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Will post an update in due course, but after a lot of work by the team on Friday and Saturday to reprep and fit a Quaife shifter, the diff planet gears exploded on the start line of stage 1 yesterday and also damaged the box..
Then set the car up for its trip to Barbados with softer springs and ride height and a little more castor from the new bottom arm brackets we fabricated and ended up with nice even numbers..
Then went and did a few laps around Cadwell as a test session.
Video on Youtube at
Then switched attention back to the 1600cc car - F2 GTE.
Fitted a quaife direct linkage to try to alleviate the stuck in gear issues we have had
Went to do a rally at Melbourne near York and diff exploded on startline meaning car on trailer..
So at the beginning of April after our successful 2000cc car test and the event where the 1600cc car broke, we needed to get the 2000cc car finally ready for its trip to Barbados.
Usual spanner check was done, aircon reinstated for the trip to the Caribbean and then we built a "luggage rack" to hold all the kit and wheels.
Started with lots of box section and had a little "Dad" help with the welding.
The sides slot into the sill stand holes then the top bolts to that and the rear tyre rack bolts on too.
Got it all powdercoated and fitted to the car prior to the trip to Portsmouth
then loaded up at the port
and then loaded it on the boat..
Arrived in Barbados 10 days later.
Then switched back attention to the 1600cc car. Cluster removed and inspected...
Seems that the bits of the diff got between the crownwheel and pinion. So full stripdown on that. Then bought a rebuilt diff to use.
and was offered a 2nd hand but usable dog box CWP so that was fitted and the box built back up
However, had an issue with the bearing race as the new bearing was slightly bigger than the old bearing so out came the casing too
Was all then built back up into a full box, then late Friday night we got the box fitted to the car and it was ready for testing..
Went to Blyton for a Javelin trackday. Car is set up for its next airfield event and is running lots of ride height due to the spring lengths but gearbox was good, gear shift is mega now, car felt good (albeit very very soft) so we were all happy..
until I got home, and realised one of the Proflex canister pipes had split so off came the rear suspension and sent to Proflex to be sorted..
Been a busy few months so a couple of updates over the next week or so to bring us up to date... May and the start of June was our holiday and Rally Barbados..
First weekend of hillclimb went OK - safe but not quick enough against the quick boys in our class.
Then a week of pacenoting, spanner checking, enjoying the island and mainly drinking rum we got to the main event.
Friday started steadily until we had a big spin under braking a few miles in which shook me up and killed my confidence in the car on the night stage..
Think we were 8th in our class and 59th overall going into Saturday. We did a swap of tyres from inters on the front and cut wets on the back to softs on the front and wets on the back.
Saturday was a mixture of technical stages with some fast bits thrown in. Had a bad start in the morning with brakes boiling badly so had to bleed and refill them on the road section from stage 3 to stage 4 and from stage 4 to stage 5 but got that sorted and started to work our way up. However the car didnt feel "right" all day with a loose back end meaning it was difficult to commit to the faster bumpy bits. Had an 80mph spin in the road with only a tiny bump into a bank at the end which was extremely lucky! However, finished the day 5th in class and 39th overall.
Then onto Sunday. Thought it was going to rain, so tyre swapped to inters front and softs rear for the first loop which was the wrong choice as it didnt rain and the inters were too soft leading to major understeer. So we changed to some mediums on the front and kept the softs on the rear after the first loop. The car immediately felt "good" again allowing me to push much harder and was around 2-3 seconds a mile quicker and certainly the best it had been all rally. Throughout the day, we did our own thing and pushed where we could but backed off when it got lairy. In the meantime, others were throwing themselves off the road.. So we worked up to 4th in class then up to 3rd in class and ended the rally 32nd overall and 3rd in class.
On the basis that the 2 cars ahead of us in our class were Citroen DS3 R3 Max cars which are going for around 70K Euro at the moment with sequential boxes, works type suspension etc, then I dont think the Astra did too badly all in all. It was also a learning curve on the tyres so will be better in 2019!
