Building, racing, crashing race cars with the 750 Motor Club
Yet again, too long since the last update. I’ve just been moving forwards very slowly on many fronts so this is a sort of catching-up post.
I finished the oil cooler duct, as seen in the photo. I hope it’s going to have some effect, if it doesn’t I’ve got a couple of ideas as to how to persuade more air to do into it. It’s not particularly pretty though.
Forgive me, it’s been ages since my last post. I have no decent excuse other than worrying about a PhD thesis to write… I haven’t actually written it you understand, just worried about it.
So, at long last it was time for the J15’s race debut. In fact it was two debuts as I’d entered the Allcomers race as well as the RGB race so as to get a bit of track time. That meant scrutineering at 0730 but, as you’d expect, I’d woken up by 0530 anyway and after struggling to get back to sleep I gave up.
So, it was back to Snetterton for the final test. This was a Club MSV OPL trackday. So, no lap timing but I really just wanted to get comfier in the new car.
OK, it’s been a bit long since the last post. Sorry about that but things were rather thrown off-kilter by rushing into hospital with Anthea in an ambulance; blue flashing lights and everything. Don’t worry, things are fine but it does make you think that when a surgeon says some procedure is minor, no problem at all, improve the quality of life no end, then you ought to think that he’s the bloke with the sharp dangerous looking knife and he would say that, wouldn’t he?
Consequently, not much has happened here really; apart from the fact that the season is rushing up on us with alacrity, Colonel Raeburn*. So much alacrity that Colin and I attended the first of this season’s Race Technical Committee meetings yesterday. Continue reading “Wishing well”
Well, the plan was that we would go to Snetterton on Saturday for the first test courtesy of a Bookatrack track day.
Well, that was the idea anyway. We wended our way up there earlyish on Friday with the intention of getting a time driving around the paddock that evening. As it happened it was too dark really. What’s more, it was throwing it down with rain. So, we went to bed. Continue reading “Drownded”
Famous last words, or so they say. All the same, disregarding all the tribulations, sometimes I catch a glimpse of some part of the car (well, the bodywork really) and I think how pretty it is. I just hope I don’t bend it too soon…
Still on the topic of the infernal driveshafts, I decided that it really, really, was the case that they were too long. I have absolutely no idea why this should be the case but it is. As such there really isn’t a choice other than to get some new ones. It may be possible to shorten the other ones, seen here languishing on the garage floor, if only for use as race spares. However, that would have to be done by either cutting and sleeving them or, if Icould find someone to do it, friction welding them.
I went to Mackay’s, Cambridge’s best shop, and bought the requisite 32mm socket and with that I managed to tighten up the hub nuts. Odd that the nuts seem to have gone on so far that I can’t stake them. Perhaps they ought to have a great thick washer under them like the Sierra ones on the back of the Fury had?
As discussed in the previous post in this apparently never-ending lurch through a tale of cock-ups and curiosities I had to modify the front suspension. So, I cut off the little “ears” that I’d welded onto the front spring mountings an eon or two ago.
This was actually spectacularly difficult to do and I only managed it with the aid of a cutting disc in a Dremel and going very slowly. You can just about see in the photo where they were.