Lola T-70 Mk III

Fantastic work once again.

Thanks!

Reworked and assembled rear hub carriers. Brass tubing was added for the hinge points and open holes.
https://i.imgur.com/eXdar0t.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/9Fy0RTi.jpg

I added two more "ears" to the front bulkhead for the front shock and upper control arm mounting points (per photos of real T-70s).
https://i.imgur.com/Ax8mPwW.jpg

Front upper control arms as they come in the kit.
https://i.imgur.com/s3bR6dF.jpg

New fittings and bushings for the front pivot points. Machined aluminum & brass with steel reinforcements.
https://i.imgur.com/4nTsMVC.jpg
Both arms with upgraded front bushings and adjusters.
https://i.imgur.com/onrgw7Z.jpg

And new fittings for the rear pivot points, same construction as the front ones.
https://i.imgur.com/IFOqnge.jpg
Upper control arms dry fitted.
https://i.imgur.com/zvSmaDZ.jpg

I started drawing up the calipers. This is an inboard half. Still more details to be added.
https://i.imgur.com/miTFomy.jpg

More details and the other (outer) side.
The rotors will be machined; I just wanted a blank to make sure it would all fit later.
Now to make the pads...
https://i.imgur.com/v2ofVZj.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/zyHgCMm.jpg

Brake Pads, more designing in SolidWorks…
Ready to send off to Fraxional for growing.
https://i.imgur.com/VAebaHu.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/6Ni50QW.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/9bUkgKA.jpg

The start of the aluminum rims. Some T6-6061 stock and a wooden angle block with 22 and 27 degree angles cut into it. The block was indexed to the tilt-table as a secondary measure to ensure the angles were uniform on all the wheels.
https://i.imgur.com/5dySMsy.jpg
First round of cutting; this will be a rear.
https://i.imgur.com/zhLEUtX.jpg

This is a rear… Still raw and needs to be refined.
https://i.imgur.com/svD7bJD.jpg

Here are two rears and a front on the right.
https://i.imgur.com/p5RJkuz.jpg

All five wheels, two rears and three fronts, (one for the spare).
https://i.imgur.com/SBy771B.jpg

I added the radius/fillets and then polished them up.
https://i.imgur.com/jZkRXXW.jpg
And a dry fitted front…
https://i.imgur.com/6O9oEyY.jpg

I decided a more modern set of calipers would not only look cooler, but also be more appropriate for the car with some of the other upgrades it is getting. I made the Wilwood retrofits for the C3 Corvette calipers I made earlier. They use the same pads.
https://i.imgur.com/FJPYFxl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/lxCNJqb.jpg

Very tasty bits!

I've been working back and forth and back again with 3D designing, old school machining and basic hand building to facilitate better fitting of the soon to be grown parts to help the fit of the end results.
I milled up caliper and rotor "blanks" out of resin to help check tolerances inside the software and to the physical parts I have. I also had to draw up in 3D some of the kit parts I modified for spatial orientation. Here's some screen grabs I took before sent the files off to Fraxional.

https://i.imgur.com/G2QWeDI.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/71q7VUD.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/svERQHY.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/H6vlIvl.jpg

Great stuff. too nice.

Thanks GT40!

These are the tie-rod ends with adjusters for toe. Brass and aluminum loosely assembled.
https://i.imgur.com/XrkXYHj.jpg

I acid treated them instead of using paint.
https://i.imgur.com/aqJPqsP.jpg

Great and informative as always! Your skills are on such a high level witch Really inspires! nice CAD work. We have several printers on work but have not tried them out. What material seems to be best for smooth surfaces? I am suspecting our printers aren’t printing fine enough.

Keep up the awesome work!!

Thanks GvEman.
I am not doing the actual printing, I'm just the designer/artist.
But the parts for this one are done with U.V cure resin. It is much better than the nylon based filament parts I had grown some time ago.