Had 4 days after the rally to chill out, drink some more and enjoy the island and friends out there. Luckily we have a great partner in the Coconut Court Beach Hotel who help us whenever we are at the rally - http://www.coconut-court.com is highly recommended if anyone is looking for a great hotel in Barbados
Next post will be about the Flying Fortress rally in June in the other car!
Back from holidays middle of June and the following weekend was the Flying Fortress Stages. Its a WW2 airfield with fast and slow sections and bits between the trees on concrete. Love the event stages so wanted to push on and get a good result.
Was a hot sunny day so felt a lot like Barbados again in a race suit.. Had a corner plot so set up with our friends Mk1 Escort.
First stage started well, small off but no damage..
The stage 2 I pushed on and we were lying 10th overall and 1st in class - the tyres showed how hard we were going..
Then it all went Pete Tong... Stage 3 had a driveshaft inner CV pull out of the new diff so did 5 miles on one shaft dropping us down the order.
Then went back out for stage 4 in maximum attack mode.
and just as we came towards the finish, noticed a trail of smoke from the car. Finished the stage (quickest in class!!) and stopped at the finish line, powder fire extinguishers used just in case and made a right mess. Realised that it was complete coolant loss rather than smoke once we had the bonnet up but better to be safe than sorry.
Took the car back to service and worked on it for the next hour and a bit, changing the coolant pipes and resealing everything. Restarted the engine and started to see steam again as the coolant rapidly disappeared from the header tank. Headgasket gone. Time to put the car on the trailer and go home...
So in the first few weekends in July, managed to get a bit done to fix the damage..
As we had used powder extinguishers on it, everything was a mess...
First job was to remove the engine
Had to remove the clutch to fit the flywheel to the engine stand.. All year we have suffered with a vibration but not understood what. Realised what it was when we took the clutch off - the straps holding the centre central had snapped meaning it was offcentre
Then took head off.. Its definately headgasket on #3 then...
Not a good sight..
Lots of detonation marks.. Its got to the point where its eaten into the head and breached the fire ring but only allowed the water / cylinder to mix
So then cracked on with stripping and cleaning the engine bay.. Thats better :-)
Great video of stage2, pity about the dust particularly at the start of the stage, I guess you've really got to listen to the pace notes in those conditions.
Good luck with the engine rebuild, which engine blew the gasket, was it the 2.0?
At the end of July, I took a few days holiday which allowed me to sort a few more bits.
Started with a Nexia radiator and a Mk3 lower crossmember.. The Nexia rad is the same width as a 2.0 8v GTE but the same height as a 2.0 16v so more capacity for cooling.
Got jiggy with the angle grinder and cut off the standard 8v type lower crossmember then mocked up the radiator, Mk3 crossmember, towing eye etc
Tied the box section into the chassis leg and lower rail but also tied another piece into the substantial front sumpguard mount too. Nice and strong.
and painted it up in glacier white
Also cleared the garage out and moved stuff to fit some vinyl floortiles. The concrete was breaking up, getting very dusty and needed redoing properly. These were a better option I think. Theyre 495mm x 14mm thick coin top interlocking floor tiles from the likes of bigdug and the photo was taken 3/4 way through.. Its now finished and 10x nicer to work on under the car.
Also continued with engine stuff. Block stripped to check bearings - all fine but replacing anyway whilst its stripped.
Piston #3 shows severe detonation though so new one was ordered..
Diff out and stripped, cleaned and reassembled. We discovered that the GKN inner CVs we use are bottoming out on the outer edge of the Tranx casing, meaning the snap-rings arent locking the shafts into place properly. So we have modified the outer casing by a few mm to allow it to hopefully lock in properly now.
Head was skimmed..
Lots of expensive new parts arrived - head stud kit, new pisto, 4 x new ring sets and a cometic 1.7mm
Started work on the fuel system changes to add a better filter system and a swirl pot. Started with this..
and a pile of existing bits..
Added some new bits..
and ended up with this!! Still waiting on a couple of adapters to finish off but hard work is done.
Ive also ordered a new Helix clutch but been told its on backorder so picked up a spare LUK cover to use if we need to. If not then its in the spares box anyway.
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