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How (not) to make your Dauphine Handle

After 3 months of disruption and chaos finding new homes for all my trash , I've finally got it done. The year is turning fast and I need to decide what I can achieve before winter sets in. The plan would be to get the new engine (remember that) in and operational. Now an unforeseen issue post accident was that I had 2 wobbly rear wheels, I can't be sure it was the accident, but the car drove better before it. I swapped out the rear halfshafts and cured the NSR but not the OSR completely. I think the rear wheelbearing has too much play in it, so the plan is to do the big rear wheelbearing mod to the rear axles, if that sorts it then I want to MOT it. Then pull the motor and Refit the proper engine. In the last week I have had 1 gearbox arrive for overhaul and I have been making a resilient coupling for my mate's engine dyno . This has proved to be a bigger job than anticipated, but is all away for test, so I'll know soon enough. My research into why Engine dynos can eat driveshafts has proved to me that I need to lose my solid centreplate clutch, as keeping it will ultimately break something in the driveline . Think of the engine as an impact gun with attitude and you'll understand why the springs in the clutch centreplate will ultimately save your Gears, shafts and U/J's. Another little task to add to the list then.
The swing axle wheelbearing design is a hangover from the Second World War.

IMG_20230811_190024312_MFNR.webp

That's it. That's what's holding the back wheel on ..

IMG_20230811_190045682_MFNR.webp

The plan is to use a modern double row bearing, but it will need a new housing. They are available, but £500.00 and I'm not keen on the lack of metal on the bearing seat on the conversion set , so I decided to use good old 6082 Ally and make it as big as space will allow..

IMG_20230811_193022065_MFNR.webp

Need to break out the proper measuring tools.

Then the usual Biblical mess when making things......

IMG_20230811_190217641_MFNR.webp

It does my head in...

It's a tricky little piece with 2 light interference fits on the bearing outer and axle spout plus a 0.5mm standoff on the housing depth.

IMG_20230811_195108847_MFNR.webp

So the bearing is a vice fit in the housing and sits 20 thou proud of the surrounding Alloy.

IMG_20230811_195112662_MFNR.webp

You can see the Shiny mark where the spout fits into the housing and bottoms out on the bearing outer track this is what holds both parts concentric to each other.

IMG_20230811_190108907_MFNR.webp

The gap is for the caliper mounting plate and it's 4 securing bolts, but you can see the housing engaged on the spout.

IMG_20230811_190102098_MFNR.webp

There it is Same o/d as the original, but much thicker on the bearing seat .
Now the more observant will have realised that if you make the bearing 6.5mm wider (which I have) then you need to loose 6.5mm somewhere, this means cutting down the hub spout by 6.5mm.
It's Hardened, so it will have to be ground to finish. Deep Joy..................
 
That's a neat mod, I've replaced rear bearings with new before and ended up with more play, then checked new generic bearings against old stock gen and the proper Renault bearings have eight balls against six in the new ones l bought.
Great work, bet that sharpens up arse end.
 
Think there are 3 variants in total, 6 ball, 7 ball and 8 ball. R8 have the 7 ball from factory, but the design has play whether you like it or not. Aftermarket bits are not good in my experience, so have decided to bite the bullet, still plenty time to cock it up though..................
 
As I get older I find I can appreciate the things my teachers tried to teach me in Primary, which I could not then understand. Robert Burns is a case in point. If you live in Scotland you get this in school whether you want it or not.. A load of Gibberish poetry in a near foreign language !!! when you're 10.
However, yesterday I was reminded of his true genius at being able to sum up in one line, things that people write entire books about. One of my favourite lines is `Oor toils obscure and a that' Every Guy on this forum is a founder member of the Obscure toils Association..
The line I fell foul of yesterday was `The best laid schemes of Mice and Men, gang aft aglee' Loosely translated into my carefully prepared plan to finish off the hub turned to shit....
My own stupid fault I suppose. I had placed the entire shaft, bearing, hub and disc, between centres in the lathe to check it was all running true, which it was, at about 2 thou in both planes. After stripping the assembly and cutting down the hub and re-assembling, I put it back between centres and it ran about as straight as a Dog's hind leg...
Only option was to find another hub spout, mount it on the halfshaft and spin it up to see if it was better, which it was then machine all the witness surfaces (wheel face, disc face and o/d ) whilst between centres on the halfshaft, easy to say not quite so easy to do, by the time I had done all that it as 10 o'clock and time to pack it in.

IMG_20230813_095406687_MFNR.webp

This was the state of the bench last night after emptying the toybox to make up some cutter setups to machine all the faces!!
Todays Job clear up the mess and build it up, then see if it's true. If you hear a loud noise later on you'll know it wasn't....
 
