Reasons not to be cheerful...

part one! Following on from the stress-free design of the front hub unit yesterday, I cracked on with the design of the upright that's going to glue all those miscellaneous parts to the rest of the virtual car. So, combining the basic dimensions I'd clubbed together from SusProg for my default upright, I set to work. The first, and most obvious problem was that I'd need to shift the lower mounting inboard by around 50mm so that it wouldn't foul on the brak disc. Susprog works on individual points and doesn't allow for such piffling considerations as the diameter of the rod ends that will actually be in use. Not a big issue, but I'll have to revisit the location of the upper mounting as well to keep the zero offset kingpin inclination I want. Still, it's only software and time rather than swearing in the garage 'cause you've mucked up another set of calculations.

So, next job was to make a mounting for the hub unit - nice and easy and there's a nice big hole in the middle for weight saving purposes. After giving it a nominal 25mm thickness, I did a quick and dirty check with CosmosWorks (the inbuilt FEA) package which reckoned on a safety margin of 8 with a 250kg load on the mounting bolts. I then added extensions for the lower mounting and the steering arm which gives the object shown above.

Final task of the day was to start building up a complete upright design so that I can be sure that I'm not doing anything silly with clearances. Yep, you've guessed it - I've manage to clash the steering arm with the brake calliper itself, and not by a small amount either:

So I have two choices:

1. Move the steering arm or calliper to the front to remove the clash - nice and easy, although I did flirt briefly with the idea of installing the calliper at the bottom of the wheel for c of g lowering purposes until I realise that I'd then be clashing with the lower mounting eye instead
2. Move the steering arm further inboard to avoid the clash - again easy to do in virtual space but a right bugger for anyone who actually wants to make the thing

I think 1 makes more sense and I'm more inclined to move the calliper than the steering arm because I want to leave the far front of the car free for a crushable structure and the radiator (if I can't get enough cooling using side ducts) rather than filling the space up with a steering rack.

Oh well, back to the coal face...