It has been a while since I have put anything on here, some of you know the reason, I am hoping that that by the time you read all this stuff everything has been sported one way or the other! let go back a few weeks, dam it seems like forever already, we had a good Dragstalgia and a lousy July Shoot-out due to Engine damage, much of which we were carrying at Dragstalgia which makes the string of 8 second passes even more incredible.
Lorni and I are supposed to be living in Spain now so the season before last I signed the car over to Steve for a nominal fee as by now it should be him that is driving and running the car, which has always been my plan, But we have had to put that off for 18 months,,sorry Steve I will get you in the car soon I promise.
The damage tot he cars engine was quite severe a bit more severe than we firs thought, the good thing is the cost of repair and parts is not very much it's just the time to strip it and rebuild and set her up again which is the real pain. Once we knew exactly what was needed Steve and I pooled our dosh and ordered the parts.
We knew the heads would have to be welded up courtesy of Mr. John O'Sullivan who also pressure tested the heads for us, this is where we found there was a problem with valves seating on the other head the left bank. hmmm! All pistons were fine including the ones that were getting hit as they were the wrong way round, the valves however were not and in the end we had to replace 5 of them. We ordered a new set of piston rings this time with a better top ring set (will still accept nitro if ever wish to try that stuff LOL ) We had to order a new flex plate as our old new one had been hammered, we also found some wear on the bearings..shells so we decided that seeing we had the engine in bits we would change the big end shells, the mains and the cam shaft bearings again nothing very expensive just a pain to do.
The parts turned up in time we thought, Steve started to put the many parts back together again, the engine was in bits in his shed.
But then problem number 1 they hadn't sent the crankshaft oil seal oops it would take too long to send one from the States as we were trying to get the car ready for testing at the RWYB on the Sunday after the Firework show at the Pod. So I ran round the usual suspects in the UK all had sold out?? one last chance Real Steel and bless them they had the correct ones in stock..phew saved and it was delivered the next day, Steve could now get on with the rebuild, well it was slow progress as once again he had to file fit the rings and there were 8 sets of them!! he managed to file his fingers as well and get through the first cutting disk in short time...
Time was running out, the engine was still in Steve's shed, the rest of the car was still in the back of the truck at Steve Fields place a few miles away..
The plan was to build up the bottom end of the block and then take it with the rebuilt heads up to the truck and fit them in the car..time as running out...
In steps John O'Sullivan again who lets us use his workshop so we can bring the truck down to Swindon and work on the car till late..it is now Saturday evening we wanted to run the car the next day, Brother and fellow crew member Dave then high tails it Swindon to also help out I stay awake until the early hours waiting for the call to come and get her and take her to the Pod...
... the last couple of photo's is where they got to at around 5am!!! so we called it quits, a valiant effort but, just too much to do in a short space of time.
So Steve will continue to put the car together over the next few days and fingers crossed we hope to fire her up soon and check everything over before putting her away for the winter, this is why I have voted for my own crew in the Wild Bunch Ballot..they deserve it.
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