After 3 months of disruption and chaos finding new homes for all my trash , I've finally got it done. The year is turning fast and I need to decide what I can achieve before winter sets in. The plan would be to get the new engine (remember that) in and operational. Now an unforeseen issue post accident was that I had 2 wobbly rear wheels, I can't be sure it was the accident, but the car drove better before it. I swapped out the rear halfshafts and cured the NSR but not the OSR completely. I think the rear wheelbearing has too much play in it, so the plan is to do the big rear wheelbearing mod to the rear axles, if that sorts it then I want to MOT it. Then pull the motor and Refit the proper engine. In the last week I have had 1 gearbox arrive for overhaul and I have been making a resilient coupling for my mate's engine dyno . This has proved to be a bigger job than anticipated, but is all away for test, so I'll know soon enough. My research into why Engine dynos can eat driveshafts has proved to me that I need to lose my solid centreplate clutch, as keeping it will ultimately break something in the driveline . Think of the engine as an impact gun with attitude and you'll understand why the springs in the clutch centreplate will ultimately save your Gears, shafts and U/J's. Another little task to add to the list then.
The swing axle wheelbearing design is a hangover from the Second World War.

View attachment 213923

That's it. That's what's holding the back wheel on ..

View attachment 213924

The plan is to use a modern double row bearing, but it will need a new housing. They are available, but £500.00 and I'm not keen on the lack of metal on the bearing seat on the conversion set , so I decided to use good old 6082 Ally and make it as big as space will allow..

View attachment 213925

Need to break out the proper measuring tools.

Then the usual Biblical mess when making things......

View attachment 213931

It does my head in...

It's a tricky little piece with 2 light interference fits on the bearing outer and axle spout plus a 0.5mm standoff on the housing depth.

View attachment 213932

So the bearing is a vice fit in the housing and sits 20 thou proud of the surrounding Alloy.

View attachment 213933

You can see the Shiny mark where the spout fits into the housing and bottoms out on the bearing outer track this is what holds both parts concentric to each other.

View attachment 213934

The gap is for the caliper mounting plate and it's 4 securing bolts, but you can see the housing engaged on the spout.

View attachment 213936

There it is Same o/d as the original, but much thicker on the bearing seat .
Now the more observant will have realised that if you make the bearing 6.5mm wider (which I have) then you need to loose 6.5mm somewhere, this means cutting down the hub spout by 6.5mm.
It's Hardened, so it will have to be ground to finish. Deep Joy..................
 
I built it up and checked it and it ran true. Thank God .. I was beginning to wish I hadn't started. I gave it a quick road test and it drove fine, but I need to develop another test route as I'm on the other side of town. Liz followed in the car to check on the wheel wobble situation and confirmed there was nothing to be seen , which was good, but I still felt a hint of a shimmy through the shell. Mind you, I still have the other side to do.
The good news is that the first one was a long slow drawn out affair, but the second was much quicker, about 2.5 hrs to make from scratch..

IMG_20230813_194510368_MFNR.webp

After tea I went along and removed the n/s hub and shaft and immediately put it between centres to check it for true, pretty good 2-4thou in both planes. I made an executive decision to adopt the same procedure as before, but without the mistakes. I dismantled the hub from the disc and knocked out the wheel studs. I remounted it on the halfshaft between centres and skimmed the wheel face, disc face and O/D.

IMG_20230814_193807953_MFNR.webp

With that done it was a case of painting the bare bits and assembling it all, then yet again putting the whole assembly between centres and spinning it up . Running true in both planes Hooray..

IMG_20230814_205909424_MFNR.webp

Just need to put it back in the car and try again. Oddly the Z bar had moved itself toward the N/S caliper, so yet another thing for the never ending list.

The only downside to doing this is that you have created a bit of a bespoke monster. If I ever need to change a Disc or Hub, it will need to be machined on the halfshaft to suit. Oh well you can't win 'em all..

Happy Motoring...........
 
