Win some lose some

Posted on 17/01/2013 by Mark

Hot one today so slothful enterprises only.

Received in the mail today a wheel centre for the Bug from Peter from Richards Bros Cardiff, Wales. Peter was worried that the wire wheels I have ordered may not fit so decided to send out a centre for a trial fit and he was half right, the fronts are OK the rears are too tight a fit on my splines. So I could:

Put the new 2.5″ (narrow) wheels on the front and leave to old 4″ (fatties) on the back for the hotrod look.
Send the rear splines to Richards Bros. to get machined to fit the wheels.
Don’t do anything for now and save up for some alloy blade wheels? Bugatti’s do look good with those wheels…….

While on the Bugatti, I took it out on a local club “Cento Miglia” Economy Run and achieved 30MPG which is exactly what Ettore said it would do, very prescient of him. Also I noticed that my VDO Car/Bike speedo seemed to be missing, I immediately thought this was some sort Franco/German problem, however really it appeared to coincide with a grinding- rubbing noise, unfortunately it had fallen into a gap between the seat and the alternator pulley guard, photo attached.

The Sizaire now has modern seals in the rear hubs after I discovered the RH housing was a recent fabrication so it did not seem so bad machining the centre out to put seals in. I have also welded a replacement bracket on the RHS brakes, hopefully a better weld than the Blu-tack previously applied. The bracket is not absolutely necessary for retardation ….. in a forward direction anyway.

Lastly sorry about all the arrows and captions in the photos as I’ve just discovered the “Skitch” app on my iphone.

Read the Directions

Posted on 03/12/2012 by Mark

When I get a new (to me) car I tend obsess a little too much and read everything I can about it and ask questions of the gurus to find common ground between the two. Case in point, tapered pins, Ettore must have loved them for not only are they in the clutch linkage or should I say should have been in the clutch linkage but there is also three of them between the steering wheel and the steering box. This is where my general engineering ignorance comes in, for I thought that the taper was there to stop the pin from wiggling about and everything was reliant on the shear strength of the pin…..mmmmm evidently not, apparently according to my new bible Grand Prix Bugatti Technicalities: “First as with most Bugatti taper pins, the drive is not taken by the taper pin itself but by the friction the taper pin creates by expanding the shaft into the coupling bore”.

So with that in mind I had a look at the steering wheel pin, it was the wrong way around (I’ll take credit for that) also Bob King mentioned that the threaded end can shear or the nut unscrew and then the pin will drop out with interesting consequences so I’ve slotted the big end of the taper and wired it on. While I was at it I did all three so hopefully the front wheels will continue to obey the steering wheel.

Last weekend I went on the Bugatti Club Pur Sang Rally also attending were the Ferrari (Carby Section) Club we had a ball in the old cars …not sure how much fun the Ferrari guys had trying to keep to the Victorian speed limits.

Wired Pin Steering coupling

Wire twisting tool worked once before it needed rebuilding

: Following John Fitz (our French Correspondent) in the aero engined Sunbeam

Pur Sang Rally

: Always wanted one of these

Items of Beauty

Posted on 09/11/2012 by Mark

I’m back from the French Car Rally and all went well with only a below spec angle bracket breaking and as luck would have it help was only a couple of hundred metres from our motel in the form of fellow rally participant Brian Jeffery a very good man with a MIG welder. Brian and his wife Jerilyn had only just moved from Queensland six weeks before so the timing was perfect.

Andrew McDougall has been busy with his Sizaire resto so here are a couple of pictures of the lovely things that he has made so far.