GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

[PaulAlex]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Top work again - I wish I got through 10% of the work you get through on your car....

[Graham]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

so I stuck the ring gear in the oven for 30mins, took it out and it dropped straight on

sounds like a result, but im thinking, either the ring gear is a tad big or the flywheel a tad small cos most ovens cant get them hot enough to fit, made more likely by the fact it came off

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Hi Graham,

The Escort workshop manual said heat it to 260 deg C and the oven goes to 250 so I thought it was worth a try

I think it came off after many years of being battered the wrong direction by an inertia starter - the flywheel is for a pre-engaged starter so the lip is the other side

Next time I have the box out, I'll add some tack welds to make sure it doesn't happen again

Thanks

[racing escort]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

I highly recommend welding or dowelling the ring gear to the flywheel in your case !

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

All the work was to get Fly ready for 3 Road Rallies in 4 weeks last November - after not competing on a night event since May, George and I decided to end the year with these 3 events, all in different areas to see how they compared...

Dansport 3rd November
This event was run by Matlock MC and George had done a similar event in April which was very good so we were looking forward to it. There was a full entry of 50 cars and we were seeded near the back of the Semi-Experts. We started from Chesterfield and the first section was a Special Test around Steve Perez’s private estate which comprised a bit of tarmac around his house then a few miles through his forest test track – this was great fun although the diagram supplied wasn’t much use and we got slightly confused trying to get into the estate as the electric gates were closed.

Off into the lanes the next section went well but on the following one about 1/2 a mile from the control we came across a farmer manoeuvring a slurry tanker to block the road. After a few minutes the farmer walked over and told us in no uncertain terms that he’d be woken by the previous cars and his tanker would be staying there until the morning. By this time 4 more cars had arrived behind us so it took 10 minutes to turn everyone round and get back to the control. As it was early in the event, OTL was only 15 minutes and we wouldn’t have made the next control in time, so our only option was to cut out the whole section and rejoin the route on the next section to get back on time.

The rest of the first half passed without incident although the timing was interesting, some of the codeboards were rather hidden and the roads a bit too fast.

After petrol we had a long section using some farm tracks and we were pleased to clean this one after catching the car in front, but the rest of the route was rather disappointing with long link sections and short competitive sections so by the end we were cold and bored, which is very unusual.

At the finish we asked the organisers to scrub the section which had been blocked and had affected all 10 Novice crews as well as us, but they were less than sympathetic and refused to do anything. The large penalties on this section meant we finished 30th overall and last in class.

Peak Revs 17th November
This event was the last round of the Welsh championship and was run by Ludlow MC in the welsh borders. It runs in the West Mercia police area which has a strict rule against spotlights so the week before the event I fitted some new Cibie headlights which made everything a lot brighter. Once again there was a full entry, this time 80 cars and we were seeded 68 at the back of the Semi-Experts.

After an early start we had a 15m link section to a large farmyard where we had 1h 30m to plot the whole route before heading out into the lanes. As is common on a welsh event the route used a lot of farmyards and small tracks to slow everyone down, but instead of diagrams showing where to go, they were laid out with plenty of arrows and straw bales.

We had a good run through the first half, finding all the slots and only had a problem in one farmyard where I didn’t spot the marshals and the spectators had to point them out! A couple of sections we cleaned including one through a forest but unfortunately got a few seconds penalty for booking in early as we didn’t expect to clean them.

The second half was great fun as well, our only problem was when dipped beam stopped working, luckily on a link section. By the time we got to the next control, George had found the spare fuses and worked out which one had melted so it only took a couple of minutes to clean the contacts and fit the new one, and being a link section we didn’t lose any time.

We had a very enjoyable night and we were happy with our performance, finishing 40th and 10th in a class of 40 Semi-Experts.

Guy Fawkes 24th November
This event was run by South Hams MC in Devon and Cornwall. As seems to be usual on South West events, there was a small entry of 27 cars. The weather was quite bad and it had been raining heavily for a few days so even before the start the organisers had to reroute a few sections which were impassable.

