147. A year is a long time in Drag Racing two years is an eternity

Well how time fly's eh? it has only been..what two years? so what's been happening then? If you can remember that far back! we decided that we needed to strip the car to investigate the problem we had with the engine to axle alignment, which we did.

Then Steve was slightly distracted by something. This was the re-commissioning for the track of Mr Mopar together with John  O´Sullivan after nearly  9 weeks of solid graft they got the car to Dragstalgia last year  the engine was fired up for the first time in 17 years in the pits, the problem was the slicks were also 17 years old and all the coil over shocks  were blown but he still put on a bit of a show. For The Hot Rod drags a few more bits had been done to Mr Mopar like new slicks and new suspension units but there is still work to do on the steering and an anti roll bar to be fitted, "A warning" the lovely Draper brothers who sorted out the tune for the car have a 5 second tune for Mr Mopar and yes you heard that right.

So then life and money get in the way, we have all been there, with the increasing costs of just surviving in this day and age there isn't a lot of money left over for anything let alone drag racing. But then another problem raised its ugly head...the gearbox on the tow truck packed up at this point we all thought about giving up completely. At the start of this year Steve was asked...no told!.. that he was going to be crewing with John in his gasser on street week.

A lot of fun was had and I believe they are going to do it again next year. So over the next few weeks Steve starts to collect various bits and pieces for the gearbox for the Dodge tow truck, once assembled it still doesn't work even though everything has been replaced? with a little polishing work from Mr. O`Sullivan on one of the shafts and some re-jigging by Steve the box was once again placed back into the truck and this time it works yaaaa The truck is then cleaned, checked over and MOT`d. And back on the road.

So now its time for the dragster, the problem found with the alignment was down to a buckled motor plate, the chassis checks out as straight and all the welds are fine, a new motor plate is being fashioned, so for the time being the car will be put back the way it was and fingers crossed the car will be back together again soon, maybe not in time for The Hot Rod Drags but definitely for next year.

146. It´s time!!!

Hello wonderful people well it has been a few months since the last up-date. Sometimes this thing called life gets in the way and then there is this dirty word called money...there is never enough of it!

Yesterday morning armed with some money from a good friend and a helping hand Steve took the Dodge out for a ride not before taking it to work first to give it a going over.

Then a long trip from Swindon to the depths of Bedfordshire to collect the trailer and dragster.

It was parked up over night ready for the mornings work, Steve pulled the trailer to the front of his house and got the car out. just for peace of mind and to heat up the oils before draining of course, Steve started her up just a quick squirt in the injector and away she went and my god that engine sounds so dam good.

So now it is being stripped down to just the chassis so its engine out gearbox out axle out etc, then the chassis is going down the road to our friend John O´Sullivan Mr. Mopar to be checked for any weak or broken welds and to check that the car is straight and that there are no bent tubes anywhere. depending on what is found will determine what we do with it ..front half it repair it or replace!!!

Steve is working hard to get the car down to its skeleton ready for transport.

Engine and gearbox out

Engine and box nice and warm inside

Packed away partly naked for the night

And that´s it for the day. a hard days work with help thanks to Jim Moss, Perry Quinn and Nigel and John and Tyler...To be continued

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.