GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

[EricE]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Really been enjoying reading through your endevours with this car, looks like so much fun and is very inspiring! Just curious what sort of event was the Bath Festival Road Rally? Seeing a lack of helmets got me curious.

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

To cut a long story short, I put Fly's axle on Dvy for Ireland this year and we were losing a lot of oil, so when I went to swap the axles back I investigated the oil leak and found one of the axle tubes was loose in the housing

I'm rallying next weekend so don't have time to retube the axle so I've welded it all back together...

Removed the diff for better access to investigate the problem - you can see where it gets thinner to go into the casing


Missing pin and everything covered in oil


Balanced the pigs head in the vice and used a big socket and some extension bars to knock the tube out, it didn't take much effort


Tube removed, the plug weld didn't have much penetration and the main part of the plug came out of the casing easily


Retapped the pins to M10 and drilled 2 extra 13mm holes for more plug welds


The casing is worn at the end of the tube, but only on one side


Cleaned everything up, knocked the tube back in and clamped it in place with the ally brace. The 2 pins are in the original holes maintaining the orientation of the axle mounts


Part way through welding, did the bolts up tight and welded them to the casing so they won't come out. I also welded the end of the tube to the casing inside the diff and made 3 plug welds


Tonight the axle's complete and ready to be refitted

[Graham]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

fantastic, well done

brilliant write up as always

[alladdin]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

well don Gavin , must have been a fair few quick cars out.

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Bath Festival Road Rally – 7th-8th February 2015

Fly didn't need much work over the winter until I tried to start her up in late Jan and the starter melted together with the remote solenoid. Thanks to Chris (DrDub) for letting me have 3 inertia ones he had lying around, she was up and running again a week before the event

I’ve done this event every year since it was re-invented in 2012 and each year it gets better and better, this year there was more emphasis on the Road Rally section and the lanes we used were excellent with just short link sections in between. My usual navigator, George was away on a long distance event, so I asked Tavern Motor Club member Bob Rutherford if he would sit in with me and he agreed, having also enjoyed the event in previous years. We’d never done a rally together but I was sure we would get on well. He has many years of experience in all sorts of rallying, having sat with George's Dad and Brother on many occasions and I've known him for a few years through the motor club.

There was a bumper entry of 60 cars including some top crews over from Wales. We got to the start early and spent a good few hours plotting the route – 8 pages of grid references, including 60 Passage Checks and Code Boards, but at least all Bob had to worry about was calling the route as it was all pre-plot!

We started with 4 short tests and they were very good, nice smooth gravel and concrete tracks. We got off to a good start, 2nd quickest on Test 1 and quickest on the other 3, including fastest on the longest forest test by 12s – not bad on my usual A021R's as a lot of crews were out on forest tyres.

Last year, 6 crews had cleaned the road sections, but this year all sections were timed to the second which meant we were dropping time quite frequently. They had also added a lot more farmyards and unmarked triangles which had to be negotiated with the help of extra diagrams. Everything went well in the first half – I was driving at a good pace and we were finding all the tricky slots, farmyards and triangles. Even so, we were surprised to be told by Clerk of the Course, Dave Whittock, at petrol that we'd been leading the event by 18s after the first timecard, which was roughly halfway through the first half. This was helped by Car 1, John Davies & Nick Bloxham, clocking in early at one control and getting 2m 20s of penalties!

After petrol there was a long section round Numpnett Thrubwell, it must have been 15 competitive miles with the odd farm and track used along with the maze of lanes. I've been through here on 12 cars but usually get lost, but Bob knows these lanes very well having grown up round there and could pick out the slots and triangles very well. We got everything right, only loosing a minute on one very tight section and the odd few seconds on some of the others.

The pressure was kept up with a string of shorter sections and there was a good section across some fields near the end. We had a clean run through the second half, swapping times with Car 4, Nic Morris & Martin Phasey in a Peugeot 205, seeing them at most of the controls. There was no sign of Car 1 though which suggested they were going even better.

After a good breakfast at the finish we found we had been 4th at Petrol and we waited patiently for the final results...

2nd Overall was a lot more than we had hoped for, about 1m 40s behind Car 1, John Davies, and 3 minutes ahead of Car 4, Nic Morris. Many thanks to Bob for a great job on the maps, and thanks to the organisers and marshals for a well run event.


