MARSHSEIS "Classic Mini Challenge" Creating a Time Machine.

Objective-4 Cage the Engine.

Now we're getting down to the Nitty-Gritty with exact engine positioning and the manufacture of a robust power plant cradling solution that will keep this beast caged yet allow the transmission of its awesome power yield to be laid down onto the road in a smooth, positive, continuous and unhindered fashion. This required offering up the engine to the mini shell with millimetre perfect alignment and producing an engine cradling solution that would hold it right there and transmit all the engine power right through to where it needed to be. A great deal of brain-storming went into nailing down the best possible solution and we finally settled on a highbred frame that would be constructed with a mixture of square and rectangular box section together with round tube in the sections that required the creation of tortuous bends in multiple planes and all made in such a way as it could be easily bolted together to ease future removal of the engine.

We utilised multiple scissor jacks and various packing pieces, together with chocks and wedges to get the engine and transmission perfectly positioned relative to the body shell and made sure it was stable enough to remain right there until the full cradle was manufactured and in place.

Firstly we established exactly where our front, bottom, frame cross member, had to be and measured and cut the required steel and complete with bolt-able pad pieces that would serve as side bar welded connecting points we then chocked that into precise position relative to the engine and body. Next up production of the near side cradle to transmission suspension tube....note the tube had to be precisely bent in two planes to achieve our precise and desired positioning.

A side picture gives a better perspective of the side tube to transmission mounting point and gives good indication of how the power plant will be underslung inside the cradle.

Same for the offside side tube giving good visual indication of the way it had to be bent to accommodate the underslung arrangement for the main engine mounting.

And "BOOM" we're starting to get something that resembles an engine and transmission cradling frame, but hey there is a long way to go yet. Next we have to work out precise locations for the front suspension tie rods and establish exactly how they will interface with both the engine and transmission frame and the front bottom suspension arm. Looks like we're going to have to again engage serious amounts of forward planning mode ...Oh! and lets not forget large portions of Marshseis magic :-)

That's about all for this blog....All the best and take care and be sure to keep an eye out for our next blogs where you'll find out exactly how we got on with "Creating a Time Machine".