The Final Product (almost!)

The Car

Sitting in upright position in the car, determining where the seat is going to be mounted, where the fuel cell will be placed and the motor... The height from the ground (ground clearance) is about 200mm.

Placing the top part of the skin on top of the bottom. The driver (one of our supervisours) is inside.

Making sure that the top and bottom pieces are well fitted together, but more ribs are required inside the car to keep the width of the car as it should be, because the skins are very flexible. Once everthing is fitted inside the body the body will automatically be stiffened.

Skins are fitted together and driver gives the "Okay".

Rear Wheel

The brake calliper bracket is welded to the fork that is holding the wheel. This brake calliper is aligned and then bolted to the brake calliper bracket.

                                   

Two flat bar pieces are welded to the rear rib on the one end and bolted to the steering assembly on the other end.

The shaft (steerer tube) supported with two ball bearings to assest with the steering. This assembly is kept together by the bolt on top which is fastened with a nut which is welded inside the pipe.

Removal of material at the bottom of the car for the movement of the wheel.

Front Wheels

The front shaft is a pipe that is welded to the front rib. The front rib is fastened to the skin using glass bubble. To make this bond stronger a strip of glass fibre was put over the bracket.

At the end of the front shaft there are axles slotted into the pipe.

The wheels are slotted on the axles and then tighten by the a bolt. The wheel hubs have two bearings inside which fit on the axle.

The brake calliper brackets are aligned and welded onto the shaft, then the calliper is bolted to that bracket. The brake disc is already mounted to the hub of the wheel.

Mould

We made the datum line and made a lip from sheet metal, this is done to enable one to split the two moulds apart. After sanding down the plug and filling in the space between the sheet metal and the plug, we applied several layers of wax on the body to get it as smooth as possible. Then blue gelcoat was applied on to the body.

Now applying 4 layers of glass fibre on top of the blue gelcoat - just after the gelcoat become tacky. The Sheet metal lip was taken out just before applying the glass fibre layers at the bottom side of the plug. Timing with these materials are very important!

The bottom mould is taken off. 

Top mould also has been taken off, but there was pollyfilla attached to the mould and we had to take it off before cleaning the mould. The white pieces seen in the picture is the pollyfilla which had stuck to the mould.

The two moulds on top of each other. Someone is inside...

 

What we have learnt:

- After shaping the body out of the high density foam - JUST APPLY PVA PAINT!

- Sand it down after several layers of PVA, if there is still bumps or holes, paint it again and sand afterwards until extremely smooth.

PVA paint

We are joined by the Dutch students while drying the PVA paint using a heat gun blower and hair dryers.

Also having our supervisor from electrical and mechanical engineering getting thier hands dirty with sanding.

Group Members

Mechanical Engineering

• Mr. T. van der Schyff (Supervisor)
• Ms V. Cain (Supervisor)
• Mr. P. Humphreys (Supervisor-AMTL)
• C. Nijeboer (Group Leader)
• M. Ruperti
• E. Labuscagne
• S. Lebatlang

Electrical Engineering

• Mr. R. Pentz (Supervisor)
• Mr. B. Groenewald
• L. Schmids (Group Leader)
• W. Volschenk
• D. Tolken

Industrial Engineeing

• G. Coetzee