At the start we were given about 2/3 of the route and plotted this with time to spare, but there were 8 sections which would be plot and bash. It was an early start at 9pm to do some sections in forests on the edge of Dartmoor, and most of these we did not have the route plotted, we were just given a sheet of tulips as we started the section. Although we got to the first marshal on time (mainly because there weren’t any junctions), the tulips were confusing and some of the codeboards and marshals were missing so it was difficult to know where you were and there were cars going everywhere. The main problem was the lack of explanation about the tulips whether they had marked junctions, controls, codeboards, etc.

Once out of this forest, we had a short link section to the next one which allowed George time to work out the tulips and we arrived at the next forest knowing what to expect. This time it was a lot longer section and we got on better until the organisers mileages were inconsistent and we missed a junction. Still it was a lot more fun than the first one and all the marshals were there.

Out into the lanes it was going well, Fly coping with all the standing water and floods, the only problem was we were getting wet inside as the floor was leaking! A few times we came to junctions and the organisers were there to redirect us round the worst floods to keep the rally going. After the first petrol halt there was a 20 mile section which had to be cut due to the floods so everyone parked up and we had time to chat to the other competitors.

The second half was similar, George did well on the first few plot and bash sections so we didn’t lose much time and we only got confused once on a 5 way junction that was completely different to the map! But the final few sections caused a lot of problems, about 20 miles of plot and bash, the navigation was a mixture of various forms and was inconsistent. We parked up and managed to guess some of it and find a few controls but there was one bit that just didn’t work so we guessed some more and cut across to a latter part only to meet most of the cars coming the other way so assumed we had got it wrong. By this time it was 5am so we decided is was easiest to cut to the finish and a good breakfast. We found out afterwards that George’s map was a later edition than the organisers had used and one particular road had changed colour so the navigation didn’t work. The competitors coming the other way weren’t on route either as they had been re-routed round a flood and most of the route we cut was scrubbed anyway, but unfortunately there was still one control which we missed.

Our result wasn’t particularly good, finishing 20th and 4th in class. It was a long night, enjoyable in places and very difficult driving conditions. Although Fly was running well, when you come across 1 foot deep floods 100yds long it does slow you down a bit! The organisers did well to keep the event running, but were let down by a lack of marshals and inconsistent navigation. With the lanes they have in that area they could easily have given us the whole route at the start and everyone would still have had problems.


Gavin & George

[mexicotait]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Very interesting read as always gaving
Would love to see you come up and do some northern events
Hexam historic is a good relaxed affair with superb roads and always a challenge

[GJH]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Great read, gona enter the bro caron, now that they have insurance?

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

I would have liked to, but I'll be over in Ireland for West Cork that weekend

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

2013 so far

Our first event in Fly this year was to be the Bath Festival in January but unfortunately this was postponed at the last minute due to snow, so a couple of weeks later we entered a 12 car run by Cirencester Motor Club

George turned up at the usual time, but Fly didn't want to start - if it had been a proper rally we'd have tow started her but for a 12 car it didn't seem worth risking getting stranded somewhere so we went in my Diesel Corsa road car instead. We had a fun evening bouncing around the Cotswold lanes, although George found it difficult to plot at times (the suspension is a bit worn) and we slowed the other competitors down with smoke screens up the hills, but did well enough to finish 3rd out of 8

In February we did another 12 car, this time run by our motor club, Tavern. It used a lot of local roads and finished 100 yds from George's house. Fly was running well after I'd fully charged both batteries and George was plotting as I drove and we had an excellent night, cleaning the whole route to win by 1 minute
But when I went to drive home I found the starter had melted and shorted the electrics if I pushed the start button, so I had to get a lift home with my landlord who had been out marshalling

The inertia starter had been on for a few years so it had done well with 24v going through it. I picked up another starter off eBay for £6 from a Mk2 Cortina and it was only 5 miles away so now everything works perfectly and I also replaced the remote solenoid

