Body - Scaling Dimensions & Angles

The body for this build will basically be a standard 1933 Ford Coupe. It will be  from Koop de Glass in New Plymouth. In fact the body will come out of the exact same mould that my last Coupe came out of. It will be chopped 4 inches (4 inches taken from the pillars so the roof is lower). This is done for appearance. I reckon the chopped look is a bit more modern and looks a bit meaner. The unchopped look is quite traditional and while I can appreciate that style too, it isn't what this build is going to be about.

 CHOPPED

 UNCHOPPED

The reason I am choosing the Koop de Glass option is because they are prepared to sell me a "floppy body" which is a fibreglass body straight from the mould. It won't have a floor in it and it certainly won't have any steel strengthening. This means I can chop the body up and modify it before going through the process of hanging the doors and steeling out the body for strength.

If I was to purchase a body that had all that done, and then started modifying it, it would not only be difficult but it would be a waste of money re-doing or in some cases undoing all that good work.

The other advantage is the cost of a floppy body is very cheap compared to a finished article..... sooooo..... if it turns out to be a failure I haven't wasted a huge amount of money. No reason why it should be a failure, but its nice to have that knowledge in the back of my mind.

The design I am going for is quite modified from original so I will have to change quite a few angles and dimensions. The risk here is that it can look really wrong if the angles or dimensions aren't right. A few degrees here and a couple of centimetres there and you can end up with a car that's all out of whack.

While I have a bit of time on my hands I decided I'd start planning for the body by copying a couple of side on photographs from a car I like in the US and start working out the rake angles and to also take a few measurements and scale them up. You can see here the various lines I have drawn over one picture to calculate the angles. I have drawn a line, along under both wheels as a ground level and have also drawn a vertical line at 90 degrees to that.  These are reference lines that I have then calculated angles for roof line, waist line, bonnet line, windscreen angle etc.

This next drawing I have taken measurements and scaled them up. I am aware that the rear tyre is 28 inches in diameter (from specs I have read up on the actual car) and from that have been able to work out the scale and calculate other measurements. The one I was most interested in was the overall height.... it works out to be 47 inches (give or take a bit for picture distortion)..... its about now you should go and get your tape measure and see what 47 inches looks like.......

.....okay so you measured that out...... that can't be right..... 

Oh yes it is! 

47 inches!

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Aircon - Heater Core & Airflow Control

The third and final section of the heater is possibly the most simple unit when you look inside it but surprisingly enough in its own way its quite a complicated piece. I tell you what the guy that did the engineering on this part was a real bright bugger.

This is the unit before I cracked it open. This is looking down on the top of the unit. The hole down through the white plastic is where the air would come out to go to your demisters.

If you were sitting in your car looking straight at the centre air vents in the dash.....this is what is directly behind them.

Now if you had the bonnet open (that's the hood for you Kevin) there is a back wall in the engine bay known as the firewall. I guess in the old days it was just that a wall that stopped the fire from a fuel fire, getting to the occupants in the car. Anyway if you could see through the firewall this would be the view you'd have of the heater. The two pipes at the top right of the picture carry hot water from the engine block cooling system into the heater core. You can just see the top of it. Its the copper coloured piece.

In fact here is the heater core, its basically just a small radiator, and in essence that is rows of small tubes joined by thin vanes. The heat from the water is transferred outwards through the copper tubes and into the vanes which are then cooled by air flowing through. That's how your cars radiator works to keep the engine cool. The heater core is no different except it is used more for the fact that it heats the air that's passing through it. That said though I have in the past turned the heater on flat out and the heater fan to full speed to try and help cool the cars engine down on a hot day. Kills the occupants in the car but it is surprising how effective this can be at helping to bring the engine temperature down. Oh sorry.... almost forgot to show you the heater core.

Okay so what is inside this third unit? Like I said pretty simple at first glance. This is looking down inside the bottom half. Basically just a few air flow control flaps.

The only other thing to note here is the small silver rectangle to the left. Here's a closer look.

It is one of the many sensors that the brain of the Climate (automatic) aircon uses to assess whats going on. The heater core sits right down on top of that silver metal box, which is basically an electronic thermometer telling the aircon how much heat is available from the heater core.

This next pic is looking up inside the top half of the unit. The heater core is still inside it. Sorry its a bit blurry. To the right you can see more airflow control flaps.

