Look at that. I bet you wish you’d got your own twinkly bar stool for Christmas too, don’t you? For some time I’ve wanted one of these in the garage and Anthea bought me one for Christmas, which I think came from that purveyor of fine quality garage items known as Argos.
Ho ho ho!
It’s Christmas Eve (I wish this time of year was still as magical as it was when I was a child) and I’m stretching out the time until Santa arrives by writing this post. Not that there’s much to write about to be honest.
Temporary suspension of disbelief
With the engine in bits I could suspend my disappointment and get on with other things. First up is to sort the wishbones that I’ve been meaning to remake. This is to get rid of the Delrin bearings, which haven’t really worked, and hopefully to get a bit of weight out. So, making my usual MDF and bracket jigs I remade the rear upper wishbones, as seen here. You’re right, they’re awfully short (although you have to add a lot of length in the rod-ends to this photo) and this is what completely re-designing the rear of the car would have sorted. However, I just don’t have the time, especially as I’ve just got a new job. (As well as still teaching, this time to “Engineering Doctorate” students, up at York and my PhD viva being next week. Eeeek.)
Disaster…
I took the crank up to Andy yesterday to see what he thought. As I was beginning to suspect he reckoned that the #2 and #3 big end journals were toast. This is a real bugger, as you can’t get undersized shells and therefore can’t get the crank reground.
Carnage exposed
Finally, I was getting to the root of the problem. And, indeed, demonstrating that it really was a problem. First thing, though, was to close up the top of the engine. So, I took off all the cams and drive gubbins, put the followers somewhere neat and tidy and put the cam cover back on. All this so I I could up-end the engine without the followers falling out. What’s more, with the cams out I can twizzle the crank around as I want without worrying about the pistons bashing into any valves.
Millions of itty-bitty parts
So, I took the engine out, intending to get to the bottom of the oil pressure issue. I’m getting reasonably good at taking the engine out of this car, but as usual you always end up with a quantity of fluids falling out and making a real mess of the floor.
A damp squib
…whatever one of those is. (Actually, it turns out that it’s a small explosive device.) It’s what the Birkett turned out to be.
I’d got myself all ready well in advance, here’s the car sitting on the trailer and, after a morning lecturing to students. I jumped on the train, zoomed down to Cambridge and drove to Silverstone. There, miracles of miracles (they must have got some new security guards) we got in easily and parked up for the night.
Upgradeitis
It’s coming up to the final on-track extravaganza of the season in the shape of the annual 6-hour Birkett relay. This is a huge race at Silverstone with about 60 teams each with 5 or 6 cars. Luckily not all trying to get on track at once. Once that’s out of the way—and assuming I don’t bend the car too seriously—it’ll be time for putting car away and retiring in front of the TV with a cup of hot cocoa.
A watery end
And so, after a season of frenetic car building, engine swaps and sundry other excitements the RGB year ground to a halt at Cadwell at the weekend. It was, yet again, a wet weekend although a very enjoyable one. That the club managed to get 26 races on track over the 2 days, along with all the qualifying sessions, is a testament to how well organised it is. For something that only has two paid staff (and lots and lots of volunteers) this is pretty miraculous.
Waterlogged
So, it was time for another race. I decided that I could take the weekend off finishing my thesis (which I have since finished, yay!) and make the loooong drive to Pembrey for two RGB races. Problem with Pembrey is that it’s a long way and it has a bad habit of raining. Rain as in absolutely pouring down, not that sort of pathetic English rain but the full-on Welsh variety.