Sams Shed

Recently I brought myself a BOSS MIG-186 some disposable Ar75%/CO25% for mild steel and Strait Ar Gas for Stainless. I've welded up a small movable welding bench with some 10mm plate for the table top. I wanted to make some more bench space so I've designed and fabricated a bench to go along the side-wall of the shed to marry up with the existing stainless bench and incorporate a sink. Eventually the plan is to put some cupboard doors on this to keep things looking a bit neater under the bench. It's made of 40mm Square tube with a 2mm wall thickness and utilising two struts(orange) from some pallet racking for the under bench support, allowing for a 2600mm span. The steel was $160 the pallet racking pieces and sink where free.

I spent some time in Solid Works designing a sheath to go over the existing Spindles as they are tapered and only have a maximum diameter of 20.5mm and the RX7 FD brakes require 33mm. Standard 323 Spindle: Solid Works Drawings for Spindle sheath Next will be to design some brackets to go mount the new brake calipers to the existing location. The backspace between the strut and the new disc brakes should only be around 6mm more than std due to the thickness of the disc centre where it fits over the new Hub.

After getting the std brakes off the car it is obvious that the std spindle is going to be way to small being 17.4mm at the front and 25mm at the rear with two flat sections and a taper in between. The std FD HUB is a uniform 32.5mm so a sleeve will need to be made up to fit over the 323 spindle. To this end I've been working in Solid Works to CAD up a design for the sleeve. I will use an M33 3mm thread on the end to secure it and will be TIG welded to the standard Spindle.

Recently I have purchased the rotors and calipers from a Series 6 RX7 FD, these will make a substantial improvement over the factory disc and Drum setup and will change the stud pattern to: Series 6> RX-7 PCD = 5x114.3 PCD Offset = +50 I've purchased the Front Hubs also and some machining of the Hub or spindle maybe required for fitment.

It's cold in the shed being winter and progress on all things Mazda progress very slowly. I managed to convert the Fridge pump I had sitting around into a vacuum pump. I plan to use it for Vacuum bagging fibreglass and carbon fibre, the only problem I foresee is that although it can pull a reasonable vacuum the rate it can evacuate is slow. Maybe a way to boost its performance would be to have chamber that is pre-evacuated attached to it so that a majority of the initial evacuation is done by the vacuum chamber. Apart from that I've been adding to my tooling getting more Vice-Grips & welding orientated equipment and am currently looking for a reasonably priced second hand MIG Plasma cutter. I've Also been watching a large number of Youtube clips around Carbon fibre part manufacturing: And priced up a mold making kit: Small mould making kit (Epoxy resin size: 1.2L west, Epoxy hardener speed: slow, Gelcoat additive : 900ml, Gelcoat pigment 15ml: Yes, Chopped str...

For the Mazda I am thinking about getting a later model Hilux Rear Axel including Disc brakes. Then shortening the Axles and tubes and fitting a ARB Airlocking Diff Centre. http://www.aussiediffs.com.au/product_info.php?products_id=112 ARB Hobart *UPDATE* 1FEB17 A Limited Slip Differential from an ED Falcon came up on Gumtree for a good price with the advantage of the stud patern being 114.3 X 5 which is the same as the RX-7 so will match the front RX7 Hubs. The axle assembly is far too wide at 1550 but this offers plenty of axle to either cut it down and re-spline or purchase 28 spline 9' axles the right length as many options are available.

This blog page is a collection of Idea's of things I would like to try in my shed. These will mainly centred around metal working and automotive things. Wish List: - Working with Carbon Fibre, vacuum forming, using fridge compressor for vacuum forming. - Getting a couple of old ovens removing elements and creating large oven big enough to bake large carbon objects. - Setup Electro plating to be able to plate with Nickel, Copper, Chrome. - Try some anodizing of aluminium. - Attempt to chrome plate plastics. - setup a plastic injection mould using a drill press (get a drill press) - build a gas furnace with refactory cement to smelt aluminium - Learn how to TIG weld. - Get a lathe and mill. The Shed I completed the construction of my shed some months ago but currently have 8 pallets of pathers in there from the drive way that are waiting to be relayed following the construction of the drainage. The shed is 7X7 meters having one single large 5m long roller door for acces...