12-07-2024, 12:27 PM
(12-07-2024, 12:09 PM)austin Wrote: The 750R is still there but has faded a bit due to the heat being applied to anneal the aluminium.
It looked like this to start with:
HH TT 2 by henryharris, on Flickr
The "folded over" bit took a lot of time to work out, various bucks, hydraulic tools and a lot of looking and tea drinking were involved. Have to say pretty happy with the result. It's not perfectly smooth but I never really wanted that anyway.
I was wondering about the ability of welding to extend the steering tube but felt nervous about it for obvious reasons. The other Ulster has a standard one with a Blumels and you soon learn to not let your fingers get to 12 o'clock!
Glad about the 750R. For total completeness I have a video of the tow car with the 750R registration plate.
To extend the inner column I avoid a plain butt joint but used two inner columns and cut a matching pair of "forks" into the upper and lower parts. This increased the weld area, put the turning load onto a "metal to metal" join rather than just a butt weld and gave me some reassurance that a weld fail might not result in the loss of all control.
Since I'd sacrificed two columns I made an identical test joint on the unwanted sections and Tig welded the parts together. I then tried a destructive test, which was unsuccessful, giving me more reassurance.
The outer column, being thinner, had an external sleeve. I used longer control tubes which David Cochrane could supply.