Having cut the end off the new exhaust, all I needed to do was find a small length of suitable diameter pipe to weld on as a sleeve. With the piece slid on, I did a trial fit, then when I was happy with it, I tacked it in place.
Having taken it off again, I welded it out and added a small tag to the OE mounting on the tailpipe. This allowed me use the same mount as our non silenced pipe.
One more tick on the job sheet.
Now it's time to revisit that Terratrip.
First job was to take out the batteries, switch and wiring that we had fitted in Belgium, last time out. In doing so, I came across a little bodge repair that we had to do at the time. One of the nutserts holding the dash panel in place, had come adrift and we had used a speed nut to get us out of trouble. Not a problem in itself, it was just the wrong size, 6 mm instead of 5 mm, so I will revert it to 5 mm for uniformity.
As we had spliced into the original power supply to the trip, I wanted to use the new wiring included in the Power Stabilizer. Great idea but I couldn't find any sort of extractor to remove the terminals. I have loads of extractors, for all sorts of terminals, but being one of the smaller Molex terminals, I have nothing that small. I could have butchered the terminal block, but would still have the other set to get out, so EBay here I come.
Having gone into the sill stand history, I am not a lot wiser, so for the moment, I'm doing it the hard way. Whether the tubes get welded onto Dave's stands or the tubes get welded into the tubes, as it were [my preferred way], something needs to happen.
One of the problems with using the stands, is the height needed on the jack. This often ends up with the car starting to slip. In order to try to prevent this, I have added a third skid on the sump guard, which should prevent this
happening. [assuming of course that you have the jack far enough in]
Having got that out of the way, it was time to move on to the question of noise. As Dave has entered the Mini Tempest at the end of the year, we have had to look at the level of noise. It's not something we have had to concern ourselves with in Belgium, where noise seems to be popular, the more the better seems to be the norm. Back here though, it's obviously a lot different.
Time for change. Luckily, Dave had a brand new standard system. Just a little bit of modifying to do. It is of course smaller bore but I plan to offer it to the noise test in it's normal configuration but have this system as a fall back. Now where's the saw.
With Richard Phillipson's Opel Kadett now just waiting for some paintwork, Dave Dockree's Sunbeam has made it into the workshop.
A chance to put the new sill stand mountings to use. OR NOT. Having jacked the car up and slid one of my sets of stands in, I lowered the jack, only to be alarmed when the car lurched a bit. Rapidly jacking it back up, I thought maybe I hadn't put one of the stands fully home, but no both stands were fully in, so down with the jack again. Exactly the same result. Time for a closer look. Interestingly, although I have yet to find out why, the welded in tubes are a lot larger than what I thought were standard size. They are in fact large enough for me to put one of the tubes from a sill stand fitting kit, inside with no trouble at all. And unless Dave has been supplied with some stands to suit, that is what I will do. Meanwhile it's back to axle stands.
Having only been part way through the mods to the rear brake hose and raising the rear to it's pre-event ride height,I have that to complete, before fitting the new inline piece of Terratrip magic, to see if we can get the trip working as it should.
That then leads on to the Launch control and that seems to be a bit of a problem at the moment as I can't find any reference to installation on the SBD web site.
Following our successful foray into Belgium, there were a few jobs that needed doing to the Ti, before we delivered it to the body shop for them to finish what they started back in May.
First on the list, replacing the clutch centre plate but not before I had to grind the remains of the sumpguard bolts off. Before the guard goes back on I will have welded on some skids to protect the bolt heads. We were lucky, both flywheel and cover were undamaged. We have stuck with a Helix
sprung paddle.
With drive returned, it was time to sort out the braking issue. Before I had done anything, I had checked the suspension settings and in particular, the rear, with it's new springs. The back had settled 15mm and that was enough to allow the brake union to come into contact with the bodyshell.
My previous re-routing had worked, which was reassuring. I wanted to check the travel and took the rear dampers off. While the rose joints slip on easily enough taking them off requires a puller. Funny how one thing leads to another. With the
axle down, I noticed that one of the top bushes on the axle, like the clutch, had seen better days.
These were Powerflex bushes and this is why when we were running the 205's we moved on to a much better material. Same thing will happen here.
The latest re-route has taken the union to below the top of the axle and I have used a forged fitting at the bulkhead end.
With both drive and brakes restored, the car has gone to the bodyshop.
It's always a pleasure to go over to the Steve's at Track N Road, the only aggravation being the getting there. Either, a trip around the North Circular or the trek around the M25, neither to be undertaken lightly.
For once, progress wasn't too bad and we were able
to get started fairly early. I let Steve get under the car to fit the Lambda probe.
As we were basically looking to sort out the idle, which had gone out of tune a while ago, we both thought that the throttle position sensor settings may have changed. That meant either the cable position had changed or the sensor position had changed.
