly. Notice the paint marks.

[David Kirkham]

We paint a line across the bolt and onto the surface of the part that is bolted together as a "witness mark." This way we can see if any of the bolts are loosening up as you drive the car.

[David Kirkham]

Good night, it is time to commune with Chopin. Thanks for listening.

I'll post more on Monday.

David

[David Kirkham]

I had an email question. "What kind of bolts are you using?"

We are using aircraft bolts anywhere there is a through hole that needs to be bolted together with a nut. You can see that on the front of the chassis where the jack hooks bolt on. When we have to bolt directly into the aluminum, we are using coarse threaded bolts. They are not aircraft bolts, but USA made, grade 8 bolts--where possible. We can't get a hold of AN (military/aircraft) coarse threaded bolts, or we would use them. We try to use "Unbrako" or other high quality socket head cap screws or taper head cap screws where possible. The large surface area under the head of a taper head cap screw really helps to hold the parts together.

David

[David Kirkham]

That said, I am happy to answer any more questions you all might have. Not sure if I will have the answer or not, but I will try to answer the best I can.

David

[David Kirkham]

I just found another pic.

This is a shot of a little fixture we made to set the proper distance on the rod ends to the control arms. As many of you who have worked on control arms with rod ends know, the rod ends have to be screwed in a certain distance for you to get the alignment reasonable close to where you want it. Otherwise, you are liable to start to align the car and chase your tail. We have even had some customer's alignment guys call us up on the phone and tell us there were NOT ENOUGH THREADS on the rod ends to align their car...

We had to tell them to screw the rod ends back in on all the control arms and start over. Sometimes you can screw yourself right into a big hole you can't get out of if you aren't careful.