Hi Steve,
Good to se that you have now gone ahead and made your own big high angular contact double race bearing conversion set.
The net effect of this conversion is absolutely no wheel play when you jack up the car compared to the single std race bearing running clearances, [even with 8Balls ]this has always been a potential issue with Mr MOT man so I used to take a spare tube shaft and bearing assembly in the car just in case so I could if needed demonstrate the end of the halfshaft wobbling around in the tube, this issue is even worse on Dauphines and 4CVs which use even smaller WW2 bearings.
My issues were brake pad knock off using the GP4 Alpine A110 rear Matra Simca big calipers, on circuits the brake pedal would drop considerably until you pumped the pistons back out, of course this all stopped prior to the big bearing conversion in question when I fitted the big "Collette" caliper design sourced from a VW Bora TDI Estate which has sliding pins allowing a degree of floating of the callipers if the knock off was happening,
But I have always wondered about the load on the sun wheels and u/Js at the box end say when doing a full chat start, so this big bearing supports the outer part of the shaft only allowing the gearbox side is now only driving the shaft.
So now you can now tow an R8 without any gearbox innards or u/Js being fitted as the hub is fully supported.
Great work!
Cheers
Dave,

PS Anyone got a pair of later Dauphine Front Disc Brake Hubs for sale?
 
Hi Dave. Good to see you've taken the plunge and joined in here. They are a friendly bunch and welcoming . You'll need to start a thread on your projects . Hopefully we can convert a few more to Oldies . Young Mr. Turnell is on here also. He'll probably say Hello.
Would it be possible to convert a Drum upright to disc or am I just showing my ignorance here.
 
Hi Dave. Good to see you've taken the plunge and joined in here. They are a friendly bunch and welcoming . You'll need to start a thread on your projects . Hopefully we can convert a few more to Oldies . Young Mr. Turnell is on here also. He'll probably say Hello.
Would it be possible to convert a Drum upright to disc or am I just showing my ignorance here.
Welcome Mr Wheeler, there's a few refugees on here, shame @andybond didn't get chance to scrape old RCCC forum data, there was some good stuff of yours and @Steve Swan on there......all lost.
Get some pics of your stuff, really easy on here, no crappy third party hosting needed.
I don't look in as much these days, busy on a two wheeler.
 
Wed: car is all together as of last night. Will road test this evening and see what like. Figured out how to alter the clutch to get what I want at engine change time. Need to get the plate ordered as I think it's a 4 week lead time to make the splined hub. Got an A110 5 speed in bits getting cleaned for assessment, so need to prioritise that. Decided to clean and oil the old War horse today. Not one of my favourite jobs, but long overdue, nightmare of Paraffin and old cloths, then oiling it and cleaning up that mess..

IMG_20230816_154957512_MFNR.webp

It's a 1961 MK1 Student with Starship Enterprise mileage on it. One day when I have nothing else better to do, I'll strip the carriage down and make up new bearings for the drive systems. The cast iron originals had worn out and been replaced by bronze bushes which were worn out when I got it. I cheated and flooded the bronze with solder and machined them to size, like a white metal bearing, but that was 20 years ago and it's all rattling slack again. People said to me when I packed the Day job in 'won't you get bored!!!'
I could live another few lifetimes and still not get through everything. I suppose you are one of 2 kinds of people you can either entertain yourself or you can't. I am definitely in the former..
Happy Motoring
 
Took the Dauph out for a drive tonight aand I'm nearly pleased with myself.. That is the best it has ever driven on the road , ever. No Shimmy, no shake, still Just a hint of drift left, but now only really above 60. Tyre pressures now at 17 front and 21 rear and it feels glued to the road. I think I need to bring the support pad in the rack up into contact a bit more ,as it really feels like a power steering car with added power steering for the first quarter turn in either direction. I am thinking this absolute absence of any friction is what is causing the issue as the car is following the camber. If you drive on the wrong side of the road (only if no-one else is about) it drifts right. Now going to put my feet up and shout abuse at the telly........
 
Hi Dave. Good to see you've taken the plunge and joined in here. They are a friendly bunch and welcoming . You'll need to start a thread on your projects . Hopefully we can convert a few more to Oldies . Young Mr. Turnell is on here also. He'll probably say Hello.
Would it be possible to convert a Drum upright to disc or am I just showing my ignorance here.
Hi Steve,
The answer is yes but only if you use the later Dauphine Disc hub which is narrower and it has a smaller diameter inner bearing also. The Kingpin axles are thinner and shorter that the upgraded R8 Items [ a bit worrying].
Someone in the Car Community will have Dauphine stuff for sale I guess its just a matter of finding them!
Just sprayed the engine lid today, the motor is also installed and connected up.
Hope your rear end wobble has now disappeared [the car that is].
Cheers
Dave
 
