Progress in many directions

Last night I measured up the required driveshafts, checked by making a plastic one (good thing I did as the clearance I was using wasn't enough) and this morning took the measurements to F40 Motorsport. Unfortunately, the shafts are very hard, apparently over 60 on the Rockwell Scale. A new spline can't be cut without first annealing them and then hardening again after the cutting. This process takes 3 days minimum. The hardening house hasn't made any promises but might have it ready on Friday.

Phil & Ed came over and found a MUCH better method of holding the cells down. I was planning to use aluminium T between the cells, but this is dangerous since you have a conductor very close to the terminals. The solution we came up with was to put a LARGE nylon rod along the top of the cells and drop bolts through the cell ribs down into the floor of the box. Note the photo shows the nylon between cells when it should be in the middle of the cell, providing some level of idiot proofing as a bonus. Having a block of plastic between the two terminals means it's much harder to short them. We marked the drill locations by sticking a rod covered in paint down the cell ribs and painting the box floor. Phil drilled the holes and everything appears to line up.

I pulled all the bearings out of the two gearbox casings I have in preparation for installing the reconditioned gearset from the blue gearbox with the mangled casing in the replacement casing with worn out bearings I got from pick-a-part. Pulling one bearing in particular was very fiddly, requiring that I cut up my puller to avoid an interference with the gearbox wall. Cleaning the casing ready for assembly took much longer than expected, I think it's time to replace my degreasing fluid. The adapter plate machining filled some deep recesses with swarf, luckily I prepared some compressed air earlier, as the neighbours wouldn't like my noisy direct drive compressor running late at night.

Ed installed the EVision shunt in a box, doing a much better job than I did on the brains (no I won't show you a photo). Once we have the battery cabling and shunt location sorted, we'll drill the holes for the main power cables. The shunt will get warm in a box, hopefully it won't get too hot.

I started assembling the input shaft which I took apart so many months ago. I thought I could leave out the baulk rings for reduced drag. Unfortunately the selector detent mechanism relies on the baulk rings. I only worked this out after much fiddling and wondering why the detent pins always popped out when selecting a gear. I now have to press the selector mechanism off the shaft and install the missing baulk ring.