Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

[dudu53]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

Hello Mr. PALLOT, I apologize for my English but I am Italian.
Should I do the lower arms for a BMW 2002 used for historic races, I therefore ask politely if you could give me the dimensions (thickness and diameter) pipes, and the size of the uniball (rod end).

Thank you in advance

Dudu53

[martinpallot]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

Tubing is 31.75mm 2.9mm wall. The rose joint is 16mm

Got use of the bodyshop Last night so wheeled the car in after some last minute flatting down - by 2 AM the body was in paint. Priming the panels tomorrow and hoping to get the rest painted next weekend.

[Paul C]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

That looks fantastic Martin. You've done an amazing job. I take my hat off to you, especially for having to do it twice, and keeping the momentum going.

[martinpallot]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

Thanks - definitely makes it seem worth it now that it has colour on it. The last shell never made it this far so I suppose I can now officially say that after 2 steps forward and three back, I've caught up with myself and moved forward from where I was 2 years ago!

[exboyracer]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

looks great!

[david_white]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

Stunning

[martinpallot]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

Happy and sad past week. Happy as the car was finished last minute Thursday - logbooked at 7pm and scrutineered successfully for a rally I had entered on Saturday. All going well for 3 quarters through the first stage. Then after a long straight coming into a chicane the power steering died and left me wrestling to get the car through the damn thing. After limping to service and expecting to be greeted by a red engine bay covered in pas fluid I was surprised to see nothing wrong and the reservoir full. On closer inspection in turned out that the shaft in the PAS pump had sheered and come out about half an inch, taking the serpentine belt with it onto the last 2 grooves. After running round service and to the cafe trying to unsuccessfully find a tray to bleed the system into in the hope we could continue with it dry, we decided it would be safer to call it a day in case the pump broke up further and left us stranded.

On the plus side the car felt like it had a lot of potential, handled very predictably, brakes were awesome and the box transforms the experience completely when flat out.

entry will be going in for a single venue event on 13th July. have ordered an Merc A class power steering pump so will change the mechanical out for that and hopefully that will enable us to finish an event second time lucky!

Some pictures from Saturday

[mexicotait]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

That looks brilliant !!

[exboyracer]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

Shame about the issue with the PAS system, but you've got to expect teething problems the first time out!

The car looks fantastic, all credit to you

[4parajon]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

Top drawer mate, good to see it finished after all the hassle

[anguz]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

love that top bend at L'Étacq

[Benzo]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

Photos look great, the back drop looks alot like Donegal in Ireland, only that the sun is shining!

[kyleduratec]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

i love e30's and thats awesome

[martinpallot]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

We took part in the Jersey rally last week. Was a rush to get the car sorted we didn't do a recce which quite frankly scared the crap out of me. The event was spread over 2 days starting friday afternoon and running into the night, then running all day Saturday. 30 stages sown tight lanes all on close plublic roads. the cars still hadnt had a proper shakedown so I was very apprehensive. 73 cars started on Friday and right from the outset a lot of people were crashing, it rained most of Friday and the roads were greasy, by the time we got to the night stages it was pouring it down.

We made it through daylight but had various issues with the car. First problem was driveshafts coming loose which we had to tighten at every service, this was a recurring problem which had to be addressed every service, the brakes werent great to begin with, they had never worked particulary well and i ordered new pads as I felt this was the problem. These were fitted the day before the event and as a result we never had a chance to bed them in, eventually they settled, however the balance bar bearing then decided to move out of the pedal constantly, this meant it didnt really balance anything and we were stuck with the front doing all the work. Suppose thats better than just the rears.

The most frustrating problem was that when revving over 5k the clutch pedal would get lost and I would have to pump it to get it to disengage. not too much of an issue on long straights where I had the chance to think about it, however in short bursts i struggled changing down the gears.

By the time it got to night time I was much more at home in the car, howeverwhilst in the queue for stage stage when it was pouring with rain, the wiper linkage decided it would pop off the arm on the motor, i managed to put it back on and we started the stage, but by the first corner it popped of again and we had to continue with zero visibility. we still managed to catch a car on stage so didnt effect the satge times too horrifically! On the final evening stage (the longest of them all) we came through an artificially tightened hairpin down a narrow hill which had 3 1 ton bags of gravel on the outside. as it was the thrird time through i got cocky and went it too fast and jabbed the handbrake. we were greeted by a large thud when one of the gravel bags hit the rear quarter. Another thing to add to the list of things to do. we finished friday lying in 37th place (would have been 35th but we had a minute penalty for arriving early in service.

We started early saturday morning on and opted to stay on the hankook wets for the first couple of stages as they were still very slippy , half way through the day the rears were going off badly as it had dried up more or less completely. we changed to mediums on the rear and kept the wets on the front, this helped a lot.

by this point i was driving round the clutch and brake issues. the rest of the day was more or less uneventful , we kept it steady a tightened the shafts each service. on long right handers the car was filling with smoke as the rear arch rubbed the tyre so had to take it easy to avoid a blowout.

we finished the event at 6pm saturday 26th overall. Much to our surprise only 36 cars finished!

Overall very happy. considering the lack of testing and the fact this isnt an easy event at all we were over the moon.

plenty I want to change on the car over the winter but nothing fundamental. first thing will be having the rear wing repaired and a nice rest from working on the car for a couple of months!

[martinpallot]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

Couple of photos courtesy of JJ Gallagher