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.
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