A quick look at the settings confirmed our suspicions. It was in fact the sensor, the retaining bolts had slacken off enough for the pot to move. Sounds simple enough, but being the perfectionists that they are, we had a cup of tea, before having a go at making the bottom end of the map, a little more user friendly.
Finally satisfied, I was sent on my way.
Now if I could just sort out the trip, everyone would be happy.
Back in the workshop, I started looking at the Terratrip. I talked to John Cartwright at Terratrip and it seems that they make a bit of kit to overcome the problem, so they have obviously come across it before. Rather than mess about I ordered one and would fit it before we set off.
NOT. Because the next day, I received no package. Back on the phone, only to be told they had posted it out second class, so heavens knows when that might appear.
Not to worry, we will have another one sent direct to Dave on a before 9.00 am delivery and he can bring it over with him.
The rebuild of the oil line solenoid, seems to have done the trick. We are back to being able to leave the Sunbeam without a drip tray underneath it and of course it's easier on the pocket.
Having made up new hoses, I looked at a new routing for them
The brake line re-route also seems to have done the job. At least, following Dave's test on
Saturday, there is no sign of contact.
For this weekends event, we have a new co-driver. Simon Taylor will take up the challenge of calling the notes for Dave.
In order to ease my life when we get to Belgium, Simon came over with Dave, giving me a chance to sort out seat position and belt fittings. As Simon wasn't au fait with the Terratrip fitted to the Sunbeam, he spent some time familiarising himself with it, before they went out for a road test.
One thing that did come out of the test, related to the trip and it surprised me A LOT. It just goes to show that neither Neil nor Nick had used it, otherwise, I am sure they would have mentioned that when you start the car, it kills the trip.
A bit of investigation has revealed the problem. When the starter operates, there is a sufficient voltage drop to kill the trip. Running a wire direct from the battery to the trip solved that problem but of course I need to sort the feed in the actual loom. And that might just be easier said than done. The wiring diagram makes absolutely no sense to me at all and Dave, who deals with that sort of thing in his everyday day life, couldn't make head nor tail of it either. So watch this space.
The other thing we did on Saturday, was to corner weight the car again. Having changed the axle and rear springs since we did it last, we now have an almost perfect diagonal split. We have optimised our, camber settings and ran strings to set the tracking.
Once I have sorted the trip out, it just remains to visit the Steve's at Track 'N' Road on Wednesday, for a bit of ECU tweeking, then a wash and brush up, before leaving on Friday.
After three weeks away, I have a bit of catching up to do, Belgium calls for Dave Dockree's Sunbeam.
When we fitted the solenoid in the oil feed line, we thought we had solved the oil leak problem, however when the car was moved into the paint shop, it dropped it's oil again. As it's a fairly
simple unit, I took it apart to have a look.
Everything looked OK, so I just cleaned it and reassembled it. Then filled the supply side with oil and left it overnight.
This time there was no leakage, so back onto the car and try again.
Having put the oil in I ran the engine up and now with the dry sump full & the oil tank full, we will see how dry it stays.
Then it was time to sort out the rear caliper brackets. I had managed to get some fully threaded 12.9 grade socket cap screws to use for mounting the now modified brackets. To help keep them in I used nord lock washers. When I came to bolt the near side caliper on, I noticed damage to the brake line, so another little job and another re-route. I
also notice some damage to the off side top link [axle brace contact] but am not sure whether that was accident related damage or not. Certainly something to have a look at.
I had forgotten that Allen bolts, socket caps or whatever you want to call them, tend to have shanks when they get over a certain length., This meant my plan to use them to hold the caliper brackets in place, had a little hiccup. Luckily my fastener suppliers [Apex in Slough] have managed to find some, but of course that means waiting for them to come in.
While I waited, I popped over to Dave's to collect another rear light unit, the one I had was missing part of the catch. As the printed circuit board just clips on, I just had to take it off one and put it on the other, the reason being that the connections are hard wired to the board.
I also picked up some stainless steel tie wraps. We use these to retain the Proflex canisters.
Back inside and I have given the damaged area a first coat of colour.
One of the problems with finishing off other peoples jobs, is that you don't necessarily know where things go. This has been the case with the rear lighting loom and back panel on Dave Dockree's Sunbeam.
I eventually got it all worked out but have made a couple of minor changes, in the name of serviceability.
The panel will get painted along with the burnt floor when that's repaired.
We have decided to run a slightly softer spring on the rear [22 instead of 24 kg/mm] and also needed to change the Proflex canister bracket on the nearside. [accident damage], which in turn led me to look at the rear brake caliper mounting bracket. I had noticed it was missing one of the nuts.
Just as well, as it turned out. The bracket was cracked.
Time for a repair
Removing the brackets revealed another little problem.
I will replace them with 12.9 socket caps, which will hopefully cure the problem.
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