I got some more of my 3D parts from Fraxional over the weekend. All parts are raw as "grown", but I have cleaned off the supports. Here's a few.
Flywheel with pressure plate & clutch. Small 153 tooth flywheel.
https://i.imgur.com/nZoPoGP.jpg
Front side installed in bellhousing.
https://i.imgur.com/jvc2PLL.jpg
New corrected Hewland rear transaxle cover.
https://i.imgur.com/85aFVDE.jpg
Engineered to mount with magnets. (I had the bosses for the magnets grown into the part.)
https://i.imgur.com/XRLMZHw.jpg
Full engine & transaxle dry fitted together.
https://i.imgur.com/R3fuOeI.jpg

Half shaft yokes 3D printed by Fraxional. The shafts are brass; the larger one has already been treated with acid for the color. Just dry fitted together.
https://i.imgur.com/zg5lU7S.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ZKlb8VV.jpg

I took a shot at growing some parts myself. Here's a valve cover. It's hard to capture the details in the clear resin in photos. I plan to cast copies in opaque urethane resin.
https://i.imgur.com/J8fPjeu.jpg

Exceptional stuff - I really need to check back more often to keep up with your updates, your work is absolutely inspiring.

Thanks Ray!!

The alternator parts were grown by Fraxional, but I neglected to send one of the part files so the clear piece is the inner/center section that I grew rather than wait.
https://i.imgur.com/k6IO1V3.jpg

Brake pad masters ready to have a mold made. My 3D files grown by Fraxional.
https://i.imgur.com/UwU8rho.jpg

I grew the masters of the Wilwood calipers I designed but was not able to get the outsides to look their best without sacrificing the details on the insides where the pads mount.
https://i.imgur.com/kgF1kBf.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/lyRhPXi.jpg
I machined and hand finished the insides to accept the pads and to fit together.
https://i.imgur.com/L5E1ydZ.jpg
Fronts on top, rears on the bottom.
https://i.imgur.com/6YO3Ups.jpg

Very nice. Detail work that you do is very cool.

Thank you 360!

This is the inside of the valve cover master. While I designed it with mounting features they filled in when the part was grown. So I milled those features in by hand.
https://i.imgur.com/digG9rT.jpg

I wasn't satisfied with the last wheel I grew so I redesigned a few parts of it and made a new one. The front came out fine; it was the back side I didn't like.
It like the previous one required a good bit of post-machine work (it was designed to have that work done) and I think it is an improvement.
https://i.imgur.com/nJj7msh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/eQXLHfE.jpg

The valve cover pattern is done and ready to have a mold made from it.
https://i.imgur.com/QE6sjoE.jpg
Same for the calipers.
https://i.imgur.com/36kuIFf.jpg

Nice you are building a nice kit here!

Thanks! Discarding a lot the "kit" aspect though...

Once in primer I still was not satisfied so I re-engineered the wheel to be three pieces instead of two.
This is the new spoke piece as it was grown.
https://i.imgur.com/TgUdFDP.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/4k6x27n.jpg
And then machined.
https://i.imgur.com/5jdh7M0.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/LjMQOV0.jpg

This is the rear section of the new rim design; it still needs to be final machined.
https://i.imgur.com/0PZu4Ux.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/vrcGxSQ.jpg

The U.V. resin is very hard and brittle. That part did not survive the machining process.
I started growing a beefier part and realized I could probably machine one from scratch faster.
I was correct, made this from scratch and the printer is still running.
https://i.imgur.com/ZW6HGVq.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/FnGUcz7.jpg

I grew a new alternator fan but the inside filled in, a common issue with this printer.
https://i.imgur.com/BQYokSE.jpg
So I machined it out.
https://i.imgur.com/AfsRMjh.jpg

I had a bit of a setback when it turned out that the platinum based RTV I use primarily would not cure against the U.V. cured 3D resin from the printer. Even after using the sealing materials that worked as barriers in the past, the molds were not curing and worse than the time loss was it making gooey messes on my patterns. That took many hours over several days to clean up.
I invested in some tin based RTV and that seems to be the right stuff for this resin.
Here are the calipers and one pair of pads I'll use on the car.
https://i.imgur.com/2cqXrO5.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/GNEFGgz.jpg

These are the resin versions of the valve covers.
https://i.imgur.com/utTmP3a.jpg
With an internal mounting system to hold and align the magnets to the ones in the heads.
https://i.imgur.com/faAm8Jj.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Uw4QgqS.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/7u8vI1a.jpg

I redesigned the rear wheel to be three pieces like the fronts and restyled the back of the spokes to match too. This is the raw 3D grown/printed master before machining.
https://i.imgur.com/SAsBM3a.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/jHOWlIo.jpg

And after…
https://i.imgur.com/RNt6jy1.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/oNxNw3P.jpg
(The black marks are index points for making the mold.)

