Just A Couple More Things.....

Feb 24th 2015

Right. Now we are in the final stages.

There are various little bits and pieces to do. Some are important and others are vanity.

The bonnet is vanity.

Bonnet

It was pretty shabby. A grp moulding from someone else’s bonnet by the look of it. Rather bumpy and with a couple of big splits in it at the front where the car had rolled and obviously the whole weight of the front end had rolled over the bonnet.

Also it was hand painted in a thickish paint.

First thing to do was to strip off the hooks for the rubber bands that hold it down and repair the cracks with some new fibreglass mat and resin on the inside. Then I ground out the cracks on the outside and filled them.

There was nothing really to fix the position of the bonnet on the car apart from an alloy plate at the front with a lip for the bottom edge of the nose of the bonnet to sit in. The problem with this was that it was wearing into the grp. I decided to bond some wood blocks inside the bonnet to sit on the chassis frame top rails.

Then I would get some spring clips to hold it down. These things have become pretty expensive since I was rallying. In the end I found some at £5 for a pair (two pairs required). Wonderful thing this internet-work-web.

Just about everything I get is on-line. It’s just so convenient and you don’t end up settling for something you didn’t really want. You can spend hours driving around the locality trying to get a special bit and even if you find it, the time and fuel involved outweigh the postage you would have paid buying on-line. 

I’d already decided I wanted a dark grey metallic finish. As it’s winter and the temperature doesn’t get much above 4 degrees in my garage I wasn’t going to get much of a finish with rattle cans. I do have a compressor and spray gun, and have done plenty of cars before. However the cost of getting the paints and solvents didn't look worth it for worth it for a small bonnet.

How little I knew!

I can heat the place with a gas blower heater I have, but it stirs up dust and I have to turn it off when painting. Naked flames, solvent, etc.

I decided to use vinyl wrapping film. I got some samples and Anthracite Grey Metallic looked good. It’s a matt finish, which probably is a good job as the bonnet, whilst being a lot smoother is still a touch bumpy. The problem here is that the vinyl wrapping is usually done on painted vehicles. If I could get a good paint finish to stick it to, I wouldn’t need the film anyway. Would it stick to primer, well flatted down? The supplier thought it would as long as the surface was well flatted with a fine wet’n’dry.  He did think there may be problems removing the film later on. Not quite sure why. Anyway I had a bit of the previous car’s bonnet with an air scoop in it, so I primed that and flatted it down as a test piece. I used the sample they had sent and it looked OK. The air scoop was pretty intricate and getting rid of creases was tricky, but the present bonnet doesn't have such sharp profiles to wrap, so I thought I'd be OK..

A problem I hadn’t envisaged was that after flatting the bonnet back it was a patchwork of different colours, filler and grp. 

When I primed it the paint reacted with quite a few areas. Not normal really with rattle cans. I flatted it back and filled the worst areas to a higher level, covering the feathered paints edges. It still reacted a bit so I ghosted the primer on in a load of very light coats.

There were still problems with the paint reactions though.

I decided to bite the bullet and get some Barcoat which is a spray-applied isolator. I've used it before on old cars and it solves the problem. 

After coating the bonnet you primer it straight away without flatting the isolator. You can then flat the primer in the normal way as long as you don't go through to the isolator again. 

Having gone this far I decided to spray a top coat on and use that as my finish.

I had a litre of primer in the garage anyway so I just got the  Barcoat and some cellulose top coat as well as 5 litres of anti-bloom thinners.Cellulose is much safer to work with and you can get a pretty good finish from the gun, without too much compounding.

Just to be awkward I got metallic silver top coat, having decided it would be better for a slightly uneven surface than a dark colour.

The process went pretty well. I did spatter a bit of metal flake on an obvious spot on the bonnet as a result of leaving the gun for 15 minutes between coats. Looking in the paint bowl when I was cleaning the gun it looks as though the flake had run back down the pick-up pipe and formed a little heap. Then when spraying again it had sucked up these stickier solids and spat them on the bonnet. I think it will flat out. If not I have plenty of paint left for another re-coat when the weather is a bit nicer.

Other Items

which are very much more important included 

The Cooling Fan.

