48. Perhaps we should have left it alone!!!!!!

Looks like I might have to go and find a second job at this rate, Steve my crew chief and number one son has been very busy recently on top of his day job he has had a few after hours jobs to do and...he now has my Chevy to take apart and sort out, then engine went down to Swindon last week in the back of Steve's car which promptly wrecked the rear floor of his car and the side panels he then upset his better half by plonking the engine in the utilities room of their house till he could get someone to help him shift it to his workshop...shed.

After a couple of days the engine did get moved into the workshop..shed, where Steve has set about stripping it ready to refresh it...refresh now there is a laugh and a half......Ok so first the engine plate cam off and then the flex plate where he found the crankshaft oil seal was leaking rather badly..

Next the heads came off and that is where the real fun began...first off both head gaskets had blown between the back two cylinders so that explains the lack of power we thought that was bad until we found this............

The liner is cracked so again no wonder we  were having trouble tuning the bloody car and getting the fuelling right so 4 cylinders were leaking badly and then this one with a crack in it and on the same cylinder that we found the rocker damage on when we first got the car hmmm no wonder we were having a problem with a smoking breather and a sump full of methanol after every run and on top of this the electronic ignition box was set to 6 cylinders and not 8, its a wonder the car ran at all.

The valve stem seals are all rotten as well and that was only the top end Steve hasn't taken the bottom end apart yet so god know what we will find down there...Oh lottery win where art thou???

And just to cheer me up at the end of the day Steve sends me more photo's of the heads...cracked...is there anything on this bloody engine that is not cracked or knackered???

Ok so there must be a time when enough is enough and lets just give in as it looks like I am just banging my head against a brick wall here....who said drag racing was fun??????

47. First it comes apart.....

What a day it has been, I have been stuck at home still feeling like crap after suffering some sort of virus for nearly two weeks now, while I have been stuck at home Steve...crew chief and number one son has been very busy, he loaded up his car in Swindon and headed for the bad lands..well Bedford and in what looks like pouring rain started the arduous task of removing things...lots of things.

Ok so before that he managed a test fit of the new gearbox. bearing in mind that this on is a standard length box as opposed to a short tailed box that was in the car before it hit the self destruct button....

And low and behold...miracle of miracles it dam well fits, no machining or fettling required..there is a God after all.

So just as the rain came down the hard work started...remove axle take gearbox out again loosed all bolts and get engine ready for removal....

Making very careful not of where everything goes..pipes..wires etc then lift engine out and on to floor...

So at this moment the car is looking very sorry for itself with no drive train in it but not for too long I hope and no bodywork either......

So the engine is now winging its way down to Swindon where it will be stripped and all components checked and as I have already said if t he budget is there we will fit a stroker kit to her the block is going for crack checking and repair if needed. We still have the tank and wind shield to fix up and then get the car tagged I will sot some of the wiring out and then put her all back together again in time for February...fingers crossed.

46. The hard work starts..

I used to read reports from other racers that said the "off season" went too fast I now know what they mean it only seems like yesterday when we blew the gearbox up at the Hot Rod Drags and here we are in November and I am looking at the first RWYB's on the new race calender from the Pod for January????

So what are we up to then??well first off last Sunday I met up with Mark Coulsell who was letting me have his old Rocker boxes as we managed to crack one of ours...right next to where the bolt goes so don't think it can be welded.

The trip back wasn't so nice as we had the biggest downpour I have seen in ages..I hate this time of year.....

This was the view over the Thames on the Dartford crossing..miserable.........

In a few days time my crew chief and number 1 son Steve, is going to be taking the engine out of the race car after trial fitting the new gearbox, the engine will then be taken to Swindon where it will be stripped and inspected and repaired /  new parts fitted where needed and if the budget allows a stroker kit, I was going to have the hand brake removed and foot-brake fitted but I have been advised that maybe a left foot brake is not the wisest thing to fit to a dragster so maybe we will just upgrade what we have instead.

The master cylinder has been leaking for some time now and it looks like the lid does not seal but the brake fluid has taken a lot of paint off the chassis so that will be sorted as well, I am going to have a look at uprating the wheelie bar brackets...hmmm just in case.....

Talking of bodywork I found this piccie of the car in it's previous guise I would love to know where the front bodywork went???

The new gearbox comes with a trans brake so we are looking at how to set up the "two step" on the system so we can really improve our 60ft times..we are hoping to get it all back together and running for mid to end of February so we can go testing in March and get the car tagged ready for competition.......which means I have to get a licence so get fit time..well nothing much else to do in Winter is there..got to lose a few stone I reckon and that will make getting in and out of the car a bit easier might even make it go faster...?? talking of which if we just upgrade the engine we have without making any further modifications we want to run in the 8.7 sec range at least, if we go this route then I will be looking at putting together another block over the coming year with all the mods on i.e. ally heads, Scat crank etc ready for the 2016 season...and if I happen to find a supercharger sitting around doing nothing then you never know...??? now will my engine as it stands run with a drop of  Nitro in the tank???? Super_pro anyone??