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Had a great day out on the Tour of Caerwent rally, the weather was good all day despite the forecast being crap.
The first stage was very slippy indeed & caught out loads of cars including the team seeded at car 2 who were last seen with the front end of the car nose down in a ditch.
I made a few more mistakes than normal & overshot 3 bends & nearly damaged the car on a 90 right when I went straight on into a high kerb.
We finished 48th overall & 4th in class. We also got the 'best turned out' award which normally I'd be very chuffed about but in a rally its a bit naff to have the best polished car .
In the last few stages it was difficult to change gear, the box is leaking a bit of oil but a top-up in serivce showed that it hadnt lost too much. I drove the car home from the rally & on the road it wasnt too bad until the last few miles.
I got under the car last night and found that one of the clutch slave cylinder bolts had stripped its thread & come loose. I'm assuming this is the full reason for the gear change problems . I've had to drill & re-tapp the hole with an M10 bolt instead of the M8.
The starter motor felt 'loose' despite the bolts to the bellhousing being tight. It turned out to be the bolts that hold the motor to the face plate so the motor came off to fix that.
One bellhousing bolt loose (hanging out), exhaust clamp loose, spring shackle bolts needed nipping up, one wheel bearing needs tightening, steering rack is kaput but apart from all that it survived well.
I spanner checked the whole car before the rally so it shows how much strain & vibration the car is under during a stage rally.
Had a bit of an episode today, I'd fitted a new steering rack & set of the toe with a tape measure.
I was just off to get it checked & drove about a mile when my oil light came of and pressure gauge dropped to zero
Lifted the bonnet & found one of the oil cooler pipes had come off and sprayed most of the contents of the sump over the engine & the road.
The oil cooler pipes were bought pre-swaged but the crimps were miles too loose. one hose off & the other nearly off .
I pulled off all the 'high pressure' crimps with just my oily fingers as tools! I've replaced them with jubilee clips & it all seems leak tight.
Better now than during the rally on the weekend!!
Blood shit quality tho
Had a good day out, forecast was rubbish but wrong as usual with dry weather all day . This was a round of the welsh tarmac championship so some quick cars were there.
Dewi Mason was in the co-drivers seat for this one, his second time in my car. 1st stage was slowed a bit as a Nova had hit a BIG farm trailer into the road leaving very little space to get past.
The car went well and we up to about 6th in class but on the very last stage the rotor arm failed & we lost about 4 minutes . This has happened to me before so I had a spare one in the pocket of my overalls, we got a finish but the damage had been done as there were just a few seconds separating lots of crews. Think we finished a few places from last .
Rhodri Lewis took these excellent photos & kindly gave permission to post them here. Thanks Rhodri
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