After a couple of days wrestling a 1275cc A series engine out of the mini (output a whole 80 odd bhp) today I managed to get a bit of work done on the Sabre.
firstly Chris and I dropped the chassis on the scales…. it came it at 89.7Kg which is indeed a bit lardy…. I hope Andy’s new bodywork is amazingly light or I could still be way above the weight limit. The engine weighs 63Kg.
After that I thought I’d start on the steering. The Sabre has nicely machined mounts for a standard Escort rack, which is fitted with either a 2.2 or 2.4 fast rack. The only modification Andy makes is to machine the standard square mount down to a cylindrical cross section. So the rack mounted very easily with just four bolts.
Then it was onto the column itself. This is 16 gauge CDS steel tube 22mm OD. I don’t believe in reinventing the wheel and Tim has previously used some nice lightweight, self lubricating, engineered plastic bearings for his mounts in the J15. These seem to work well, so I blagged a couple off him and a length of CDS that he had floating around his garage, and mocked up the steering column.
- Sabre Steering Column
The column is the only bit of steel that isn’t slightly rusty. Like Tim I had to make up some little aluminium collars to mount the tube in the bearings… but that’s what lathes are for. And Chris and I had a some good fun doing it. Infact the slightly better fitting one his his work not mine
Andy’s factory complete chassis use a nice Aluminium tube and nylon bearing to act as the front mount for the column, and also support the AB Performance paddle shift. But as cant use a paddle shift due to RSI in my wrists… I don’t need it and I’ll need to engineer a lever to change gear too.
While mocking up the column I did have one concern. Andy has worked hard to keep the steering column on a straight run from the rack input shaft. Unfortuately this also means that when the rack arrives first to the scene of a frontal accident it also directs some of the force up the column towards me. In other cars you either correct this with an offset column and 2 UJs or a collasible link in the column. I need to cogitate on this a bit, as there’s not really enough space for an offset column, and I don’t want a nastly collapsible link in the top. One alternative is to fit a circular safety collar on the top of the shaft… but this sort of defeats the purpose of using nice light bearings. Or I might just ignore it.
I also need to replace that chunky CV joint.
