Building an R1 Powered Seven: Driveshaft Adaptor

Building an R1 Powered Seven

A few years ago I got it in my head to build a kit car. After months of searching I came across the Locost concept. In short, quite a few amateur hobbiests around the world have built their own Lotus 7 inspired cars from scratch, following plans available on a variety of Internet sites and published in a book by Ron Champion.

I started gathering parts and finally began building the chassis in July '05. In August '10 the car was titled, licensed and is now street legal. The following blog captures the progress of the build and driving experiences after completion.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Driveshaft Adaptor

Installing the drive shaft adaptor was a little more involved than I was expecting (a common occurrence as I progress though the build)

In order to get the proper engagement of the splines, I needed to machine about 0.080" off of the spacer that the bike sprocket bolts up to.

Instructions from Hawk http://www.hawkmachine.com/Parts.htm#20 :

Removing the spacer took some persistance, and help from a nice set of gear pullers borrowed from work. Here's a picture after the spacer was shortened and re-installed. There's 0.580" of spline length exposed, just over the minimum recommended.

The next challenge was installing the adaptor itself. I bought a 36mm socket to fit the sprocket nut, only to find that it didn't fit inside the adaptor....nothing a little, I should say a lot, of grinding couldn't solve...

Adaptor finally installed and ready for driveshaft.