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.

The tow truck, Dodge Ram, has some work done but still needs more, especially the LPG system. Most of the work has been completed on the trailer.

Before we can get the dragster home to strip down we need somewhere to work on her, Now a little while ago I put on this blog the saga of Steve's workshop well! it isn't over yet even though the workshop is now up it wasn't in any way waterproof and the condensation was a big problem and the installers put it too close to the fence between Steve's place and the neighbours.

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.

Perry and the guys are hard working dependable builders anyone n the area has any building work needing doing give the guys a call. Steve has some special material to cover the inside of the workshop to stop condensation once its dry inside.

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???

To finance this project Steve has what is now a rare car hidden away at a secret location, a project he started a few years ago a MK 1 Astra GTE the car has had a new front bulkhead new wings new front valance and it has an undamaged un cracked dash along with a later 2 litre turbo motor to go into it, With only a few left registered on the road this is now a rare beastie there was a recent project Mk1 GTE on e-bay that went for over 7 grand and that one needed the panels doing hmmm.

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??????

That's it for now I hope everyone else is having a great time fingers crossed we may see you all at the track next year.

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.

Video clip courtesy of SantaPodTV please click on the link for complete video

Steve took it easy had a bit of a wobble at the start but came of the throttle at around 1000 foot as he could feel a vibration the alignment had gone awry again. I get a phone call from a very tired and disappointed Steve telling me he had enough and was going to pack up and come home.

But as most of you know Steve never gives up and with some help from Steve Fields and the Collivers he managed to align everything again but he was still working very late and once the car was back in one piece it was towed around the Pod site just to make sure the alignment didn't move but he missed the fire burnout...sorry folks couldn't be helped.

Sunday came around and the team made three runs, not the best runs but at least the car went down the track.

Video clip courtesy of SantaPodTV please click on the link for complete video

After the last run the alignment was checked again and....it had moved again so it was fast becoming obvious we had chassis issues. This car has been with us for 10 years and has run as fast as 8.2 seconds @ 160mph for the quarter mile and it has proved too much for the old chassis, it. has served us well and given us many great memories but I am sad to say that is it for this car we are retiring the old girl as of now, so wont be entering anymore competitions for the foreseeable future. We need to spend some time to clear our heads and have a think...done that! Tight Fit Too coming soon...? Watch this space.

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.

I got a call from Steve Saturday night to tell me that the car has first gear, second gear feels "Funny" and when the revs are built up the wheel speed does not increase and there is no reverse. I was out with friends at a local bar it was getting late so  I told Steve to pack up go home get some sleep and attack it fresh in the morning and if getting nowhere give out friend John O'Sullivan "Mr Mopar" a call and ask him to come over to the workshop and have a look. Now another problem was solved, because the team came fourth in the Wild Bunch series last year the car now has a new number however with no time to sort out stickers Steve improvised.......!

Now all racers know there are things called Gremlins horrible little critters that come out at night and fiddle with the settings on the cars, we know this because you can have the car set up beautifully all day, leave it overnight and in the morning nothing works properly, well in this case the reverse happened, Steve went back to the car in the morning and low and behold the gears all worked properly, thank you Gremlins. John O came round and told Steve to just up the idle speed a little bit and....da daa the trans brake worked as well so reverse is now doing what it should. The car was put back together and loaded into the trailer to find out 1. That it fits now 2. Where to put the tie down rings? and yes the dragster does fit but only just after Steve's mods to the trailer, and I have to say this...it was a tight fit!

The trailer was washed and scrubbed and the car put inside for the night so it now looks very likely that the team will be at Dragstalgia after all but it took some doing, a massive effort from Steve.

Only a couple of jobs left to do now fit the tie down rings tonight then tomorrow change the dragsters fuel lines on Wednesday load the trailer up and clean the dragster and of course Thursday head for the Pod ..Well done Steve.

The car is looking good and the engine sounds great, very crisp, here's hoping for a great weekends racing with The Wild Bunch. I wish I could attend but going to have to wait a little while before I return to the UK.

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

So the wheels have got to go back on and everything tightened and checked then the car will be started up on the stands and the running gear checked over to make sure everything works as it should and no more rattling noises. The team have a just a week to finish it all off and fingers crossed no more problems and they might just make it. Steve has already entered the car for the fire burnouts again on Saturday night.