I machined a tool to make controlling the parting line in the wheel molds easier.
https://i.imgur.com/yUChlko.jpg
It locks into the back of the wheel center like the rear piece of the rims.
https://i.imgur.com/T3SdeH5.jpg
Clay is used to seal one side.
https://i.imgur.com/3TjV7ll.jpg

Then I cast the side that contains the face of the wheel in RTV so that the seams are all on the inside of the wheel and quite minimal at that.
https://i.imgur.com/15seBp2.jpg

The half-shafts are done for now. The yokes are cast resin (dyed black) copies of 3D parts.
https://i.imgur.com/qJf4San.jpg
The shafts are brass acid treated for the dark finish.
https://i.imgur.com/n6N1bMk.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/q4Q7t2E.jpg
Each U-joint has four bearings/caps (with E clips) and they work. The half-shafts telescope too.
https://i.imgur.com/Xtf7gd4.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/QZhX84g.jpg

I was going to have to adjust the rotor hubs (or make shims) so I decided to mill a new one out of resin stock instead of editing the 3D file and growing a replacement. This was quicker too.
https://i.imgur.com/R1oEewM.jpg

I designed and then grew the rotors several times over the course of a few months. The detail I want is just not something my printer can do on both sides. (One side is great.) I redesigned them adding more material so I could post-machine after growing them, but the material is too brittle when cured, and too soft and pliable before fully curing. I was able to make them look really good after machining, but every one of them had micro fractures (or worse) that would show up under paint.
The good side of them:
https://i.imgur.com/Jj0AH2h.jpg
The rough side of them before machining:
https://i.imgur.com/PjpGC3w.jpg

So after way too much time and effort without acceptable results, I went back to my original plan to make the rotors before I got the 3D printer… Good old machining.
https://i.imgur.com/CBjZm6O.jpg
First I milled in the rectangular vent holes around the perimeter.
https://i.imgur.com/S383P6f.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Xx0AjpE.jpg
Then I cross-drilled 60 holes in each side.
https://i.imgur.com/btFg8k9.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/6179tCV.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ROa0V3s.jpg

this is crazy man. awesome work!!

Thank you kans0002!

As satisfied I was at the time, the more I looked the more I thought I could do better… So more time on the mill and now I think I have what I want. These cross-drilled holes scale out to ¼ inch in diameter.
https://i.imgur.com/1MzKiK7.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Hy2oT97.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/9tRE2wZ.jpg

amazing work!

Outstanding job on the rotors!

Thanks 360 & nugundam! I couldn't leave well enough alone...

I decided to go with my earlier rotor configuration; slotted and cross-drilled.
Raw rotor blanks cut from high-pressure cast blank aluminum composite material.
https://i.imgur.com/n5CMGti.jpg
I milled the vents around the perimeter and faced them.
https://i.imgur.com/y29SZwD.jpg
I cross-drilled and slotted them. They are directional.
https://i.imgur.com/yCed3lb.jpg
This is the natural cut finish of the material.
https://i.imgur.com/ZoWOmEd.jpg

Very cool.

I got the Wilwood calipers painted, going for a ceramic finish look. They are Corvette retrofit units I designed in SolidWorks and 3D printed before hand-finishing the masters then casting resin copies.
I used the new Tamiya LP-6 Pure Blue for the color.
https://i.imgur.com/2QEz2eq.jpg

The new 3D printed caliper brackets I designed and grew to mount the calipers have been attached to the front spindles.
https://i.imgur.com/19ZSp3W.jpg

I carefully saved the rear caliper mounts on the hub carriers when I cut off the molded on calipers from the kit. But those had to go too because the larger Wilwood calipers couldn't be mounted to them. Again, these are 3D parts I rendered in SolidWorks and printed.
https://i.imgur.com/wVkSRdI.jpg

Composite brake pads. They have been seated and used just a little bit…
https://i.imgur.com/vlI9pq6.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/5lSgsZh.jpg

The pads are installed and the calipers have been dry set up on their respective bracketry.
The rotors, hubs, calipers and pads are all scratch-built. The slide pins are polished steel, but still more hardware to machine for the calipers.
Rears:
https://i.imgur.com/HcnbI84.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/J42I5Qi.jpg
Fronts:
https://i.imgur.com/3MktgmO.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/nk81Esi.jpg

This is pretty nuts, the detail you can do in big scale! Looks great Mark.

Thank you Alex!

I had to make the coil over shocks next to continue mocking up the suspension.
Shock bodies…
 
https://i.imgur.com/IWlVqgQ.jpg