I mentioned the original was a "puller", not a "pusher", and mounted in front of the radiator it was trying to pull air from the engine to the front of the car. The opposite of what is needed. I did try reversing the polarity and it did spin the other way, but as the blades were designed to be efficient going the correct way it wasn’t really moving very much air.
A bit of a search on-line showed that whilst Kenlowe fans are up to £90 you can get motorsport fans (ie, noisy) for about £18 in the size I was looking for. When it arrived I fitted it using some alloy angle I had and a mixture of pop rivets and bolts. It sits nicely close to the radiator and as you can reverse the polarity and turn the blades around you can get the best performance for your own installation easily.

I think I may look for a thermostatic switch, but it’s not essential.

The Wiring Loom 

wasn’t complex as there isn’t much to operate. However I had decided to ditch the terminal block connector and use a waterproof plug and socket. This fell at the first hurdle as they are specific to cable sizes, and I had a mix of cables sizes.

Then, looking at the existing connections around the engine I realised that many of them were bullet connectors. So why not connect my loom to the engine the same way? Yes, they may corrode a touch but a quick pull and twist would probably fix that. I also found that two of the cables from the switch box in the cockpit were live feeds from the same busbar. So that was one less cable to have. I re-wound the loom with proper loom tape. Unlike insulating tape, it isn’t sticky so doesn’t deteriorate into a gloopy mess.

This probably hasn’t improved the wiring performance at all, but it looks nicer.

Where the loom and choke cable came through the bulkhead used to have some rubber grommets, but I had some conveyor belting so I made a patch of it with slots cut  to accommodate the loom and stuff. This makes it easier to remove the bits if I need to.

Brakes

I sorted out the brake pipes as well whilst I was fiddling about. The rears seemed to be have been sourced from a real car and one of them was about 2 feet too long. I snipped that off and got a friend to put a new flare on it. I do have a flairing tool, but seems to have lost the mandrel I needed. Bugger.

The same at the front as I moved the distributor block for the brake flexy hoses so the front rigid pipe turned out to be too long. 

The front offside brake calliper had been a bit of a problem with the seized bleed nipple which we had tried to remove, but couldn’t. I decided to fit the calliper again and if the bleed nipple was still sealing, just bleed the brakes through the banjo nut.

Initially it seems to have worked. If it should fail it’s not a major problem as the front brakes tend not to be used at more than about 5mph and there are still back brakes to use.

I put new brake pads in and changed the disc on the right hand wheel as I had a spare brake disc and the existing disc was running out a bit and knocking the pads back, giving a very long pedal.

Whilst I was doing the calliper I spotted that the nylock nut that secures the wheel to the stub axle was very tired. It wasn't nipping the bearings at all. I had only driven the car around in the drive for 5 minutes and already it had loosened .

It looks like I need to treat these hub nuts as disposable and fit new ones every time. I have sourced some castellated nuts, which may be a more secure answer,  with a split pin to hold it in place.

Knob

One thing that had been a bit of an irritation was that the knob on the wheel was fitted using a bolt which had been bent to get it orientated correctly. If it had been just bolted to the spokes without the bend it would have been at an angle (not parallel to the steering column). I had taken the knob  off and now wanted to weld some wedge-shaped brackets to the wheel spoke so that the bolt holding the knob to the wheel spoke would be at the correct angle without having to bend it.

I did this without too much bother, but it did mean cutting the vinyl and foam wheel covering back and pouring water on it as soon as the MIG torch was taken away or the foam would have caught fire. Well, it did catch fire, but I needed to stop it burning. Blowing at it didn’t do much good.

Spare Wheel

 Something that has no effect on the performance at all is the spare wheel. OK, it’s a bit of weight behind the back axle, but other than that it’s just a requirement of the rules. Again, the one on the car had been through the wars so I stripped it of paint and bashed the dings out of the edges as well as I could. A coat of paint and it looks very smart. As the wheel sits on the back with the inside facing following cars I made sure the inside was properly prepared. Some of the welding needed grinding down a bit.

Gearchange

I have just done a mod to restrict the gearchange mechanism.

The gearchange is a bit awkward, although it’s a simple arrangement, which is probably best. If you imagine sideways in a car with the gear lever between your legs you get an idea of the shift pattern.To move the lever across the neutral gate you are pushing or pulling. To actually engage a gear you need to swing the lever to move the operating end either to the left or right.

