Dec/090
ARC_Team Wheel Kits
As well as the pre-built wheels, ARC are also offering wheel kits. The customer can buy any part of the wheel they want, rather than the whole thing. If your just interested in a gearbox, then you can buy that part alone.
Designed by me, click for fullsize.
ARC Wheel kits
Dec/090
ARC_Team Wheels
Here’s ARC’s latest advert, designed by me. Click for fullsize.
ARC Wheel Advert
Aug/090
Decided against the 12C in favour of the Arc Wheel
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- The Arc Wheel
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- Back of the wheel
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- In cockpit use
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- Getting a feel for the wheel
I’ve made a fairly big decision today, and just in time!
Next week I was going to order the Seat & Momo 12c, but tonight I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m going to leave the wheel.
The wheel itself would have set me back £150. As well as this I wanted to make a quick release system, extend the steering column, add extra buttons and also clutch paddles. The cost of materials/components for this would have been about £350, plus many, many hours of my time trying to figure it all out and build it.
Tonight I found ARC. An Italian Sim modification team. They specialise in cockpits, pedals, wheels and modifications to existing hardware like the G25. They are currently making an Arc Wheel. It has every single thing I wanted to do myself, only properly. I think doing what I wanted to do with my skills would have been a bit of a ‘bodge-job’. Sure, it would have worked, but it wouldn’t have been tidy and I definitely wouldn’t have been able to make a 8 pin cannon connector work!
Anyway! They are offering the wheel with a set of options
- With or without quick release (Sparco)
- With or without Clutch Paddles
- With or without SLI-M (RPM & Gear indicators)
- Aluminium or Carbon Fibre Body
Perfect!
It looks the part, and has everything I need/wanted. It’s 100% the way to go. It isn’t being released until October or November 2009, so theres a couple of months until it’s release. In which time I can save enough to buy it.
I have no idea what the cost of it will be, but I assume it will be fairly substantial, given the labour costs and the components used. I know the sparco quick release is around £120 alone. I can see it being more than £500, hopefully not too much more otherwise my face will end up like this – :-O.
Check out the pics above anyway!
Aug/092
Taking apart G25 Pedals & Re-Mounting
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- Lovely!
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- Pedal fronts re-fitted
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- Pedals fixed 2
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- Pedals fixed
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- Bolts in place
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- Ready to fix the pedals
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- Holes drilled
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- Cut to size
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- All the pedal stuff
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- Even more markings
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- More markings
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- Basic markings
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- Spade connectors
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- Unused Clutch wires
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- After taking the base off
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- G25 Pedals
After finishing the cockpit sanding I set about destroying dismantling my pedals. There are a number of screws on the bottom – they all need to be removed, the silver and also black ones. There are two small silver screws below the carpet gripper also. Next, you need to remove the fronts of the pedals with an allen key. Once this is done the bottom will come out fairly easily, but the pedals will be loose and still have wires attached. There are two screws holding the wires in place at the back of the pedal base, remove these and it will free them.
The rest of it is fairly simple. I decided to get rid of the clutch pedal totally, as I don’t ever use it. You need to remove the spade connectors (metal ends on the wires). They just push off with a screwdriver. I taped up the ends of the clutch pedal wires individually and then grouped them. Next I needed to mark up the aluminium for where the pedals will go and also be drilled. There are two holes at the end that I will use to attach them to the base. The holes have a pre-drilled thread, so you will need threaded bolts that fit them.
I set the workbench up, got a straight-edged piece of wood and measured the distance between the wood and the blade. The wood was there as a guide, so I could just press against it and it would follow the line. I clamped both the aluminium and wood to the bench. It’s better to let the jigsaw do the work, don’t push it, just let it cut through, otherwise it overheats the metal and makes it very hard to cut.
Once both edges were cut, I filed them to get them smooth and blunt. Next was to drill the holes for the bolts. I used a HSS drillbit. It’s fairly easy to go through, just take it steady. After this I used a countersink drillbit to finish it off.
After this, all I needed to do was screw the pedals into it. I tested it in game and its working nicely, so no problems! All there is left to do is to add some trunking for the wires – they are unprotected at the moment.
Extremely happy with the result, they feel solid and look extremely cool. Check out the pics!