It was parked up over night ready for the mornings work, Steve pulled the trailer to the front of his house and got the car out. just for peace of mind and to heat up the oils before draining of course, Steve started her up just a quick squirt in the injector and away she went and my god that engine sounds so dam good.
Tight Fit Slingshot
Sunday 4 June 2023
146. It´s time!!!
It was parked up over night ready for the mornings work, Steve pulled the trailer to the front of his house and got the car out. just for peace of mind and to heat up the oils before draining of course, Steve started her up just a quick squirt in the injector and away she went and my god that engine sounds so dam good.
Monday 14 November 2022
145. Decisions decisions?
It's been a little while now since we dragged the car away from the Pod at Dragstalgia rather downbeat after realising that there was definitely something very wrong going on somewhere with the chassis. We, the Team that is, made the decision to retire the chassis and take time off to either build a new car or just retire from competing in the sport altogether but! this dam sport gets under your skin and we couldn't just walk away so time to do some work and make some "difficult" decisions.
Steve's friend Perry is a builder and he had a look and told Steve that his crew had a three days spare and they would sort it out. They braced the inside of the workshop, unbolted it from the floor and moved it out of the way and then laid a course of blocks then they put the workshop back on the blocks and bolted it down, this time a few inches further from the fence.
The blocks were then painted with a waterproof paint and the doors extended with left over material from when Steve attacked workshop one, when he couldn't get it straight, all swept but just waiting for the floor to dry off then it gets painted nearly ready to accept the dragster.
So now the dilemma or trilemma even, the car? so after deciding to retire her Steve had a chat with our long time friend Mr. Mopar himself John O'Sullivan who after hearing what had happened told Steve to bring the rolling chassis to him as he thinks he knows what has happened. If it's fixable do we put the motor back in and race it while waiting for a new chassis, do we repair it if possible, then re-tag it and sell it on to help fund the new car or....do we repair it extend the chassis change the body panels add wings etc and not build a new car???
And just to make the decisions even more difficult, Steve had a job to do on a friends vehicle, some welding, but Steve's welder packed up so the guy bought Steve a brand new all singing all dancing welder.
So now Steve could weld up a chassis himself so we are looking at ready cut kits from the states and we have a jig that we can borrow soon once the car that is on it has been put on its wheels......Repair...Rebuild or Replace??????
Friday 15 July 2022
144. Dragstalgia 2022.
As I have already mentioned in the previous blogs the work put in by Steve just to get the car ready for Dragstalgia was immense and he made it. Steve and Dave arrived at the Pod Thursday afternoon, the only thing left to do on the car was to fit the new fuel pies which took a bit longer than expected they were still at it at midnight.
On Friday the car was fired up but there was a problem the gearbox was chucking out oil out of the dipstick hole, solution? drain some oil out....didn't work. Here we go again axle out gearbox out and stripped the gearbox guru that is Bradly Cooper came over to help the team out and found the problem a gasket in the wrong place resulting in low oil pressure and ruining the new as yet untried clutch plates. Luckily Steve had the old ones with him and they were given the OK but a bearing was broken during this time so Steve high tailed over to Mike Oates place who had our old knackered gearbox for setting up his new dragster, it still had the bearing we needed in it. Back to the Pod and Steve and Dave worked till 2am to get it just about back together. Up at 6am to finish bolting it back together ready to run. The team missed the first run as they weren't ready they were still trying to align the engine gearbox and axle but they made the second call.
Monday 4 July 2022
143. Nearly shhh!!!! don't want to jinx it...!
So sometimes not everything goes according to plan that in itself can be very stressful but add in a tight time constraint and the stress levels end up astronomical. Steve has been physically ill with all the stress of putting the car back together in time for Dragstalgia next Thursday. So what happened to cause all this excess stress? The axle and gearbox were fitted into the car on Friday, and the hubs were re-built. on Saturday the days work was to service the engine fill everything up with oil and start her up.
Wednesday 29 June 2022
142. Getting closer....!
An almighty thrash by Steve with a little help from his friends has seen a big step forward in the hope of getting to Dragstalgia. The gearbox rebuild kit arrived early, now this is because the kit that Steve ordered was found to be damaged and it was the last one of its type in stock so a more expensive and probably better replacement, a TCI kit was sent. A big thanks to Jegs who sent it priority post, it arrived in three days at no extra cost, now there's customer service for you. So Serve then spent a stressful evening repairing the gearbox I say stressful as Steve tells me it wasn't easy.
Next was to finish off the refurbishment of the trailer Steve, along with his mate manged to get the remainder of the woodwork completed and lights fitted in one evening another job ticked off the incredibly long "To Do" list.
Yesterday evening was a very long night for Steve the gearbox was taken from his work to where the car is being stored at the moment along with the rebuilt axle. First of all while putting the gearbox in place Steve heard a rattling sound the sort of sound that you shouldn't be getting from a re-built gearbox! so the box was put back on the floor and stripped where al oose bolt from the valve body had dropped out..phew! rather there than on the track. So back it went and then the axle was put in place another very heavy item, The process of aligning everything correctly was then undertaken and at that point Steve called it a night
Monday 13 June 2022
141. We are, we're not, we are........
We did announce on Facebook that we would not be able to race at Dragstalgia this year and probably won't be racing at all for the rest of the year because of the ever increasing list of damage that we have found with the car and not enough time or money to fix it in time. I don't believe in miracles but! there is now a good chance the team will be there in fact the entry has already been sent.
So the trailer is nearly done, the axle is ready to be put back in place the gearbox is on it's way to be repaired new fuel lines to go in and the engine plate sorted. Lets hope that's it and the team can defend the WB4 number.