This is fine except the move backwards and forwards (the neutral gate) has three positions.

The furthest away plane for 1st and 2nd

The middle plane for 3rd and 4th

The nearest plane for 5th and reverse.

Because of the fact that there is a diff in the trans-axle on the engine and another one in the rear axle the reduction is enormous so 1st and 2nd are useless. However you can push past the 3rd/4th plane if you are not paying attention and select the wrong gear. I

I made a bracket that bolts to the chassis rail and stops the working end of the gearchange rod going forward to the 1st/2nd gear plane.

So I have 3rd/4th if I push forwards and 5th/Reverse if I pull back. That should make it a bit easier.

Bit More Clutch Work

I've discovered that the clutch slave cylinder push-rod is now too long. When the car is running the release bearing is not clearing the clutch cover and there seems to be a bit of motion transferred into the gearbox.

 This shows up as creep even when in neutral. Easily stopped with a finger on the fiddle brake, but not right, and part of the problem that gave me trouble on the clutch in the last car.

I need to shorten the pushrod and install a return spring to ensure the release bearing clears the clutch cover.

Body Panels

This is a major part of the rebuild. Not because it involves making any new bits, but because it signifies the approach ot the end. 

The alloy panels were getting a bit dull so I cleaned them using a metal polishing kit with drill-mounted mops to bring the shine back. There were a couple of dings near the front which I managed to get a bit flatter and I also decided to cut the side panels so that the bits alongside the engine bay were separate and could be removed more easily. To work on the engine or suspension.

This was with the polished panels attached.

At the back I put the back panel on and made a new "boot lid" from tread plate alloy

This shows the painted bonnet and spare wheel. Just about finished, really.

Gauges

I decided to fit some gauges. oil pressure and water temperature seemed like a good idea.

I got the oil pressure gauge first and after a bit of fiddling with the adapters got it connected (Honda engine 1/8th BSP, gauge 1/8th NPT. Quite awkward but I had some adapters from doing the Suzuki engine so managed to cobble something together.

I started the engine and waited to see if I had previously unknown problems
................................................Relax. 

It showed 65psi cold, at low revs. It should be 50-55psi at 3000rpm when hot, so I guess it'll be somewhere in the area.

Awaiting the temp gauge

That's about as much as I can do before the first outing at Bolton Abbey near Skipton. We'll have to see how it goes and re-visit any problems.

An Event

4th March 2015

I went to a Sporting Trial with the car on Sunday (March 1st, first day of Spring). It was held at Bolton Abbey, near to Skipton. My passenger for this outing was Lord Claymore of  Fylde. (Not really. That's his forum name on another forum. He is called John)

On the trip over using the A65 I caught up a Windermere club member towing his car so settled down to follow him. He is  a happening dude so I thought he will know the way. Sure enough after joining the A59 around Skipton instead of carrying straight on the main road which leads fairly directly to Bolton Abbey he darted off at the next turning, to Grassington.
"Ah, his SatNav must know a better route" I thought, and followed on. After about 5 miles he pulled in. I stopped and he came back and said "Hi Phil, do you know where this place is?"
Doh!

I got there a bit later than planned. Claymore was already there. Interestingly, the Suzuki SX4 coped very well towing the loaded car trailer into the quagmire that was the field entrance.
I chose the route carefully to avoid the 6" deep muddy ruts and just pootled across to a downward-facing slope to make exiting easy. I only have cheap road tyres on the car.After sorting out the signing on and scrutineering we went for a bit of an amble up some hills to get settled into the new office. The car is left hand drive, the fiddle brakes on my left, so it is a bit different from the last car. Claymore had to get used to the exposed nature and "perching" feeling of leaning out of a little open car. He's done motorcycle trialing before.

I must say it was very gratifying that after almost exactly a year away from competing people were coming up to me and welcoming me back at every turn. The reverse side of the coin is that many people reminded me that the RayBax has been previously been a very effective car, which that didn't put me under any pressure. Actually it didn't, as I am well aware that my driving skills can overcome any inherent advantage the car might offer and leave me spinning wheels without any problem.