It took hours to restore this unit as all the control flaps had to be relined with sponge/foam as all the old stuff was rotten. Not much was left and what was, was all crumbly and basically would have served no purpose. There are no fewer than about 7 or 8 flaps in total and most had to be covered on both sides.

Anyway with all that done let me show you how it works....

Remember air comes in from either inside the car (recirculating) or from outside (fresh) and is forced in by the heater blower motor. That was the first unit.

If the aircon is on the air is chilled in the second unit. If not it is kept at the ambient temperature.

Now the air arrives at the heater box. This next pic shows the heater in the closed position. The flaps are covering the heater core so the air doesn't go through it and get warmed up. We'll look at it a bit later but the motor that operates these flaps also operates a tap controlling the flow of hot water into the heater core....so when the flaps are closed like this....so is the hot water turned off.

Now as the flaps are opened to let air through the heater core to warm up, so does the water tap open and let the hot water flow. Quite clever that one motor serves both purposes I thought.

Looking at the front of the unit you can see here a few more of the control flaps. The one on top at the right is the hole that air for the demisters comes through.

The hole in the top to the left and the one on the front on the left both act like a bypass. It seems that no matter what position the flaps are in there is always some air flowing to the centre face vents.

The front right flap controls the bulk of the air going to the face vents. Then at the bottom, you can't quite see the flap but the hole there is where the air comes from to go to the foot vents.

All of that you have seen above gets covered up by plastic mouldings that direct the air to various pipes to take it out to the vents you use in the car. I'm going to have to make something to adapt this as the unit won't be marrying up to a Toyota Celica dashboard like it once did.

Anyway here it is with that moulding in place. Now when I say I will need to make something to adapt....its not quite true as I have a lovely assistant helping me out. I have employed the services of Tony Field to weld some adapter plates up. I have made patterns for what are basically metal plates that will screw over all the outlets and have a piece of pipe welded on to them that I can later attach the ducting to.

Okay, remember I said I'd show you the motor that controls the flaps and heater tap...... here it is. The black box is the motor which the Climate air brain (computer) controls, by telling it to open or close or stop at any position in between. The black cable is what operates the heater tap, while the white plastic arms (and the rods coming off them) are operating the air flow flaps.

Here's a picture of those control arms without the motor covering them.

Pretty smart cookie that designed that eh!!!!

I tell you what, he wasn't that clever at all..... just the apprentice I think..... the real bright bugger was the one who figured out a way to have one other servo motor control the airflow to face only, feet only, demist only, face and feet, feet and demist oh and of course demist and face. So not only does the one motor control all these combination's it also opens, closes and partially opens the various flaps all in the right sequence. There are about 6 flaps to operate here remember. How the hell they worked that out I'll never know. I reckon I'd have more chance of solving the rubics cube with a blindfold on and that ain't gonna happen.

Anyway this is what operates it all. A large wheel that has worm shaped cutout that push up and down on various levers that push and pull on the airflow flaps. There are more controls behind the motor as well. Very clever.

Actually while we are looking at this pic you can see a white plastic thing that looks a bit like a microphone.....just another sensor for the computer.....this one measures the ambient air temperature in the car.

the big black hole to the left is where the air comes from for your side air vents at either end of the dashboard.

Then finally the computer (brain) screws on over the top. That's the cream coloured box.

I couldn't resist opening it up to have a nosey. Not quite true I opened up the other one I had sitting here as I was frightened I might damage something.

No comment required I'm sure. The pictures speak for themselves.

Last but not least here are some before and after shots of the whole unit all back together again. Man I hope I can get it to fit!!!!

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

And that about wraps it up before I wrap it all up in plastic and store it. I'll do one more post on it once I have the adapter plates back from Tony.

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Body - Door Catches

Since my last post I have continued to keep on the look out for parts and to try and find a few bargains. I haven't been buying too much though as the focus is still on funding the chassis work while it is down at Juniors in Wellington.

One idea I have had squirreled away for a while now though, was to have soft close doors. I knew such a thing existed as I was looking at a BMW 7 series (they're the big luxury limousine like ones) about 5 years ago and when I closed its boot it clicked closed onto the first click of the catch, then an electric motor pulled it the boot lid the rest of the way closed. On late model BMW's they have them on the doors too now. Here's what they do.

