Well. What a crazy couple of days....
Monday 24th consisted of putting the steering back together ready for towing to a friends the following night.
A bit of a wild ride with me sat in the drivers seat when dad towed at what seemed like 10000mph on country roads in the pitch black, it must have been -100 (no exaggeration) (honest). id say the car was more of a sled bouncing around the road with the quick rack not helping matters. never the less, this is part of the fun.
The paddle shift and quick release modification to the Sierra steering column had us scratching our heads for a while... not sure on the best route forward we looked back to fords basic assembly and realised whoever manufactured the paddle shift assembly perfectly copied the ford design to use all the internal bushes washers and bearings, this realisation took more cups of tea and time than it should have!
pushing on we drilled the quick release assembly to pin into the column to keep alignment when welding
filled with confidence on how this was going we pressed on assembling and with the help of an air hacksaw to get rid of the no longer needed threaded section of the column we TIG welded the front face of the quick release adaptor then plug welded the pin into both the adaptor and the column
End result couldn't have been better, paddles in the perfect position and a wheel that comes off, although, the engineering gods were on our side as after a long night at work and a wild ride to a friends we had overlooked steering wheel alignment, just happens its perfectly straight, not sure how that happened but it is. so happy days! (no one likes a steering wheel thats not straight) make sure you line yours up properly as this was a fluke this time!
oh not to add a new addition for the car :D we love caterham seats!
keep posted!
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