The trial got under way badly for one competitor in our group, Rob. As he turned up to reach the first Hill his wheel fell off. The whole lot, hub and everything.
Walking the Hill showed it to be very rough with lots of loose and not so loose rocks. I'm not very good at avoiding rocks so was glad I had fitted a sumpguard and a guard for the clutch slave cylinder.

Hill 1 wasn't a huge success. We got past a couple of posts on the way up . However I did notice others having the same problems.
Between Saturday when Brian Thornton laid out the course and Sunday it had rained heavily. So the course had changed from being a "trickling" course, where you use as little power as you can manage to a "blasting" course which requires full throttle and maximum wheel spin to dig into the sludge.

Things didn't look good. The guys with the bigger (max 1650cc), tuned engines would have an advantage over my 1335cc Honda standard lump.
It carried on quite like that for Hills 2 and 3. Hill 4 was much better as it was tighter,  going into a gulley and turning up and over a small crest with a sharp left uphill. That caught us out as the fiddle brake needed was on the uphill wheel and being lightly loaded and upset by the crest, it didn't turn the car as much as I would have liked so we clipped (demolished) the the "7" post on both morning runs.

Hill 6 was much better with a bit more opportunity to gain momentum. We just managed to get up the first rise with lots of wheelspin, some bouncing. The only thing you can't do is roll backwards or stop for more than 3 seconds.
Then we got further round the course and set up for a straight blast up the Hill. We got good momentum and were gripping well when one of the iceberg-like rocks hiding in the mud took a hand and we hit it with the front axle, the car rode over it and we were stuck perched on top. The car had actually torn it from the ground. The rock had been rolled under the car.
Marshalls and other competitors came to help us off. In reality we only needed to reverse off the rock with a bit off weight over the back axle to provide grip. The rock turned out to be the size of a leather pouffe, but less resilient.
Bryan, who I bought my first car from said "Bloody hell. Didn't you see that, it's like Table Mountain?"
In truth I didn't see it as a hazard, it was more on Claymore's side and the bonnet hump sort of obscured it. Bit of a shame really as we had good speed at that point.
I have a very bad record with rocks. I have driven over lots of them. That's why I put guards underneath.

We set off for the next Hill  (after taking a very steep shortcut down a bracken covered bank, where we bashed over.......more rocks).

The second runs through the Hills gave very similar scores, but as the rain had become a snow blizzard, the ground was much wetter so we actually improved our performance but just maintained our results.

A tinkling noise alerted me to a problem and sure enough the water pump had started leaking with a fine spray coming off the drive pulley. I had water and a towel so we managed to release the rad cap and top up. This allowed us to carry on, with another refill later. It's things like this that you only discover in the white-heat of competition. I could have ambled about for hours without it failing.

On the way back to the Hills from the pits I remarked to Claymore how the front wheels didn't do much steering. I was using the fiddle brakes to keep going the way I wanted on the track.

Come lunch-time we considered the prospect of the afternoon run. I thought they would reduce it to one run at the Hills, instead of two, as the ground was getting very sludgy and it was pure power that was getting cars up the sections. They would alter the course to provide new ground, but that would be OK for the first cars and then sloppy for every other car.
Quite a lot of cars had packed up already (there were 26 entries).
The possibility was that we would overheat the motor and blow the head gasket if we continued.
Then Bryan noticed the front axle was not actually at right angles to the car's centre line. A bit of inspection showed that the lower suspension bracket had received one hell of a clout and bent (which we had known at the time) but hands and knees inspection revealed the bracket had been torn apart with a crystaline fracture of at least half it's cross section.


You can see an un-modified bracket at the far end of the axle

This shows the distortion

Closer shot of the split

This was more important (and explained the steering vagueness) It wouldn't actually be curtains if it broke on a Hill, but it would be bloody difficult to recover the car to the trailer, without a front axle in place.

So we decided to pack up.

We had a look at the only afternoon run and I'm glad we did pack up as the going was even worse. In this video the mud is winning.

(Click on the four little brackets on the bottom right of the video to view Full Screen. 

Click "esc" on the top left of your keyboard to get back to the blog)

Back at base the damage to the sumpguard is obvious

The sloping line between the springs

Gouged by the rock. It did the job and should straighten easily.

