Twisted: Week 119 - Wheels and brakes

Hours to date: 1211.5

Onto the wheels and brakes now.

There seems to be some discrepancies in the manual - which has confused me a bit.

Also because I am going for the fixed gear then the section 3 - fuselage - part of the manual talks about doing one thing and then section 8 - Fixed gear - talks about another.

Neither of them seem to make perfect sense.

I've followed what Pete does with the brakes - M6, 20mm screws with Nylocks on the outside. Section 3 of the manual talks about M6 10mm screws - but these would not go through the axle flange and brake (which combined are about 11mm) let alone give enough thread for a nut and washer on the outside.

Note that I've needed to very slightly grind away a 'wedge' on the gear leg to allow the brake to sit fully against the gear leg - we are only talking about 1-2mm here - see photo below.

I've also used an M8 bolt to secure the axle and brake to the gear leg. Section 8 talks about using an M6 bolt - but then says to put an M8 nut on the end of it! So that's clearly an error. Also the stated M6 bolt (55mm) was not included in my kit.

Here's where it gets complicated...

So after fitting the brake and wheel (which is partially held on by the brake disc rotor - which must be bolted to the wheel after putting inside the brake pads) I thought I would go ahead and see how the wheel spat is fitted.

After quite a bit of head scratching it seemed to be that the ali bracket which attaches to the gear leg has 1. An M6 hole where my M8 bolt is and 2. An M8 hole where the centre of the axle is. This would indicate that I need to put an M8 bolt through into the axle - but as you will see below the axle does not have thread on the inside.

I see on the French Twister they ended up flipping the bracket up the other way and then drilling another hole through the M6 hole in the bracket - right through the gear leg and securing it that way. Then after that they still went back and made a thread in the axle and fitted another large washer and M8 bolt through that to secure the axle.

I am hoping to be able to not have to do that.

I would like to use the existing bracket - but if it means making up a new one - then so be it.

I've also included a photo of what Pete does at the bottom - this is not in the manual - so is another of his mods. Seems to make sense though - the one M8 bolt does not seem enough to hold the axle onto the gear leg.

To be continued...