Ti Motorsport

Straighten that wheel

The new TCA has gone on, together with new anti roll bar drop links and joy of joys our alignment is back to where it should be.

I have also fitted new discs and pads, as although I bead blasted the old ones, they were too far gone. 

Otherwise the front of the car is all OK.

 

The sump guard is back from being straightened, so another box ticked

Spot the difference

In my search for the cause of our tracking problem, and because I was unable to spot a difference between the original track rod ends, I decided to replace both.  Sadly it made no difference. So a bit closer look was called for. As the camber appeared to be unchanged, I looked a little closer. The drivers side wheel location seemed to be as designed. Fairly central in the arch. The nearside one however was a little different, sitting further back in the arch.

Not necessarily a good guide, but as the car has never been in a big bang, the wings are where they were designed to be. Time for a bit of a more in depth look at the near side. Next obvious place to look was the track control arm. It bolts to the other section of the lower arm and the stud, which you can see by the anti roll bar, makes what could have been a doddle of a job, just that bit more difficult. Next problem was to check whether it was bent or not. Taking our spare, I made an Oh! so simple jig, using the spare as the pattern. I had used the three holes for location, marked holes in the box section and then dropped carefully calibrated bolts down though the holes. The base of the arm sat flat against the bar and I was about to figure out how to jig the two ends, as they are both at angles, when I thought I would just make sure the arm from the car would fit.

No need to go any further, as it wouldn't go on anyway. Another mystery solved. Time to move on. 

Having had a meeting with Richard, we have booked another 6 tyres, which Dan at Mr Tyre Motorsport will carry for us. With the 5 new ones left over from Wales Rally GB and 4 as new on the car, we should be covered.

 

 

A Closer Look

Today, I had a chance to have a closer look at one or two of the jobs on the Honda prep list following WRGB. First thing, was to have a look at the steering geometry after finding the steering wheel was no longer straight. As I expected, something had been bent or knocked out of alignment.

Pre event the toe out was 10 minutes, now it's gone out to 1 degree,so a bit of detecting to do.

 

The sumpguard has also come in for a bit of TLC. My efforts to straighten it before WRGB, seem to have straightened it in one direction, but it still has a bow in it. If I can remove that, then all will be well.

While I was playing with the pressure washer, I cleaned up a couple of the wheels that had punctured tyres on them.

Probably not a lot you can do with a hole that big in the sidewall.

Paper Trail

With the Honda all nice and clean and Dave Dockree's Sprinter finished, it was time to start a paper trail for the Honda.

Every car that I have built, going all the way back to when Ti started, has it's build and competition build notes stashed away in the workshop. The Honda is no exception and it goes back to 2007, when Richard first acquired the car.

Anyone who has a car, run by Ti in the past and would like the history of their car while it was with us, should get in touch before the end of the year.

 

A bit of a clean up.

 

First up, get rid of some of that Welsh mud and there was quite a bit of it. Pressure washer and wets then, and a bit of lying down on the job, to get at the underside of the car. At first sight, it looks as if the time spent protecting the exhaust and fitting the deflector flaps, has paid off. The vulnerable area seem to be fine, but obviously when the car has drip dried and is in the workshop, I will be able to take a better look. The engine bay was in bad way as well, I might think about some side skirts, similar to those that we run on the Escort in Kenya.

You end up chasing your tail a bit. Spray under the wings and the mud comes up into the engine bay, spray it from the engine bay and it heads back where it came from.

One thing of interest [well at least to Chris Edwards] is the difference our rear wheel mud scrappers make. The O/S one has worked perfectly and the inside of the wheel is squeaky clean, the N/S one has obviously been knocked and the result was about 2 kg of crap inside the wheel. This obviously happened at some point on the second day, as both had been in place on Friday night.

 

So, somewhat damper than when I started, the car was clean and ready to go inside.

 

The aftermath

Just for a change and because it isn't going to happen for much longer, I thought I would do a follow up to Wales Rally GB. 

When the event finished, the team made a list of things that needed doing before the next event. This time, the list wasn't very long. The spot light issue was obviously top priority along with finding out what had knocked the steering out of line. The remaining jobs, the speedo, cam cover oil leak and calibrating the trip, are relatively simple. Two that aren't quite so straightforward are trying to straighten the sumpguard and if that isn't possible making a new one and trying to stop the ingress of water into the car.

