Here we are in the middle of February and a lot of decisions have been made with regards to my life and where that life will be in the future, this year my wonderful wife Lorni and I will be re-locating to Spain but the race team will continue albeit with a different driver eventually. So how did we leave last year? well it was the worse year yet for the team we just about destroyed the motor on the Friday RWYB at Dragstalgia 2017 It denormalised both Steve and myself to the point where we both thought about giving drag racing altogether. That thought lasted around 20 seconds, we had a plan, in the meantime Dave and I continued to support The Wild Bunch in the only manner left open to us, and that was as spectators not what we wanted but better than nothing, I was really upset that we as a team couldn't race again at Shaky last year as we now know that opportunity is now lost to us.
We got our engine back just after the end of the 2017 season so we decided to just pop it in the trailer and wait for this year. A couple of weeks ago I got hold of Steve and arranged a date to meet up at the trailer with Dave and my other son Phil to get this job done. As this was arranged a while before the event I had at that time no idea what the weather was going to be like which is always a worry when working outside..
So last Sunday the 11th we all met up at the usual place that being the BP garage on the outskirts of Bedford, we then made our way to the trailer, the sun was shining but hell it was cold. We don't have a workshop or garage so everything is carried in the trailer, first job was to empty as much out of it as we could, then pull the trailer onto some flat ground so we could get the dragster out of the trailer along with the engine and engine hoist.
Next job was to get the dragster pushed round out of everyone's way where we could work on it and get the engine back where it belongs.
Then remove all the body panels and get to work, the boys did good and it didn't take anywhere near as long as I thought it would to get the motor back in and connected up, it wasn't long before we were ready to try and fire her up, timing was checked fuel pipes re-connected, battery connected, fuel in the tank and oil in the sump hmm! it was cold and the oil was thick and we couldn't get the oil pressure we needed before we hit the ignition so... Steve had a bright idea of using the old dizzie shaft as an oil primer...worked a treat we were ready.
First hit of the ignition and we were rewarded by the biggest, loudest back fire I had ever heard I nearly lost my coffee, 180 degrees out.. so fix that check firing order one last times and.....
..she's alive!!!! OK so the timing isn't right yet but she ran for a wee while until the guys noticed a small fuel leak on the pipe that leads from the tank to the pump, so that was fixed and the timing fettled a wee bit time for a second try.
She fired up great but soon petered out, so it would help if the fuel was turned on guys, I shouldn't laugh as that is something I do on a regular basis...so lets try that again shall we...
..right so here's a handy tip for all you budding drag racers out there, even though the car is on stands and is in neutral it doesn't mean it is safe as the wheels will still turn! so don't lean on them while starting the car, secondly don't place the starter battery anywhere near the landing zone it could hurt. One last time then...
..result everything is fine timing is nigh on correct the fuelling isn't that far out if at all and we have amazing oil pressure, time to put it all together and packed away, it didn't take much time to get the body panels back on and the tools cleared up. We couldn't run her up again as we had already pushed our luck a wee bit, behind the fence that is behind the yellow and red dumpster is a four star hotel so not wanting any uninvited intervention we called it a day.
It was at this point that the bad weather front we had heard of decided to turn up 40 minutes early, it came down quick and hard we had snow sleet and rain right at the point where we had everything out of the trailer and exposed, bloody typical and on top of that I had left the window down on the truck so I had a wet seat, never mind we have a race car again something I was beginning to doubt that would ever happen.
The A team worked hard and quick very proud of them, the engine is probably running properly for the first time since we had it built. We have a couple of small things to sort out, Steve is going to get his mate to make us a new set of header adapters up as there are some stripped threads on the old ones and somewhere in the trailer is the chromed thermostat cover that blanks off the hole on the inlet manifold and I have to sort out the cut wires on the trailer brakes and sort out a few jobs in the trailer but we are ready 2018 season so bring it on....!