The benefit of them is that there is no need to slam the door. You pull the door too, and the motorised catch does the rest meaning you aren't having the hassle of slamming the door and you also aren't causing damage with that sudden shock. This is of particular concern on a fibreglass car as you can get small hairline cracks appearing at stress points.

Great idea but finding these catches was easier said than done. Either not many BMW's have them or people selling them as parts cars don't understand what I am asking for. I figured there must be more cars with them on though and asked a few questions on Trademe. One guy suggested Mercedes. I found one but they wanted $450 for each latch and another $250 for the control box and I'd still have to work out how it all went together and switched. Bugger that!

At this point I started looking around in car sales yards and was told by one salesman that the Toyota Estima might have them. I tried that but they are only on the sliding side door and trying to adapt that to a hinged door would be too hard. Next suggestion was a Nissan Elgrand people mover. The salesman reckoned they had them on the rear hatch. BINGO!

I called at Dodson's (Japanese car wreckers) and as luck would have it the bosses van was a Nissan Elgrand so he knew exactly what I was talking about and whats more they had just removed the mechanism out of a wrecked one a few weeks earlier. He went and got it for me to have a look at.

It certainly is a lot more complex and a lot bigger than I expected, but I still thought I could make this work. I bought it and took it home to assess a bit more.

Here's how they work...

The door closes manually onto its first click. The first picture is with the catch open and the second picture is on the first click.

Now when it hits the first click the latch has a cam that comes up against a small metal lever that activates a micro switch (a small switch that is activated when another part presses on it. A bit like your finger pressing on a light switch to turn it on), You can see here the pencil is pointing at the cam hitting the small metal lever.  The grey plastic box is the micro switch itself.

Now when that happens power goes to the motor and it starts turning over and cranking these teeth.

The plate that has the teeth on its edge then turns and as it does so, the latch is pulled in to its second click. The pic below is a wider view of the one above. You can see the pencil at the top right is pointing to the lever that is operated as the toothed plate turns.

Viewed from the other side, the pencil is now pointing to the pin that the lever pushes against. You can see the lever coming through from the other side and making contact with the pin.

Here is a shot of the catch in the fully closed position.

Once the motor has pulled the latch onto its second click another micro switch is activated. You can see that one here.

What this one does is turn the polarity of the current around, so what was a positive feed to the motor is now negative and what was negative becomes positive.....what that does, is it makes the motor run backwards, so the arm with the teeth on it can go back to where it started (If it didn't it would permanently hold the latch on its second click and you wouldn't be able to get out of the car).


Once the motor has wound the toothed plate back to the start position another micro switch is activated to turn everything off until its required again. Here is that third micro switch.

All that switching is controlled by the little black box at the bottom right of the picture below....the brain of the mechanism if you like.

This video shows the whole thing working (I am activating it with a bit of rod so you can see what is happening, normally though, this is where the door striker would go). This video shows the latch itself.

And secondly here's a video of the motor doing all the work. You can see it pressing the lever at the top right of the picture.

Okay so the door is closed now but what about opening the door then? That's pretty easy its just a case of pulling on the lever/rod shown here.

In this build I'll be using a shaved door handle kit which means the car won't have any door handles at all. Instead what will happen is you'll push a button on the remote and it will tell this little black control box to send power to a solenoid (a mechanism that will pull the door catch release lever/rod I showed you above).

This is the actual solenoid.

A solenoid is quite simple it is a winding of copper wire around a cylinder. That is exactly what you'd find inside the solenoid pictured above. It doesn't do anything when the power is off, but when you add a current (by pushing the button on the remote) the copper wire winding becomes an electromagnet and it attracts the metal rod that is running through its core (the arm sticking out the left hand end) and pulls it in.

This video shows you what they do.

So what will happen when its installed in the car is the solenoid will be attached to the door mechanism. When I push the open button on the remote the electromagnet will come to life and the lever will be pulled. Voila the latch opens to allow the door to open up.


Look Ma no hands!











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Aircon - Aircon Core Unit

This is the second part of the heater/aircon unit. It houses the aircon evaporator, thats the radiator thing you can see inside the box. The pipes you can see to the left of the first picture carry the aircon refrigerant.