Before any of that can take place, the car needs cleaning  and that's not going to be a quick job.

We did have a quick look at the spot lights and found the problem straight away. A quick wiggle test turned up problem. The supply fuse holder had become corroded, simple as that. Nothing to do with our new wiring and would have happened even with the old pod. 

We had made some changes to Dave's Sprinter [see workshop] and had tested them over the weekend. Most had worked fine, but now need to be finished off. The as the crow flies leads to the inverter will now be tailor made and run through holes in the seat mounting box.

The RAC is an entirely different scenario to Wales Rally GB. Multi point servicing and chase cars all featuring in the five day event. Because of the anti-social hours, last time, we fitted a microwave in the van and Andrew took on catering duties. This time, we will do the same, although plans to stay in the same place as last time have been thwarted. The building is being refurbished, so Stefan is searching for a holiday cottage, which gives us a lot more freedom.

My Skoda estate is currently favourite for chase car, but that might change to the Monterey, if the weather threatens snow. The weather might also play a part in Richards tyre choice, but that, we be made much closer to the time.

From the latest bulletin, it would appear that on Thursday and Friday, there is limited management service but Saturday, Sunday and Monday have chase after every stage, so I guess I will be a busy boy, for my last UK event. 

 

 

 

 

A bit more livery

As I thought, the rear section of the graphics was a bit of a mare, but I did get it sorted in the end. The other side, although I had some experience from the drivers side, was even worse. It took all day to get it finished.

While I was playing stickers, Andrew sorted the mods to the spot light wiring.

The relay went into the OE location and the wiring was then fed up the channel in the bonnet. This meant that the wiring could stay there permanently. The two lamps will stay independently wired for ease of service.

As before, there is a 3 position switch, off, on dip controlled and on independent of everything.

Just need some darkness to try them in.

One last minute job which Richard reminded me of, was the problems we have had with the bonnet pins. Historically they kept coming loose, so some lock nuts were in order.

The only problem with that, was that the bumper had to come off to get the headlamps out to get at the bonnet pins. With the head lamp out, it was easy to get at the pins.
To make it easier in future, I shortened the existing pins.

New Look

The new look to the Honda took a step forwards today, as I started applying the decals. The problem with the new look, is that the decals are designed for a late model Civic, NOT our early model.

Having accepted the challenge, I started to fit them, thinking that I would cross any bridges brought about by the different shapes and sizes of the two different models as I crossed them. The car set is made up of four sections, so I started on the drivers side. Not the easiest of jobs, especially as there is a trim strip on our doors. However, after following a large learning curve, I managed to get the first section on. There was just place where I had to cut and shut a
, but otherwise I was quite pleased with the result. The second section actually interlocks with the first, but will be a bit more of a challenge because this is the area of most change.

 

Most Boxes Ticked

With most of my check sheet boxes ticked, I took the car for a road test. My repairs to the speedo appear to have worked, no crazy jumping at around 40 mph, rock steady all the way up to, well, that would be telling. 

With the suspension all settled, I was able to do a final geometry check. Time to move on to the new spot lights. Richard has bought some Lazer LED spots and having had a look, I decided to use our previous mounting points for a starting point. This meant that I would only need to add two more riv-nuts and could use the rear two for stay bars. First job was to fix the sliding mounts in position. They are held in place by grub screws. In order to locate the stay bars on the top of the lights, I made a slider, with the ball part of a ball & socket joint on it. 

In order to try to get things lined up, I ran a string across between the two lower mounting screws from our previous pod mounts. This gave me a location for the second fixing riv-nut.

To prevent any trouble with drill slippage, I put masking tape around the hole, before drilling and fitting an M6 riv-nut. It looked good, when I fitted the light unit. One down and one to go. Same scenario, marking and drilling the hole and the
second unit was fitted.

I had made two sliders for the top of the lights to fix stabilises to, but need to get the lights more or less set up, before cutting the studding to length.

Next up, the wiring. The previous lamp pop had the relays built into it, so a little change to the wiring loom was going to be required.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tripping Up

The nearside hub is the one used for the trip probe, so while I was changing it, it was an ideal opportunity to check the functioning, just in case there was a difference in the hubs. No clearance problem this time.

Another box ticked.

 

 

The next little issue arose when I came to fit the new pads. One of the sliders was seized. A little work for the bead blaster again. The cause, a split in the dust shield, time for the super glue in the absence of a new boot.