Bath Festival Road Rally - 6th-7th April

Postponed from January and the conditions couldn't have been more different, we hadn't had any rain for weeks so the roads were dry and there was no ice despite freezing temperatures

There were 46 entries and we were running car 23, seeded 2nd Semi-expert. The event was a slightly different format to most road rallies with 8 Special tests in forests and 2 regularities in the first half, followed by 100 miles of lanes in the second half. In January I would have been running forest tyres but this time I decided I'd be better off on some decent tarmac tyres so fitted 4 new Yokohama A021R's. These worked well in the dry forests and we were quickest on a couple of the tests despite having trouble catching the dust of other cars. The first regularity was on Salisbury Plain and went ok after some confusion with the start marshal, but the second one was even better, a 1 mile blast up a private farm track, a chicane through the farmyard and then into the control where we were 2s early. Although we didn't know at the time, we were lying 3rd overall at Petrol, Fly goes very well in the forests and George was doing a great job calling the bends off the black and white photocopied maps which the organisers had provided for the tests

Into the second half, and we were cleaning every section, some by quite a bit, and were waiting outside the controls for our time. This was mainly because of the perfect conditions and some straight roads. There was one section though that did cause us problems as the marshal at the start control was a few hundred yards out of position and the wrong side of a junction - by the time we figured out what had happened we were a few miles off route and dropped a few minutes getting back on track, along with a lot of the other competitors. Next there was another regularity, this time plot and bash but George has been practising this on the 12 cars and got it on the map without me slowing down and we cleaned all of it. The only thing that was slowing us down was the cars around us - one section we started a minute behind the car in front but caught him after half a mile as he was going cautiously along a farm track (white road), as Fly is set up for bumpy roads we don't slow down for much! At the end of the white he still didn't pull over so I sat on his bumper for the next mile until he let us past and we got in just on time

Near the end the route looped round Glastonbury before finishing at Shepton Mallet. But disaster struck just 4 miles from the finish when the rear wheel came off George thought we'd had a blow out, but it felt a bit worse to me as I steered to the nearest gateway and got out to have a look with the torch. Sure enough, back left all 4 wheel studs sheared off flush to the disc, so that was it for the night. George got on the phone to a friend who was navigating for an expert crew and had just finished. Luckily he had his road car there so came out and picked us up and we got to the finish in time for breakfast. We handed in our timecards and when the results came out we were classified 27th overall out of 30 finishers

It was all the more disappointing as we were lying 4th when it happened, by far the best we've ever been doing on a road rally and it's many years since I've been that high up! George has made great improvements over the last 2 years and it was one of those nights when everything was working perfectly on both sides of the car, and then the car let us down. Still it shows we have potential to do well in the South West and I'm sure we will be out on the event next year - it was a very enjoyable night up to then...

[mexicotait]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Thats bad luck gavin
Even when everything is going right you still need a bit of luck

Few weeks afo i did a 12 car
Got lost just after the start
Drowned out in a ford
Hit a pothole and broke a wheel
But still finished 2nd
So you never know whats going to happen

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Very good

Tomorrow George and I are out on the Somerset Stages in the forests of Exmoor and a few runs up Porlock Toll Road which is tarmac

So after getting a lift home from Shepton Mallet, I returned with the van, trailer, some tools and spare wheel studs and spent 30min by the roadside repairing Fly before loading up and heading home
As the Somerset is a stage rally we'd be running in the 2 litre class with a lot more powerful cars, so I bolted a pair of 48's onto the Pinto (they were on DVY before I went to injection) and went to HT for a session on their rollers last week, gaining about 20bhp over the single carb

Also, last weekend I changed the other rear studs just in case they were about to break, fitted new rear discs (running on the disc for 50 yds doesn't do it any good ), hammered, filled and painted the rear arch which had been squashed by the wheel escaping, swapped the gearbox for FLY's original Quaife Clubman which I'd rebuilt over Easter and finally fitted the seats from DVY and a few other bits and pieces

Looks like it will be a good sunny day, we're Car 61 out of 100 in the main field, and there's an additional 40 1400cc cars running at the front, so it's going to be a busy day...

