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.
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