Hi
Can anyone point me in the direction of where to find chassis and suspension drawings for a Lotus 69. Doesn't matter whether it's FF, Formula 3 or whetever even F2. I've searcegd the web and drawn a blank. Even blow apart drawngs would help, but I'm really after detailed working drawings with dimensions.

Thanks

Richard

If you've a legitimate reason for needing them (ie. restoration of an original), then Classic Team Lotus (who keep all the archive drawings and records from the 'olden days' ) will be your best first port of call.

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Originally posted by Sam_68
If you've a legitimate reason for needing them (ie. restoration of an original), then Classic Team Lotus (who keep all the archive drawings and records from the 'olden days' ) will be your best first port of call.

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Oh, I don't know - I think you'll find their lawyers might be quite interested.

Seriously, though...

I'd be astonished if you could find detailed working drawings with dimensions, outside of CTL.

Depending on how accurate you want your 'homage' to be, your best bet will be to draw up the known dimensions and components (wheels, against known wheelbase/track dimensions, FT200 gearbox - a drawing of which is available from Hewland - etc.), then join-the-dots using as much information as you can glean from photos such as the ones on this website.

You could try being devious and approaching CTL with some story that you are just researching the car, and/or approaching them via Martin Ogilvie, who is their ex-Lotus-drawing-office technical consultant, and who I know has copies of many original and re-drawn-onto-CAD drawings for the cars.

You could also try contacting Peter Denty Racing (I don't think he has a website, but Google will find you his contact details), who will be able to supply components like uprights, at a price, and may have other information.

But I think you have to face the fact that anyone who has access to the original information will probably take quite a dim view of someone wanting to build an accurate replica from detailed original drawings...

If you can get good pictures and basic scale dimensions . ( this could be done via knowing say tyre size) you could in port to say solid works and then recreate the car in 3d. This is done all the time in industrial design. All depends how much info and good pics you can get.you will need at least side plan and end views and cutaways would be good

I take your point Sam and I must point out that I'm not wanting to replicate the car in every detail. I simply would like to get hold of dimensions such as overall chassis dimensions, track , wheelbase etc. in order to have some kind of datum to scale the rest of the car from. I have a substantal collection of detailed photos to enable me to build a passable chassis replica, wishbones etc. I'm collecting some Van Diemen rear uprights tomorrow which are very close to the originals and the fronts are of course Triumph essentially. I guess a better term for my project is an Evocation. Many enthusiasts have built such replicas over the years and are usually accepted in the light of their purpose to pay homage to a great original design and not to pass it off as anything but a homage.

Richard

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Originally posted by bart... this could be done via knowing say tyre size...

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Originally posted by sevaunMany enthusiasts have built such replicas over the years and are usually accepted in the light of their purpose to pay homage to a great original design and not to pass it off as anything but a homage.

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Originally posted by Sam_68

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Originally posted by bart... this could be done via knowing say tyre size...

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I'm sure you will have this information already, but if it helps, the basic dimensions are:

Wheels: 13"x10" front/13"x14" rear
O/A length: 150"
O/A width: 72"
O/A height: 37"
Wheelbase: 92.5"
Track: 57" front/58" rear

Bart makes it sound easy though; CAD isn't yet at the stage where it can scan in a photo, press a button to correct for scale and perspective, and spit out a dimensioned set of drawings. It's preferable (and usual in industrial reverse engineering) to 3D scan actual components, feed the data into CAD as a points cloud, and work from there - but that would take access to an actual car.

Reverse engineering the car into CAD from photos alone takes a lot of skill, knowledge, effort and interpolation, but it can be done.

I tend to work in AutoCAD rather than SolidWorks, but I could do the job for you if you crossed my palm with a sufficiently large quantity of silver... it would probably end up being cheaper to buy an original car to take measurements off, then selling it on when you've finished, though!

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Originally posted by Sam_68

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Originally posted by sevaunMany enthusiasts have built such replicas over the years and are usually accepted in the light of their purpose to pay homage to a great original design and not to pass it off as anything but a homage.

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Yes, don't get me wrong - I wasn't being personally antagonistic to your project; so long as you don't attempt to pass the thing off as an original, I see no issue.

...But convincing the owners of original drawings that your motives are so honest can be difficult!

If your collection of photos is good enough, then the basic dims I've listed above might help.

I've got reasonable 2D drawings of the Triumph uprights (as modified by Caterham for a spherical bearing at the bottom), if it helps. Not accurate to the last fraction of an inch, but good enough for basic geometry.

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Did not mean to give impression it was easy but it can be done to a fairly high degree of accuracy. Takes a lot of work though. It's certainly not automatic. Doing this from a mobile phone so tend to cut things short , gives the wrong impression sometimes. I to could do the job but again silver would have to cross my palm though not as much as a 69 lotus

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Originally posted by sevaunRegarding the 3D CAD I'm an old school draughtsman, trained originally in Architectural draughting in the 1970's on a parallel motion board.

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Did not mean to give impression it was easy but it can be done to a fairly high degree of accuracy. Takes a lot of work though. It's certainly not automatic. Doing this from a mobile phone so tend to cut things short , gives the wrong impression sometimes. I to could do the job but again silver would have to cross my palm though not as much as a 69 lotus

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Originally posted by bart....silver would have to cross my palm though not as much as a 69 lotus

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Originally posted by bart
Did not mean to give impression it was easy but it can be done to a fairly high degree of accuracy. Takes a lot of work though. It's certainly not automatic. Doing this from a mobile phone so tend to cut things short , gives the wrong impression sometimes. I to could do the job but again silver would have to cross my palm though not as much as a 69 lotus

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I did a quick Google and there are loads of pics of chassis and suspension should be relatively easy to make a "copy" . One word of caution Chapman chassis are boarder line strong enough for racing let alone for road use so you might want to strengthen it up a bit. Bigger sections maybe extra bracing for road.
Now I know that will get disproving comments but there I said it. His view was always if it brakes we will make it stronger . If it don't brake it was to strong !

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Originally posted by bartChapman chassis are border line strong enough for racing let alone for road use ...

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Actually guys it's being built for hill climbing and sprinting so the original design parameters should be about right!
I am hoping to keep weight to a minimum for obvious reasons although I doubt it will be as light as my current hill climb OMS at 335 Kg!!


Richard

I don't have a set of 69 plans, but do have a 1/5th scale GA of the Lotus 18 copied from an original Lotus components drawing dated 7.6.60 (Drawn by R.J. Aris)

And I have the fully dimensioned drawing for the front of the Elan Chassis which is probably the same as most of the earlier Formula cars (althought the Formula cars will be rose jointed)

Oh, and a set of plans for a Seven S2 and the Eleven, but neither of these are probabably clear enough to actually build a 100% accurate replica

I like plans......
Al

[Edited on 28/2/15 by Mistron]

Seems like you have a few projects on rich?

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Originally posted by daniel mason
Seems like you have a few projects on rich?

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I was hoping we'd be competing for 2nd place pots all year rich in 5a! Behind that lunatic Dickerson

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Originally posted by daniel mason
I was hoping we'd be competing for 2nd place pots all year rich in 5a! Behind that lunatic Dickerson

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