Busy this week. Making the Dyno adaptor for testing Mini Engines. This was a two piece affair that got quite complicated and it got so involved, I forgot to take any pictures. Been in the workshop full time as there were a couple of guys (window fitters) Knocking ten bells out of my house, so kept out of the way. Have also been working on the A110 5 speed which was a straightforward overhaul which got all of the little tweaks I have developed over the years. These include tweaking the 1st/2nd synchro springs until the baulk rings are firm against the hubs, which improves the operation of the synchro. The case is drilled and tapped, so the input shaft can be changed without having to strip the box. Then I did the shift stop collar. 353 R8 5speed boxes have a bit of a shortcoming in tha,t if you try hard enough to slam it into 1st, it can overtravel and the selector finger pops out the back of all the rods leaving you jammed in 1st and you generally have to do damage to get it apart. It is a job I have done about 3 times and it's not fun. There was an official works type modification which put a blob of arc weld on the rear of the reverse selector to prevent the finger popping out , but I prefer the stop collar on the input selector shaft to prevent any overtravel happening. A 10 min job saving lots of time and expense down the line.
IMG_20230824_110015800_MFNR.webp

It's just a little alloy washer about 4mm thick.

Which then sits under the main selector mech.

IMG_20230824_110210436_MFNR.webp

This acts as a forward stop against the case. Later boxes,such as this, have stronger detents and less bendy forks, which is better, but not infallible.

The next pic shows rather poorly what the issue is. The box is in 1st gear and if you imagine forcing the selector forward it can jump out behind Reverse, which is on the immediate right, once its out there it stays there, the spacer prevents this from happening.

IMG_20230824_110950069_MFNR.webp

Happy Days just got to finish it off and shim it up, which will be a game as it was not right in the first place..
 
Bench clear, Double glazing and Door done and now finished off (varnishing Hardwood by Me) so the chores list is clear on the domestic front, plus a few new toys have arrived.
First was the new drive plate for my 184mm race clutch

IMG_20230914_150926921_MFNR.webp

Hopefully it will avoid driveline breakages in the future.

This was mounted on my new TTV flywheel which is a custom job on the catalogue R5 Alpine one. It is basically as is, but for being machined for the AP type clutch and I have gone for 5kg weight, as the 2.5 kg clutch and a 3.5kg flywheel was a right PITA to drive, a steel clutch is quite heavy and adds to the flywheel mass considerably, the Ally clutch does not.

IMG_20230914_150918822_MFNR.webp

Pretty isn't it....

Now some more testing, post MOT pass (YAY) has revealed that it drives quite nicely up to 50-60 MPH, but as the speed rises so does the pointyness of the whole car. It is a very dodgy feeling, which is down to a few factors. 1. Aerodynamic lift is creeping in (I think) 2. The rear of the car is just a bit low and the amount of Neggy is a bit high, this was an Issue on @paule78 's R8 during testing which happened at much lower speeds. The Dauph is a bit the same, but at much higher speeds. there is also a bit of wheel shake when going from Accelerating to decelerating which is quite slight, but is due, I am sure to me getting absolutely no sticktion in the suspension anywhere. You can Lift the wheels to full compression (with the springs removed) and they will fall gently under their own weight to the bottom stop. The steering with the car jacked up can be put from lock to lock with the pressure of your index finger. I think I have been too clever for my own good here.....
Was down at my old mate Mike's and we were chewing the fat on what adjustments to make and the possible effects of said adjustments when he said ` you might need a steering damper' He served his time on VW in the 70's , so this was based on how Beetles with knackered steering dampers behave, which was beginning to sound familiar.

So here we are then .........

IMG_20230914_155017162_MFNR.webp

Bought an Ohlins rip off damper which has enough travel and is 25 point adjustable. Just need to make some brackets.
Story of my Life.......

Happy Motoring.
 
That flywheel is nice, I had similar made but I think I might have gone to light esp with the clutch being a 185mm twin plate.

View attachment 214499View attachment 214500
It's always a temptation to go too light, which you may regret later. I had lightened a std. flywheel to 3.5kg , half it's original weight which with the Sachs GR2 clutch took the total to 7.5kg. This worked well in the 8G. Problem is availability of parts and the 180 clutch is marginal anyway. That's why I went for AP 184 Clutch. No more searching for parts. However this is only 2.2kg giving a total of around 6 kg. It was dire, like an F1 car needed 3000rpm and be careful. Put in another flywheel at 5 kg and it was night and day. Worst car I drove was a Nissan 240Z which used an automatic driveplate and a 5.5 inch triple plate. It was virtually impossible to get it rolling, it got a Flywheel made and a more sensible 9 inch clutch which made it so much nicer to drive. Sure a full race set up gives quicker gearchanges, but it stresses the driveline immensely and is not worth the risk in my book, yeah the clutch won't break, but everything downstream of it is at risk, not an option for my rocking horse poo driveline then....
 
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