98. If you can't race then...watch!

It was our aim to test at Shaky last weekend 8th - 9th but Steve..number one son and crew chief couldn't get the Saturday off. In fact now that he is running the workshop..he is now the manager, it is likely he wont be getting to as many meetings as he once did, so plan B was we would go and set up camp on Saturday and just wait for Steve on Sunday but!!!! I wasn't sure if the bits I had ordered would get here in time and Steve needed some time at home so I called it off, not something I like to do but family must come first. So we went on Saturday to watch instead. I met Dave there as we both had to come from different destinations.

It was really good to get back to the track it seems like last year when we last went??? Apart from the usual carts and cars there were a couple of Wild Bunch cars testing.

There was Ratchet Strap with a new motor, which I believe came out of the teams hot rod, the Browns were testing with their updated engine, Chris and Tania with Victim god that machine puts out some horse power and does the most amazing burnouts but maybe a bit too much for the track at least this weekend. It was really good to see Mark and the team back out with Ball Breaker. sporting a new front end and a few upgrades on the engine. Things didn't go according to plan on Saturday but on Sunday Mark piloted the car to a very squirely 8.6 second pass, with lots more to come I would imagine.

With so many cars now in the 8 second zone or potentially 8 second cars then this season should see some good races I hope. he cars I am thinking of are of course Ball Breaker, Azbo, Mike Gleadows new machine is set to run 8's we know that both Daryl and Steve Fields cars can run 8's Gonzo is running low 8's and if we get back to where we were last year so will our car and of course we hope tp see Sag back out in Daddy Cool running 8's, and I think there are a couple of cars in build that will also be capable of running 8's this season could be very interesting indeed. I can#t wait.

Back to our car first thing Monday there was a knock at the door and...yep the parts I was waiting for arrived many thanks to Dave at Performance Unlimited...

Now everyone has to have goals and I have never mad any attempt to hide the fact that I want to run a 7 second pass, can the car do it, yes I think it can, and I know I'm now not the only one trying to reach that magic number, We never had the heads fully flowed and ported I always wanted something left in the tank so to speak, something we could turn to to improve times if we needed to and we have a relatively short duration cam which if needed we could also change for a longer duration cam and get more torque so we have that in the bag as well.

In a few weeks we will know if we have made the right changes or not, we can always go back to our original axle ratio, we kept the old gears, If we do improve our times then Happy Days we then aim for the 7's. My first target is to get my licence signed off then to run an 8 at shaky we have never done this, always had direction problems there, yet some teams don't have a problem I think we need to start asking some questions regarding tyre pressures etc. Maybe it's the driver.....NOT LOL.

Whatever happens its going to be a cracking year...bring it on!

97. Nearly Done...!!

First off apologies for the seemingly out of sink dates, I have moved this page as I wanted to insert another page before this one so ignore the date on the top of the page this took place on Thursday 23rd March 2017.

I can't believe how much hard work has been required to swap from our truck to our new trailer, what I thought would take one good day has turned out to be three hard days work and only just about finished now. So yesterday morning was an early rise day for me I had a bit to do before I left for Bedford. In fact it was still dark when I got up, while making my second cuppa of the morning I looked out of the window and saw the most amazing sunrise I just had to grab my camera and try and capture that moment before it was gone for good.

Sometimes you just get lucky anyway that was the best of the day as from there on in it just got worse and worse, after sorting out a few bits and bobs I walked the dog in the rain along with which came a biting cold wind, not a good day to sort out rubbish in the middle of nowhere.

I left home around 10:30 to head for Bedford of course I completely forgot abut the temporary traffic lights and road works on the way to the M25 which held me up for a while then the good old Dartford Stopping, which is what they call the crossing these days, halfway round the M25 heading for the M1 my "Empty Gas" warning came on in the car, I had only done 137 miles after filling her up with 202 litres of LPG..hmmm that wasn't good I thought that I may have a leak? or that the pump I had used to fill-up from was faulty? I had two options continue on with petrol or stop of again at Toddington services for LPG, Toddington services being one of the few places that still have LPG pumps and where I last topped up but on the other carriageway. 

I pulled in to the services only to find a barrier up round the LPG pumps with men working on it I asked what was up and they told me they were installing new LPG pumps, ok so I wont be able to fill up there then. So off I went and low and behold the LPG gauge settled down and the alarms went off???????? phew!!!!