[oddy]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Good luck today Gavin,
Gonna be dusty!
Cheers,
James

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Somerset Stages 20th April 2013



Although I've helped organise the Exmoor Endurance the last few years and George has driven through the forests many times planning routes, we'd never rallied in them so we entered the Somerset Stages to see what they were like…

The event runs in 3 legs, 5 forest stages to start, then a short service to change to tarmac tyres before 2 runs up Porlock Toll Road, then a long service before 4 more forest stages. It has been so dry recently and the stages were quite dusty but as we were seeded quite highly we didn't have any problems catching cars.

Leg 1 started with Knowle forest, the only one I've driven through having marshalled in there a few times. It didn't go that well, I didn't really get into it, so George had to wait for me on the notes a few times, but at least no one caught us! Next was Chargot and it was great to see a lot of Tavern members out marshalling the arrival and start controls. We were a bit quicker through here although I got a bit confused near the end when there were a lot of corners all together. After a 10 minute break to check the car over (it was auxiliary service but we hadn’t bothered with any service crew!) we headed up to Croydon forest where the final 2 stages of the morning were. Croydon 1 was quite long at 6.64 miles, a few large rocks in places but not too bad and by the end of it we were going very well. This was followed by a short run through Timberscombe and then another stage in a different part of Croydon forest – this one we were 43rd quickest and when we saw some results at service we were pleased to be lying 56th overall out of the 120 cars still running. One slight mistake - as the service area is in Butlins car park, no refuelling was allowed so we’d planned to fill up at Tesco’s on the way past, but I didn’t have any money and neither did George… Luckily we spotted Steve Harkness who was running one of the tyre vans and borrowed some money off him

In service, John Dando and Hugh, who were there servicing for Rob Dennis, helped us fit the slicks and we headed off to Porlock. I’d marshalled here as well, but never driven it at speed so was looking forward to it and was hoping to set some good times. We had 2 good runs up the 4 mile Toll Road, going 10s quicker the second time but our times were relatively slow – it would have been good to take DVY up there to see how we could have done with a bit more power

A longer service this time, we fitted the forest tyres and Hugh rebalanced the carbs as the idle was very rough. The final leg took us back to Knowle, a very similar stage to the first one with just one extra loop added, everything went well again. Then it was back to Chargot for 2 runs in the reverse direction. Even though it’s a short stage at just under 2 miles it has a good variety of corners. The first time through, after about 1.5 miles there was a 6 right with logs inside through a dip – I missed all the logs but Fly took off out of the dip and there was a loud bang as we landed heavily on the rear left, followed by a knocking noise from the back end. Assuming we had a puncture I backed off and we cruised to the finish. We only had 4 minutes to be ready for the next run, so as we lined up George hopped out but there was no puncture her side. I got out and checked my side, no puncture either! I checked all the link bars and springs and everything was fine so there was no option but to clonk our way through the next run…

Out of the stage we drove to auxiliary service, borrowed a jack off Nick Eccles (who was doing Management for fellow club members Simon Munden and Gordon Leigh), took the rear wheel off and found an enormous dent on the inner rim, which was enough to make it hit the caliper every revolution, hence the clonking. I’m not sure how the tyre stayed up, but was just glad nothing else looked damaged, so we fitted a spare and headed to the final stage in Croydon forest. This was the previous 2 Croydons linked together with a few extra loops giving a 10.2 mile stage. We had a very good run through, everything worked perfectly and near the end we caught Simon and Gordon who had slowed when their rad hose split.

At the finish we were pleased to be 43rd overall and 8th in class, well done to George keeping her place in the notes as my speed is quite inconsistent in a forest, slow through the tight corners but quicker on the more open sections. Thanks to John, Hugh and Nick for their help during the day

And some in car

SS5 - Croydon 2

SS7 - Porlock 2

SS9 - Chargot 2 - spot the dip...

