Reader's Gallery 75 |
Doug Azary:
Four Motor Chassis under a Gulf Ford GT40
Doug Azary sends these photos of his latest chassis creation,
a four motor phenomenon squeezed under a blue
Gulf Ford GT40 body. Go Doug!
Doug writes:
"In early 2003, a man in Florida bought a dual motor inline brass chassis
that I had made and auctioned on eBay. This frame can be seen in Reader's Gallery 44
of this website. We started emailing each other and sharing crazy ideas for slot car chassis.
After all was said and done, he wanted to own a slot car that was powered by FOUR motors
and I told him I could make one. He also decided he wanted all this under
a Gulf Ford GT40 body. Again, no problem. |
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As I began to plan the car, the first decision was to determine 4 of what kind of motor
I was going to use. Vintage 36Ds are plentiful but way too big and heavy. 4-26Ds might work
but I don't have 4-26Ds to spare... let alone 4 IDENTICAL 26Ds, and weight would still be an issue.
4 vintage 16Ds, too, would fall into the same catagory as the 26Ds... I don't have quadruplets
of the same motor. Even Parma Deathstars wouldn't work because of their length, and 4 of those are not light.
The solution: Plafit Cheetahs (or JK Falcons). They're about 2/3 the size, weight and performance
of a Deathstar... and yes... I can get FOUR of them! Don't ask me why 3 of them have 'UN' stamped
on the bottom and one says 'US' - I haven't a clue.
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I decided to use all currently available parts for this car... Parma jet flag, gears, axles,
bushings and tires. I think the Plafit motors may be obsolete by now, but the JK Falcons
are identical in size, and I've been told they're slightly higher in performance.
Motor brackets are REH 16D repros, which were originally Buzco. The body is a 'Vintage Bodies' repro
from old DuBro tooling. JK makes the Gulf decals to fit their modernized version of
the GT40 body. (It was interesting getting them to fit the original contours of the
vintage body.)
Brass tubing, steel music wire and brass strips are all current K&S items.
I'm not sure where the steel tongue for the guide came from, but a Slick 7 would
fit right in with a couple of alterations from a Dremel. The driver for our 1969 LeMans winner
is a 35 year old genuine Revell 'smiley face'. Hey, wouldn't you be
happy driving around in a 4 motor GT40? |
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The wiring looks confusing but it's not. The front 2 motors are hooked together in parallel
with 1 blue and 1 red wire going to the guide... and the same goes for the rear motors.
One thing that doesn't show up in the picture, is that when I set all the crown gears,
I made sure the arms turned in unison. It kinda looks cool when you rotate the wheels
by hand and see the corresponding arms turning identically.
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Making the chassis was interesting. What you see here is actually my second effort.
I didn't like the first one, so I unsoldered everything and started over. It's basically an .063 steel wire
perimeter frame with a center rail. All four motor brackets had 1 leg cut off.
The brackets were then paired up and a piece of .032 x 1/4" brass was soldered in
as a splicing patch for reinforcement. The angular brackets at all 4 corners
that were soldered to the outside frame rails and the motor brackets really helped
with the structural integrity of the chassis. I was still fighting the weight issue,
yet trying to make the frame as strong as possible. This car tips the scales at
about 6.75 oz.
The customer told me he was never going to run it. If he decides to,
he just needs to keep it off the wall or keep it away from someone trying to cut hot
laps with a Box Stock, Cobalt, Int. 15, GP27 or GP7. Heck, even an impact from an FCR
could be devastating. A collision with any of those might ruin the night for everyone involved.
"
by Doug Azary, Jan. 2004
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See more pictures of Doug Azary's Four Motor Ford GT40 on Page 2.
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