Dave turned up at the truck just after myself so we set to work, we needed to finish getting anything we wanted to keep out of the truck and put into the trailer then bag the rest of it up, and take the rubbish away, sounds simple doesn't it?

We have no cupboards in the trailer...yet and no underfloor storage and no side outside side storage so packing the trailer wasn't easy also bearing in mind that it was just about full before we started and the generator had to be accessible. After a few hours we had done the hard bit all rubbish in bags in the back of my motor, everything we wanted to keep was in the trailer...somehow!.

That's the cleanest that truck has been since the day I picker her up three years ago and yes I did hoover her out as well. Next problem was.... we had to start her up make sure she was running Ok and make sure the brakes hadn't seized on, she had been standing for a few months. The problem we had was that while we were at the POD at the weekend someone had parked their class 1 camper between our truck and the trailer (our space) so to charge the batteries up we need the generator running and bloody long extension lead to reach the truck, which we didn't have of course so off I went to the shops to buy one.

It didn't take long and she fired up, I moved her back and forth to check the brakes were not seized and while she was out we opened up the awning to check that was OK as well and then I put her back in her parking space for the last time as the next time she moves she will be on her way to her new home. 

UPDATE: 25th March

This Saturday Dave and myself made our way back to the truck where we finished cleaning her out and then we pulled the generator out of the trailer started her up and put the trucks batteries on charge for a couple of hours, The new owners turned up I went through a couple of things with them and then lead them to the nearest petrol station.

That was it she was on her way, she had been good to us so I hope the new owners have as much fun in her as we did.

96. A Testing time.....

So this was the day, 10th March 2017, we were all looking forward to, getting the car to the track and my chance to see how well the trailer tows..or not as the case may be. Steve and Phill met myself and Dave at the storage depot, we checked everything was safely stowed and hooked the trailer up to Rambo and off we went.

She didn't tow too bad at all considering the weight but! and there is always a but, it was the width of the thing that had me worried I din't have much room to play with...inches in fact, and that was on normal A roads but once we hit the country roads around the Pod well.....close your eyes and clench your buttocks time...phew!!

Having arrived safely (hmmm) we set about unloading the trailer and getting the car on its stands which we managed to do a lot quicker than we used to with the truck if I say so myself and now it only needs two of us to get the car out and put away.

The idea for today was first make sure the truck and trailer works...check, then we needed to put the engine in the race car through 3 heat cycles to run her in by that I mean run her up for ten minutes, let her cool down run her up again and after she has cooled down take the headers off and re-torque the heads down then run her up again, during this we kept her in gear so that we were running in the new gears in the back axle at the same time. 

Something else we noticed while we parking up at the Pod was that the view through the finish gantry had changed somewhat, it would seem that someone had planted some new wind turbine seeds in the off season and now in Spring they had grown to maturity.

Not sure about this but you can't stop progress I suppose, anyway we got what we wanted to do done a lot quicker than expected so I went and paid my money and donned my fire suit and we took the car for a little run.

Excuse my sons language and the quality of the video it was very cold that day and this was a hand held camera phone shoot. We changed our burn-out routine due to the lower gearing in the axle so I started it in first and once the wheels spun up changed into second, this seemed to work out OK on the run however the car kept choking as we hadn't changed the "Pill" since our last run last year so we were over fuelling her like crazy but at least we got down the track, the gears worked, no problems with the axle and no leaks. So a couple of quick calculations and new pill fitted we tried again.

Video footage a little better this time as it was shot with a compact 35mm camera, this time we made some real power the only problem was the track was very cold and had a lot of street cars go down it so not a lot of traction to be found but still everything worked as expected...until...we looked at the footage a little closer and noticed puffs of smoke coming from the right hand bank of cylinders at the hit, We are going to do a leak down test on her this week, tomorrow in fact we think it may be damaged oil stem seals as that was the head that was welded up after the damage and we didn't take the seals out, we will soon see.

95. The changeover continues

Just a very quick slight diversion here, now yesterday ..Thursday, I went back to Bedford to the truck to do some more work for a trip to the truck, it was bad enough that once again it took bloody ages to get past Dartford Tunnel, the new automatic payment was supposed to ease congestion if anything it is now worse than ever, but two accidents on the M1 didn't help either, nor did the dickhead in a  white van who cut me up on the slip road onto the M1 and the guy who pulled out right in form of me on the A419, on the way home I got caught up in a race between a BMW and a Merc absolutely stupid, is it me or has driving standards plummeted, I used to enjoy driving but not anymore.