The pipe you can see across the front of the evaporator in this next picture is actually a temperature sensor. I'll explain a bit more about this soon.  

I pulled the unit apart and gave it a good clean out, you can see in this next pic just how clogged it was.

There are a few bits included in this box as shown below. This first one is called a thermistor. I am not sure exactly what this one does but it must add some sort of resistance as it has what is known as a 'heat sink' on the back of it. That's the finned aluminium piece you can see in the second pic below. When resistance is applied to an electrical current, heat builds up. The idea of the heat sink is that air passes over it to dissipate the heat that builds up. Cunningly this is mounted so that the heat sink protrudes into the aircon box, so it keeps the hot part away from passengers in the car and other components as well as being in the best possible place to keep cool.

As I say I am not sure exactly what it this one does but here is what it looks like inside. If anyone knows what it does let me know and I'll update it here.

This next one is a resistor. A similar kind of thing. It has a wire winding inside a ceramic block. The wire winding creates resistance and as such reduces power. This particular one I think is for managing the fan speed. Full power straight to the fan gives you high speed, but if you put the power through the resistor first it provides resistance and the fan goes slower. Again this resistance generates heat so the ceramic block gets very hot. You couldn't hold on to it. This one also protrudes into the aircon box to help it dissipate the heat.

The pic below is the inside of the box that the evaporator sits in. It is lined with an insulation material. If it didn't, when the box got cold, condensation would form on the outside of the box and passengers in the car would keep getting drips of water on their feet. With the insulation though the condensate forms on the inside of the box and runs out of a drain tube. This is where the big puddle of water comes from that you see under a car that has just had the aircon running. You can see the drain tube at the bottom left of the picture.

And here is the aircon evaporator unit all tidied up and reassembled.

And here it is reunited with the heater fan box.

Now if you want to know how aircon works keep reading.........

The video clip below explains quite well how aircon works. Unfortunately it is a home aircon unit but the principal is exactly the same. Before you click play let me explain the diagram below. The right side of this picture is the cold side (the equivalent of the evaporator/radiator you saw me clean out above, which of course is inside the car).

The tank like thing at the bottom in the centre of the diagram is the pump or compressor. In a car this is attached to the engine and is driven by the fanbelt. It takes quite a bit of energy to get this pump working which is why your car is less powerful and less economical when you drive with the aircon on.

The left side of the diagram is the equivalent of the aircon condenser. Its like a second radiator and is used to dissipate the heat that is generated when the compressor turns the aircon gas back into a liquid. In the video the guy is standing by a big box with a fan. This is the home equivalent of the aircon condensor/radiator. In your car it is a small radiator attached to the main radiator and it will usually have its own fan.

Any how take a look at the video.....when he shows you the box in the backyard think of the cars radiator. When he says "house" think "car" and it should all make sense.

   

Another part that is attached to the bottom of the aircon box I just tidied up, that I haven't shown you yet is this circuit board. It is what is referred to in the wiring diagrams as an amplifier. There are two of them on the aircon unit. You kinda get the idea now why there are so many wires!!!!

These amplifiers are central to the control of Climate aircon. So what about this climate air then? What is it?

Standard aircon you manage the temperature by turning the aircon off or on and the heater off and on. You can also choose where you want the air to come from....vents by your feet or demisters or on a hot day you may want it blowing from the face vents. You can also turn the fan speed up or down to suit.

Climate air manages all this for you though. It has many sensors that it takes readings from and uses the readings to make make an analysis and decisons about how to control the unit. You will remember the temperature one I showed you above? It measures the temp of the aircon evaporator. This is just one of many....in fact there are sensors for......

Temperature inside the car

Temperature outside

Temperature of the heater core

A solar sensor

Engine water temp sensor

And there are probably others I've forgotten

The Amplifiers (the circuit board things) use this info to assess what to do with....

Fan speed

The heater

The aircon and

The various vents

The end goal being to maintain the temperature the driver has set and also to try and make the settings comfortable. When its blowing heat it will usually direct this to your feet. When its cold it will use the face vents etc. In effect climate air is a set and forget system doing away with the need to fiddle with the knobs all the time, it does all that for you automatically so as your car cools down it reduces the aircon. If it gets cold it brings the heater into play and if it gets really hot again it will cut the heat and reintroduce the aircon. Lazy eh!!!

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