my road rally mk2

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  • mexicotait
    Racer
    Decade Plus User
    • Oct 2008
    • 2436

    Re: my road rally mk2

    Its been a while since I updated this (again) and quite a bit has happened.

    Firstly after the wedding the mk2 went in to storage at a friends barn as id promised him id rebuild his MK1 Toyota MR2 that he’d been gifted. It needed quite a bit of work so in September I took the mk2 to his and brought the MR2 back to my workshop.










    It was mostly complete but they like to rust and he wanted it fully rebuilt and resprayed all rust sorting and a few upgrades to make it suitable for historic road rallying. This included fitting spotlights and wiring, sumpguard and a tripmeter.

    After about 5 months of work in my spare time the car was running and mostly back together. Then I had to get back on with spraying it.

    I had never painted a full car before so I told my friend he could pay for the paint and I wouldn’t charge him for the labour to paint it. It was a good experience learning how to paint a full car and it came out quite well. Not perfect but with a good amount of cutting and polishing it is presentable.





    After that was done I also got distracted by buying a van to convert into a camper. Not only would this be nice for me the wife and dog to go away it would also mean travelling to events would be a bit nicer and I would hopefully not have to pay for accommodation.








    I have also been busy helping run another friends mk2 in the British historic rally championship all year and also another Vauxhall powered mk2 in the northern tarmac championship.







    So all that with normal life and a full time job on top of it meant the poor mk2 hasn’t been touched all year. Until august……
    Hexham and District Motorclub

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    • mexicotait
      Racer
      Decade Plus User
      • Oct 2008
      • 2436

      Re: my road rally mk2

      So after spending August travelling around Malaysia I was then on a tight deadline to get the mk2 finished before the Kielder Targa in September ran by my local club. This was to use some very famous kielder stages including Shepherdshield and Pundershaw so I was very keen to make it.

      For the wedding I had only chucked the car together and I hadn’t even painted the engine bay or underneath so I stripped it ready to paint and stonechip. I also put a new world cup crossmember and engine mounts on.











      Then once it was back together a quick road test ready for the event.

      Hexham and District Motorclub

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      • mexicotait
        Racer
        Decade Plus User
        • Oct 2008
        • 2436

        Re: my road rally mk2

        Kielder Targa rally september 23


        After a bit more testing and swapping tyres over i was confident the car and I were both ready for a good day in Kielder.






        The day started off bright and sunny and travelled up in the morning to the quarry just outside of Wark where the event was based. Unloaded the trailer and chatted with a few people before cooking breakfast in the van and getting ready to start.

        Away from the start venue a small road section took us into Kielder forest to the first test. It had been raining quite heavily in the run up to the event but the day itself was dry meaning the tracks were very slick and muddy.



        Into the first test I was struggling to remember how to drive and judging the grip but we got through cleanly with a average time. The second test wasn’t much better as it was very tight. The car felt ok but the brakes weren’t working well so on the next road section I checked the bias to find it wound all the way to the back. After adjusting this it was much better and the car was behaving like it used to.



        The third test was very good, fast and flowing and I was finally getting back into the groove.
        Unfortunately at the end of this test my friend Liam was parked up having snapped the Track rod on his mazda leaving him with no steering. He managed to bodge this back up to get back to service but that was him out for the day.



        We made it back to service and gave the car a brief check over and found nothing to do but quite a few cars were having mechanical problems. We set off once again to repeat the first loop. The first test was much better this time I was being more aggressive and the car was responding well nearly 40 seconds quicker here. The 2nd test they had opened up some of the cones to make it more flowing. This was much better but on the 2nd to last corner we were a bit too sideways and caught a rock with the rear wheel. The Impact of this broke something in the axle we managed to limp to the end of the test but it realized we only had one wheel drive.

        Not wanting to drive it any further than necessary I rang liam who found the keys to my van and came with the trailer to pick us up. A short lived but enjoyable day. The car was working well but I really need to build a stronger axle. Even with uprated shafts the English axle isn’t reliable enough.
        back home I stripped it to find the inevitable broken shaft.



        Now the rules have changed for historic road rally cars which allow more modifications I can build a group 1 atlas which should hopefully be more reliable.
        Hexham and District Motorclub

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