So. not too bad a day out. If it had remained dry we would have done better and probably finished the event. Still down near the bottom. But the purpose was to try the car and see if anything I'd done to it was not working properly.

Claymore seemed undaunted by the weather and said he enjoyed the event. Whether that includes my rather cavalier attitude to car control I'm not sure......

Repairs and More Mods

30th March 2015

Bent Suspension Bracket

Back at base I took the front axle off to get on with removing the bent bracket and replacing it. It was torn across one side of a hole. I cut it back to good metal and realised that to get the tapered hole for the ball joint to fit to I would have to re-use the original top of the bent bracket which had the correctly tapered hole already.

I made a piece of 6mm thick metal to replace the damaged part

Then prepared the top part with the hole to join to that

...welded that on

...then welded it to the axle

..cleaned it up and primed it

Then I repainted the whole axle and put it back on the car. I thought the paint looked a bit rough on the bracket, but then realised it was a reflection of the sumpguard!

Slave Cylinder Skid Plate

I straightened(ish) the sumpguard and noticed the guard I had put under the clutch slave cylinder had been pushed up and was touching the bleed nipple. The skid was made of alloy treadplate. It was just a cuve between the two bolt holes with no re-inforcing to prevent it bending if the car sat on a rock. I decided to make a steel one to avoid unfortunate breakages in the future. It would be daft to have to retire for the want of a bit of a stronger skid.

Here is the news next to the old: -

and fitted in place

I can't imagine that bending.

Knackered Water Pump

The main reason we retired was that the water pump was spraying water out. I didn't fancy frying the cylinder head just to do a few more Hills.

I took the old one off and decided that whilst I was doing it I would paint the cam belt cover, which was a dirty white, and the rocker cover which was a blotchy black.

When I took the pump out I saw that there was a sort of funnel shape cast behind it for the impeller to run in. Very important, this. The cam belt looked fairly new, if a little slack.

I ordered a new water pump from a seller on ebay and waited for it to arrive. When it did I offered it up and it wouldn't fit. I compared it to the old one (which was truly jerked) and the impeller was bigger. 66.5 mm diameter compared to the original which was 60mm in diameter.

Because of that funnel shape casting the new one wouldn't fit in. I tried ebay again and asked the seller to measure the impeller before sending it. 

This one worked OK.

You can see the difference in the size of the impeller between the old one and the oversize new one.

I stripped and primed the rocker cover and cam belt cover and then painted them with some gold paint I had handy. Then a coat of lacquer.

It doesn't make it run any better, but I like it looking smarter. Whilst I had the cover off I checked and reset all the tappets. They were a bit towards the tight end of the range suggested. I set them mid-range.

Temperature Gauge

I'd ordered and temperature gauge and fitted it into the car, but hadn't connected it as the boss they supplied was pretty large, 5/8" UNF.

I couldn't see how to drill a big enough hole in the manifold to fit it. 

Whilst I was rolling around underneath the car I used a torch to look underneath the manifold and spotted the old, electric, sender unit. I removed that and, would you believe it? The new boss fitted straight in. So a quick job after all. I had to take the carbs off, but that was all.

Just About Done

As things stand I think I've done all the little jobs needed. 

This is how it looks

The Missing Trial.

1st May 2015

I have just realised that I haven't done a report on the worst trial I have been to.

It was at Hartside, just north of Melmerby, on the Pennines in April this year..
It's a site I've been to 3 times and once it was great. Part of the problem is that the entry to the site is very steep with a concrete track. Once you leave the track, if it is wet, you are stuffed. The site becomes very wet.
This time I arrived pretty early and did manage to get to a reasonable spot to park, facing downhill for an easy exit.

My passenger, Ian, arrived in good time and we were ready. It wasn't a really wet day, but very overcast.
I went to the Portaloo after the driver's briefing and when I came out it was blizzarding!
I wasn't it there that long.....

We set off to the Hills and got around the first run. Not great, but we did get to each hill (a novelty at Hartside) and got a score.
Each time we got out of the car to recce we had to take the seat cushion out and shake the snow off before setting off.

The second runs were getting a bit silly. Despite having loads of waterproof stuff on, and a trapper hat I was getting soaked. I have (so I am told) rather nice long eyelashes, but the snowflakes landing on them means I can hardly see anything.