1st Test, hairpin left, aim for photographer on the exit



Somewhere in the second half on a muddy junction



Photographs by Brian Gilbert (Photosport), used with his permission

Next event will hopefully be in April

[mjr]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Gavin, what an inspirational thread !
Thank you

[onecamohv]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Great updates Gavin, love reading them, you are definitely knocking good use out of the poor car looking forward to more updates

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Hi Rich,

Good to hear from you - you'll enjoy the historic events in that
Not sure I've got much that would be any use for a 1.6, although I might have a spare quick rack if you haven't got one already? And some std M16 calipers

You'll have to bring it down for my Targa rally in March

Thanks

[richmcl]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Hi Gavin,

I've actually bought another Mk2 (my first one since I sold my orange one to do the 205 challenge in 2001!).

Mine's basically a near standard 1.6Ghia 4dr, so I'm starting from scratch. I'm probably (depending on what parts turn up cheap enough) going to keep it fairly std so it's eligible for Historics, so normal rally prep stuff to start with.

If you have anything you need rid of, please let me know.

Cheers
Rich McLachlan

[mexicotait]

GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Emptied now cheers gavin

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Have you sold the princess callipers yet

Could i have first refusal if you havent ?

Hi Luke,

I tried to reply to your last PM but your mailbox is full

Thanks

[mexicotait]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Have you sold the princess callipers yet

Could i have first refusal if you havent ?

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Some great pics there Marchy, thanks for posting them up

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Mewla Rally - 24th August 2014

We had a very enjoyable day on Epynt, a bit slow up the hills but flat out down them
I think we got overtaken on every long stage, just didn't have the power of the cossie to get us going, so it was a day of trying to keep the speed through the corners. The road rally tyres (21R's) gave plenty of grip and I was very glad I was running the big AP brakes on the front, there was no brake fade at all

Ross did a great job on the notes, he only got lost on the Burma Road when he got too far ahead but was quickly back on track. I didn't have any service crew, so Dave Whittock took the van to service and then went out spectating with his wife before coming back for the final service and brought the van back to Builth which was very helpful

I hadn't had a chance for a road test before the event and on the first road section the steering was wobbling quite a bit which turned out to be play in the front wheel bearing so I tightened that up in service, then on the forest link sections there was a rattling also from the front, this was traced to a knackered rosejoint on the comp strut. I left this to the lunchtime service when we had an hour which gave me time to swap the joint for a new one

There are some great pics over the jump by the black hut

We'd gone over it 3 times up hill in the morning, which normally gives a heavier landing, but I couldn't get up much speed from the start so it wasn't bad. Each time I went over I was thinking about the line to take in the afternoon...
Downhill to the jump, I was flat from the hairpin, I'm not sure what speed we were going, but I lined Fly up where I thought I should, we took off and landed heavily with 2 wheels on the grass
Luckily the grass is smooth and level with the tarmac so I just held her straight and kept my foot down
The hill then goes steeper down with a slight left - I dabbed the brakes and the pedal went a long way and then the front tyres locked up and I realised the rear brake pipe must have been damaged when we landed, so no rear brakes. A bit of on and off the brakes and we just made it round the hairpin to the flying finish

The next stage was 4 miles so I took it steadily and we got back to service where we had 20mins to try and make a repair before the final loop - I expected the pipe had gone near to one of the calipers and hoped I'd be able to fit a new union and carry on

Dave was back from spectating by now, so he and Ross put the last jerry can in while I checked underneath to see which side had gone. It was the driver's side, the brake pipe union on the caliper had hit the chassis rail which had fractured it and let all the fluid out instantly. Worse still, part of the union was still in the caliper so not repairable in a hurry
The obvious solution was to block off the pipe so at least I'd have one working rear caliper, but I don't have any blocked unions. Then I remembered the rear caliper bleed nipple is M10 fine thread which is the same as a standard metric union. In my bag of spare aeroquip parts I found a suitable union, screwed it into the end of the braided hose on Fly, got Dave to pour in the brake fluid while Ross pumped the pedal gently and when the fluid was coming out steadily, screwed in the bleed nipple to block it off. To complete the bodge, I tie-wrapped the loose pipe to the panhard rod to keep it out of the way, put the wheel back on and we made service out with about a minute to spare

The final loop went well, the brakes were surprisingly good, with a nice firm pedal and I assume braking one wheel on an axle effectively brakes the other wheel as well, I couldn't tell much difference. We took the jump flat out again, this time landing on the tarmac with the brakes still working

Back at the finish in Builth, we were 47th out of the 51 finishers and 5th (last) in class. I was surprised how far down we were but we did finish when about 50% retired

Many thanks to Ross, Dave and Diane

I'm sure I'll be back on Epynt next year, but it will be in DVY with a rebuilt cossie engine...

[marchy]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

My photos from Epynt the number plate made us laugh









Full set from the day here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsk1NNSPD