Our tow truck which is a 2002 Dodge Ram 5.9 litre 1500 has been playing up a bit over the last 12 months it had been losing oil, water and power as well as juddering a bit while pulling away so after sorting out the workshop the next thing on the agenda is sort out the truck.
First things first the front suspension has taken a battering pulling our race trailer, The trailer is a nose heavy american style trailer and it pulls the back of the truck down which in turn lifts the front right up where it shouldn't be, so most of the front suspension part were replaced bushes top and bottom arms etc.included the shocks as the original ones were in a "bit of a state" And while Steve was at it the rear shocks were changed as well.
Next job was service the gearbox, sump and filter removed and.....bits of metal in the sump parts which looked like bits of a retaining clip, Steve did some digging around and found that this is again another "common Fault" with the Dodge also the had been other damage int here and the clutch plates needed replacing so with his usual gusto Steve stripped the box down and rebuilt it...using his now new workshop! The rebuild kit was ordered and duly arrived but when Steve took the pump apart he found a broken spring yet another "common fault" so new parts ordered.
All rebuilt back to factory specs, this is when Steve had one eye on the impending closed doors test weekend of the 4th and 5th July even though the team were going to sit out the whole season to update and sort out all the racing gear withdrawal symptoms had set in but! there was one other problem while under the truck Steve found a water leak and it looked to be coming from the thermostat housing so a new one was ordered but it didn't cure the leak, So more digging around and yes another "common fault" is the front timing cover as it has water running through it and it wears and leaks so another part was ordered and a new timing cover was winging its way from American , this arrived with just a few days left before the test weekend. Steve stripped the front down and the old cover replaced with the new timing cover and what do you know?...leak cured.
Time is running out so just a couple of days to go Steve filled the gearbox up with oil and took the truck to work with him just to check it out but just outside Swindon the truck decided it only had one gear...so the truck was carefully and slowly returned to base and now no hope of getting to the test weekend. Turns out that yet another "common fault" was to blame for the failure. A governor/speed sensor was faulty a new one was ordered but wont arrive till the end of this week.
A shame but there is it not a lot anyone could do about it I am sure there will be more test weekends coming up, In the meantime there is also the problem with the rear suspension as I said the trailer is really heavy so it looks like a set of air bags will be going on the back and the LPG system is going to be sorted soon as well and re-certified. Once that is done it is time to turn our attention to the trailer then the race car itself new rear gears and bigger valve springs so we can use the 9000 rpm it is capable of and not the restricted 7200 rpm we have been running it with.
And some people think we just turn up and race eh?? keep safe folks see you all soon I hope.