Like of lot of teams we run on a small budget everything comes out of our own pockets all the work on the car is down mainly to Steve which of course is many many days of unpaid hard work, but I have to say Steve has been a bit lucky just when he needed it with one of the main stream on-line bingo company's So I would like to say a big thank you to our unknowing main sponsor Gala Bingo.

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.

The team should appear on the next update to the entry list, so what has happened then? with the gearbox casing now welded up Steve found damage to the brake band and the clutch plates when he dismantled the box.

A rebuild kit is on its way but the interesting thing is we have always complained that the change form first to second always seemed to drag the revs down and what Steve found was was the clutch pack had been put together with the wrong tolerances it was packed too tight!!! so fingers crossed this may help our ET's a little. a lot of the clutch plates were badly scored and burnt in some instances so again a rebuild may help a little.

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.

140. It's down to the wire....!!

So lets start at the beginning.. Once upon a time...no not that beginning. The team were going to sit out this year and make good on all the repairs on the trailer, tow car and race car. Well that was the plan! As all racers know once that little itch starts you have to scratch it so the chassis refurb has been put on hold till the end of the season. Steve desperately wants to defend the WB4 race number that the team are so proud of.

The trailer was in a sorry state it had been leaking badly and the wood inside was rotten in fact we were worried that the race car was going to fall though especially where the rear wheels sit. So first job rip out the old floor... not so easy as the side panelling sits on it so the side panelling had to come out and most of that was rotten too, The replacement wood was three times the cost of what was expected and now more wood was required to replace the side walls and on top of that it was not an easy job.

Once the hard work of removing all the old rotten stuff was completed it was then replaced by thicker treated wood which was a bit a trickier to fit than first thought, it always helps to have the right tools. Once the floor was down the floor covering can go in along with some new chequer plate for the rear for strength.

The rood vent was replaced as the one on the trailer was just plastic bag held together with duct tape. the new one came with an included fan, now that will be handy. Some of the aluminium panels had to come off as the joint sealer had hardened and was letting in water, problem was the screws had weird fitting so a special tool was ordered from the States which when used all the heads snapped off...! new screws were re-fitted and hopefully now there will be no leaks.

On top of that a solar panel was fixed to the roof to charge a recreational battery via a control panel which will power the interior lights. This evening Monday30th Steve's friend is going over to the trailer to fit a framework for a cupboard and work bench at the front of the trailer where all  the fuels and oil will go so we wont have to empty everything out of the trailer every time we load and unload the race car.

Tonight Steve will remove  the gearbox as we had have done more damage to the drivetrain than first thought when we zinged the motor on the axle stands at the Hot Rod Drags last year, The gearbox will be serviced and new seals and bushes fitted the axle is being re-assembled with the new ring gear by a company next door to where the car is being stored by experts. Steve has started the motor up already to warm the trans fluid up so it could be drained and it loos like no problems with the engine. the tow truck has had the LPG system fixed so if everything goes to plan and no more problems are found then with a bit of luck and a following wind the team may make the Nostalgia Nationals maybe. A huge amount of work has been completed in a very short time mainly by Steve himself, his wife Kerry must have the patience of a saint, Some help is coming Steve's way over the next few day's. The new fuel pipe has arrived and along with the new flex plate, as the old one was bent during the aforementioned problem will be fitted in the next day or two.

not many people know this but in  2005 Steve was involved in a horrible motorbike accident which resulted in him having some serious damage to his knee he had a hamstring and ligament graft with some metalwork that he never knew he had until 2019 he was also told he would need a knee replacement at some time n the future but he just put up with the pain.

But now but now his other knee is very bad and as I type this I have just received a txt from him at the hospital  they have x-rayed his good knee and now  he is now waiting for a date  for a further MRI scan to find out what the damage is and what they are going to to do to fix it, hopefully after the Nationals. nothing keeps this lad down for long. Fingers still crossed.

So if it wasn't enough that Steve has to go to work full time and in his spare time he is tearing about like a loonie trying to get the car and trailer ready to race he is doing it a bit disabled? so will "Bionic Steve" be able to get to the Pod by the weekend?? Maybe!