BUILDING THE BEAST.

This is the part where the modifications are made and the assembly begins to create the basis of a car from what is, at present, a selection of spare parts. Up to now all the work has rebuilt what was already there or remove what was no longer required. Now the building really begins.

When the beast is built it will be just that, a beast. Not a car, just a rolling chassis capable of becoming something more than engine, gearbox, shafts, wheels and a bonny skeleton. Skin, style and charisma will still be required to produce a car.

Only one problem: We have a power train but nothing to hold it in a chassis, well besides the fact we still don't actually have a chassis.

As this was a front wheel drive transversely mounted engine it relied on, what would now be the front of the engine, having a mount that attached to the side chassis of the 900. The gearbox and drive shafts mounted the rest of the engine to the sub frame. So the manufacture of engine mounts and suitable locations were required. The location on the left side of the engine was obvious, exactly where the original mount was but protruding sideways not forward, as was now the case.

On the right side of the engine, just behind the dip stick, a pattern of unused holes usefully presented themselves. The original drive shaft mounting bracket and bearing behind the generator was quickly sawn way allowing the generator to bolt back on with plenty of room for new metalwork. A line of three M8 bolts at the top of a 130mm long 10mm thick mild steel angle were drilled to match those in the engine block. With a further M8 slot on the lower flange, of the 80mm wide angle, to match an M8 tapped hole, lower down near the sump on the engine casting, gave a wonderful leaver point for the mount.

The mild steel angle plate was then drilled in an L shape pattern to allow a 200mm long, 100mm wide, 10mm thick mild steel plate to be an outrigger. With a little milling, to round off the protruding weapon into something safer, and a further 10mm whole drilled, a standard 75mm rubber engine mount was attached.

Right Hand Side Engine Mount

On the Left side of the engine the original 3 point M10 mountings were used and a plate, with a curve cut in to to avoid the oil filter and cooler pipes, was manufactured (indicated in blue). This plate was then drilled with a 3 point M10 L patten so that the same angle bracket and outrigger could be used as for the right mount.

Left Hand Side Engine Mount.

Now we have a further head ache to consider. The generator was back in place but the power steering pump was redundant and so was the air con pump. Seems daft to have an A/C in an open top car, unless it's powerful enough to stop global warming. Mind you I have the same view on Patio Heaters, sorry if the planted gets cold at night there is very little a gas bottle and flame thrower can do about it. As for power steering in a super light weight sports car, I mean really....... no lets not. This does leave us with an ancillary belt drive issue. Namely that we don't have one! Any way you figure it the water pump ends up being driven the wrong way around. Solution: Strip the power steering pump down, remove the pressure valve, seal up the intake and pressure pipes, but leave room for expansion. Fill said pump cavity with power steering fluid to lube the bearings. And refit it to the car. By a smaller belt and bingo, now we have a water pump and generator running happily. Idler pulleys were considered as an alternative to the old pump. But trying to find the correct size and mounting, so that a standard belt could be used became tricky, not impossible, just tricky.

Ancillary Drive Belt Path

That should be the final assembly features completed. Now the whole drive power plant is going to be lowered onto a palette, hoisted into a trailer and take on north on holiday to meet Alan who is going to build a chassis around it. In this way we hope to get the entire power plant as far back into the car as possible, helping the handling characteristics.

Talking of which we now have good weight figures and power figures so we can start some comparisons. The best figures at this stage are power to weight ratios so

*The Otage T04 has the TD04 turbo and up rated gearbox.

**The Otage T30 has the T30R turbo, up rated gearbox, clutch, fuel pump, injectors, inter-cooler and manifold

The above table has been revised to include the German Taxi and British rep mobile BWM, due to some complaints from the Bavarian Motor Works owners. Don't ask me what has got their knickers in a twist, but as this project is not doing this for tribal reasons I'm happy to be inclusive. We shall see how these figures translate once the beast becomes a car and hits the road.

We now also have a rough image of the skin of the beast, this will not be the final car as there are various extra radiators to fit and the engine height may yet not require the “go faster” bump in the hood or may require many more!

Right, while Alan works his magic with bits of bent metal, I'll go back to the heavy wiring under the bonnet for things like, high / low beam, starter, main fuses, generator and the like. More electricians work that electronics, so this is where the major smoke could leak out of.

Click Here to jump to the wiring section of the build.

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