Project Mantis

PHASE 1

The chassis. If it looks a lot like a kitchen cuttinng board, that's because it is. All those crudely drawn lines on the front are to mark where the suspension should go. I probably should use a protractor or at least a right angle tool but I didn't bother. I'm still hoping the car will run straight though. :)

The battery tray. That blue piece of plastic was originally a plastic box for 5 1/4" diskettes and went on to spend most of the 80s on the underside of the Grasshopper after I lost the original battery under tray. Now it's been trimmed down and promoted, and will serve the remainder of its useful live as a battery strap.

The right side of the gearbox. The silly little hatch for adding oil has been removed and permanently covered up (super glue + talcum powder). Part of the gearbox has been grinded away to allow the motor to move closer to the big gear (spur gear?) to fit the smallest possible pinion (13T). Unfortunately, this means there's a hole that exposes the gears. I shall have to fill up all the gaps with silicon sealant later.

It was a real pain trying to get the new motor screw holes in the exact locations to mesh the gears properly, so I made a new aluminium motor plate with a clear plastic window to look in at the little gears. The 13-tooth pinion brings the gear ratio up to 11.3 to 1.

Finally got the rear suspension installed. Found some old Supershot rear shocks in the same pile of junk as the Grasshopper parts so I installed that. Didn't bother re-oiling them because they leak quite badly. I cut two pieces of leftover kitchen cutting board to make the 'legs' of the car but in the end, I got the geometry wrong and the right shock couldn't quite reach over the motor to reach the tower. I got lazy and instead of cutting and grinding a new set of shock mounts, I just mixed some epoxy putty to extend the mounts a bit. Sloppy work, I know, but I just want to get the car up and running as soon as I can and then worry about beefing it up later.

The front suspension arms had the pivot points cut off and holes drilled in them so that I can screw them to my new suspension arm brace (also made out of epoxy putty). This epoxy seems to be quite fragile and brittle. It crumbles easily into a fine powder when I drill or dremel it. I doubt it'll last more than a few runs. When it breaks, I'll try making replacement parts out of steel-filled epoxy next.

Phase 1 is complete! I took some short cuts but the car runs now. The steering bellcrank is sawn off from a Porsche 959 chassis. It flexes a little, so steering is still quite sloppy. I will strengthen it later (more glue and more screws). The receiver is servo-taped to one of the 'legs' because I ran out of space on the main chassis. The shock tower makes the car to one side a little, so I will need to make a new one if I decide to keep the current front shocks. One thing I didn't compromise on was the suspension arm brace though. I decided the epoxy putty one was too weak, so I used it as a template to carve a new one out of another piece of kitchen cutting board.

The rear Frog shocks have been brought to the front. They're not performing as well as I'd hoped, so I might try to find new springs for them or change them altogether.

PHASE 2 (Coming soon)...