It was bloody cold and bloody wet. The snow was turning to heavy rain and the wind was blowing a hooley.

Sorry the pics are a bit mean, but no-one was that interested in getting frozen anyway.

We still managed to get to each hill and only scored a 12 once.

When we came to the end of the 2nd round it was decided that everyone had had enough so the trial was stopped.
Thank God for that. I was wearing a waterproof jacket, lumberjack shirt, fleece, shirt and t-shirt. They were all soaked and had wicked the rain down to my underpants (Too Much Information, I know).
The only dry bit I had was my jeans between mid thigh and my ankles as that was the only area protected with proper waterproofs, not "breathable" rubbish.

My advice to anyone doing trials is not to enter ones which I have entered as it will be the worst weather you have encountered.

A Brief Respite

17th August 2015

I've had the car for sale for a couple of months now.

The previous trial at Hartside had been horrific with a blizzard starting just before we did and everyone getting thoroughly soaked and frozen.
It was wrapped up at lunch after just two runs at the Hills.

This cemented my resolve to sell the car. My last few trials have either been freezing cold, windy, raining  or snowing (all four at the last one.) I was a keen sailor, but if it was raining I never used to bother going. I don't like extremes of weather.

I've had the car on some web-sites and on eBay. I did get an interested buyer who paid me a deposit, but couldn't collect straight away. Unfortunately he had to withdraw (for a good reason) and asked me to keep the deposit to cover the buggeration factor.
But it seems that I may have missed the selling season as lots of car swapping has been going on.

Anyway there was the Northern Phoenix Practice Day scheduled for Firbank, near to Sedburgh on the edge of the Dales so I thought I would take the car (in case anyone was looking for one) and to give it an airing. Sitting unused in garage doesn't do them a lot of good. Brakes seize up and things like that. It's only 20 miles from me so it made sense.

My usual passenger was working and my other passenger was attending a wedding so I went on my own (Billy-No-Mates) to see if I could get someone to sit-in for a few runs.

The Practice Day is ostensibly for Novices to get a feel for the game and for those with new (to them) cars and those who have made some mods over the summer break to try them out. The great thing is that you can please yourself. If a particular Hill is giving you trouble, you can just go around again and nail it (or try to).

It worked brilliantly for me. I drove my own car and passengered David Morris in his car (and he returned the favour) for a few runs and then David went off to mess with his engine so I got Brian Walker's passenger Mark, to sit-in for few Hills.
Then Robin Jager filled the passenger seat which was very enlightening. We have done it before at my friend's farm, but without a proper Hill set up it's difficult to know if you are achieving anything. At Firbank his advice made more sense, in a real trial setting.
He gave me some excellent tips.

 

Then as Robin had to clear off home, I was attacked by Andy McHardy who sat in and gave me some more great coaching.

It's maybe difficult for experienced drivers to remember how much there is to learn and how difficult it is to know how and when to apply different techniques.

I think the Practice Day is a great opportunity  to learn and would suggest to anyone needing some advice to leave their regular passenger at home and turn up expecting to struggle for a passenger. You could be very surprised.

(I hope I got everyone's name right. I have always been rubbish at names.)

I'm still looking to sell the car, all the training in the world won't improve the weather!

Dockray "The Fox Trial" 29th Sept 2015

I went up to to look at the trial at Dockray at Ullswater on Sunday.

It was a stormingly good day. Well, not storms actually, but wall to wall sunshine, very warm and as the grass was quite damp it was a very interesting event.

I took a load of pictures which you can see Here.

I didn't get shots of everyone. Unlike Glenn, I was just taking shots I thought would interest me. Glenn tries to make sure he gets everyone at least once.


I also took quite a bit of video as the new camera can manage both. I hadn't realised that if you took a still image whilst filming it caused a hiccup in the video. So some of the footage was not really usable.
Also a microphone choice to make was to either allow it to zoom along wit the lens or to cut wind noise. it won't do both at once.

Anyway here is the video

OK, I wasn't competing, but it wasn't just me. I did notice a few missing faces. (If that sounds right, you can't notice something that isn't there.)

What a shame, to my mind it was a good event.