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Last weekend I had a chance to look at Fly - I was worried the rear shock might have burst contributing to the heavy landings, but the shock was ok and everything else was broken...

Bent rear spring - it's only been on a year, at least it didn't snap though


Cracks round the turret - although they've done well, bought from Peter Lloyd together with the 4 link kit and fitted in 1995


The same crack from inside the boot - there were also cracks in the boot floor and around the panhard rod mount


With the bank holiday, I had enough time to empty the boot and weld everything, adding a few plates to the turret, although maybe next winter I'll have to change them. I've also swapped the rear stub axle for a spare - it looked ok but that's twice in as many weeks I've had a problem on that corner - and I fitted a new wheel bearing as well

I think it has highlighted that I need some more ground clearance / suspension travel at the back, I normally run quite a bit of fuel and 2 spares which adds to the weight. So I dug out a set of double leaf springs which were given to me by a friend many years ago when he cleared out the late Charles Golding's garage - they were spares for his Autocross winning Mk2 Escort. No idea of the spec, I've never seen double leafs before, but they are Mk1 Escort width slipper springs, probably made by Gartrac and will be fitted this weekend

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Another busy couple of weeks as I had entered a Targa Rally over in Essex last weekend, finished Fly 3pm Saturday and headed off to my brother Derek's house in Chelmsford. A couple of years ago I did a lot of Gymkhana's run by Chelmsford and the Targa format has replaced these, the only difference being the lack of skill tests which is no great loss!

This one was run by West Suffolk MC at Debden Airfield. After previously competing there we were expecting some loose gravelly sections so I was running worn knobblies. Derek was driving his Endurance spec Rover 200 on some old Yokohama 21R's and we were navigating for each other

There were 3 tests laid out and we did each one 5 times, 3 in one direction and the last 2 in reverse direction after lunch
The first 3 went well, I was 2nd= overall and Derek 15th out of the 50 entries, and after the 2nd 3 I was leading by 6s from a Polish chap Tomasz in a Honda S2000 who made a mistake on the 3rd test which was the one with the most gravel

Unfortunately on Test 5 Derek stopped at the finish and clouds of smoke came from under the bonnet - we pulled out of the way, opened the bonnet and found oil everywhere, dripping off the sumpguard. There was still oil in the sump and when we started the engine it wasn't pouring out of anywhere, but we couldn't continue like that so we left it there until lunch and then put the Rover on my trailer for the journey home. We could only think that an oil seal or gasket had gone, so under hard cornering or braking, oil would spill out, but sat still idling it would be fine

I did the 3rd loop and was lying 2nd at lunch, Tomasz had now got to grips with the loose sections and was taking a few seconds off me on the smoother tests, so I was 6s behind. For the 4th loop, I was trying really hard to make back the time, but coming out of the last hairpin on Test 12 I changed to second and the gearstick went loose and we were left in neutral
We had enough speed to freewheel across the line and got a tow back to the paddock where I had a look to see if it was fixable, but once I removed the gearstick and found everything connected at that end, it had to be something internal in the box, so we called it a day

The only problem now was we had 2 broken cars and only one trailer After a bit of thought about what would have broken in the box, I wondered if I might still have 5th gear (as it runs off a different selector) and I did, so I drove Fly back to Derek's in 5th and he followed in the van and trailer...

Being short of time, that evening I removed the box and had a look in the top, expecting the roll pin that holds the selector boss to the selector shaft had broken, but this was fine (I had one break years ago and now reinforce it with a split pin up the middle of the roll pin), it was the pin that sticks out of the boss itself which had snapped off, something I'd never come across before, although I see Quaife sell steel ones so it must be a known problem.
I had a standard spare one, so fitted that Monday night, the box was back in Tuesday night and I had a successful test drive last night

This weekend I'm over in West Wales for the Classic Tracks, with Carrie navigating as George is away
I'm looking forward to it, I just hope nothing else breaks