Hi all!
So last week the rest of the parts to build the Rolls arrived and we were able to get the chassis folded up. If you haven’t read last weeks entry you can find it here: http://motorsportformentalhealth.com/2016/03/18/rolls-royce-slot-car-build-part-2/
Today the plan is to get the chassis fully assembled and mounted into the body!
Firstly we’ll get the screw holes drilled in the body’s mounting posts so we can get the chassis sitting under the car. For this I highly recommend using a dremel. The resin is nice and soft so normally I use a very thin tipped file like the one pictured below to drill the holes rather than an actual drill piece. Like the one pictured below
The holes only need to be very narrow as the screws provided can act as ‘self tappers’. Once the tip of the screw can fit into the hole you can use good old brute force and ignorance to get the screws to cut their own channels into the resin.
Voila! Chassis fitted! As expected the front axle wasn’t able to clear under the body so once again I took to my trusty dremel to cut two small groves in the body so the axle can pass through.
With the body prepared it’s time to fit the electrics and gears! This is all pretty self explanatory really. The rear axle has a bearing on either side of the central gear that slots down into the grooves allocated for them and the motor just drops into it’s housing. The guide pokes up through the holes at the front of the chassis and then a screw and washer go down into the top of the guide to hold it to the car. Don’t do that screw up too tight though! It’s important to have a floppy guide! I’ll explain more about that later!
Now all that’s left to do is fit the wheels and see how it looks on the track!
Looks posh! I’m sure all the serious slot car builders are banging their heads against their desks or the nearest wall at this point as to make a car fast you want the car as low as possible, so the centre of gravity is really low and the guide can sit well into the slot for stability and really you don’t want the front wheels to be touching the floor as that causes understeer.
As I mentioned earlier a slot car needs a fairly floppy guide as it is that which does the steering. If the guide is stiff it will want to jump out of the slot. The front tyres also don’t want to be touching the ground as a slot car has two sets of solid axles. If only the rear driving wheels are touching the ground then they are happy to follow the front of the car, in the same way you can drive a real car with a welded diff normally, but if the front tyre are touching the ground as well and they have no mechanism to steer it then the car will simply want to go straight all the time. A chap named Alan once taught me that you want to set a slot car up as if it were a triangle
I might make a car that’s actually designed to go fast with you one day as this series has got a good amount of positive feedback, you guys seem to like it! However, this car will be keeping its front wheels on the ground as I want it to be more of a realistic model and something that will look good plodding around the track rather than a competitive racing car. I will be swapping out the standard guide for a Slot It deep wood guide in the near future though so it has some chance of staying on the track!
The Rolls is an absolute beast of a machine though! It’s huge! Here we have some pics of it next to an E36 BMW, which in really life isn’t really a tiny car. The Rolls dwarves it though! As you can see it is considerably longer too! I’m looking forward to seeing how this thing drives!
That’s all for now. If you would like to see how this shell is painted please check out part 4! https://motorsportformentalhealth.com/2016/03/31/rolls-royce-slot-car-build-part-4-finish/
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