Back to the car, I obviously arrived a little late but due to the aforementioned traffic problems, my brother Dave was waiting for me at the gates as you can only obtain entry now through the coded key fob which I have. We started work removing the compressor from the truck and re-locating it to the trailer, I put up some cleats so we could fix things in place , we sorted through a lot of mess. The big problem is and always will be space not matter how much you have it's never enough and of course the trailer is smaller than the truck so we have to e more careful with what we take we will get there..

Still got a bit of a mess in the truck to sort through before we throw all the crap out, which in itself is another problem where the hell do we put it all?? I still can't believe how much junk we were carrying around with us

As you can see it's a big job that has to be completed before next weekend when the truck is picked up and taken away, I did manage to find a Hitch Lock which is good will help with the security, of course the larger than normal size of the two hitch will stop most people from driving off with it. And I did fit the number plate so the trailer is now all legal and ready to go.....

So we got a fair bit done, today I am going to see about replacing the reverse light bulbs on the car and one of the number plate lights and maybe give it another clean, then tomorrow back tot he truck to finish f the stuff in the trailer and hopefully a lot of the junk in the truck, then Santa Pod on Sunday..fingers crossed.

94. Time for some hard work....

I really wanted to try and get everyone together last weekend but that just wasn't possible so it was all hands to the wheel this weekend, Sunday, first things first Dave, Steve and Al had to get into the storage depot but! the keypad entry has now been disabled and you can only gain entry with the correct key fob so...when I turned up they were all waiting very patiently outside.

We had a few jobs to do  and the list kept getting longer and longer...as it does. So what we decided was that Dave was going to open up the trailer and clean the oily floor out, Steve was going to crack on with the dragster, fix the sump leak and, put the body panels and wheels back on while Al and me sorted the car out, Al was going to wire up the electric brake controller, then we were going to replace the tow hitch and start swapping over stuff from the truck to the trailer..simple yes...err no!

After we had checked the trailer lights all work once connected tot he Dodge Al set to work wiring up the trailer brake controller somewhere during this the doors were closed on the Dodge and my keys were in the ignitions and...yep it locked itself!!!!!, with no visible means of entry I borrowed Steve's car and left for home two hours there and two hours back with the spare key, however just as I was entering the M25 from the M1 I get a call telling me they have got in using a very well bent coat hanger...so turn off at the next available exit and back I go.

Not long after that Steve had managed to finish the car off so it was mobile again so we pulled the old truck forward so we could go through the unloading procedure one last time.

As you can probably see the weather wasn't actually playing ball with us it was wet and drizzly all day  it fell a little harder at times. unloading the dragster from the old truck is at least a three man job two winches to operate and a large jack all  his because of the very low ground clearance of the dragster. I wont be sad not to have to do this anymore. I reckoned it took us about 2 - 2 1/2 hours to get the car in and out of that truck which is why we were always the last to get packed up and leave a venue.

It was good to see the cause of my impending poverty on it's wheels again and looking as it if it is ready to go..which it is near as dam it. We then pulled the trailer out very carefully as we still had the wrong size tow hitch on and then we put the dragster into her new home.

We have a hydraulic jack on the front of the trailer which when raised we could just push the dragster in, so much easier and only a two man job and a lot quicker too.

Now obviously we don't have anywhere near the storage room in the trailer as we did have in the truck so we have to be a bit ruthless in what we keep and what we will have to get rid of, life will be easier once this all sorted, I will be sad when the truck goes as she has been our garage / home for three years but we had to try and get the teams costs down.

The picture above shows our only real problem, the tow hitch, it isn't the right size I have had to get a bigger one but, we can't get the old one out and boy did we try everything, of course with it we can't go anywhere so a call to John O'Sullivan and on Wednesday we hope this problem will be solved. We still have lots to do to both the trailer and the truck,I need to wire up some 240v lights in the trailer and maybe some cupboards for storage and I need a number plate for the back of the trailer I also need to wire up the hydraulic jack a bit more permanently than it is at the moment. The truck needs emptying of all crap that we wont be putting in the trailer and then cleaning her up a bit and I still have an annoying squeak on my Dodge grrrr!!!!!! The dragster still has to be run in and the axle needs running in properly, and we need to install the fuel puke tank and the trans brake cooler but this will not stop us running her so we can do all that stuff as we go along along with cleaning her up a bit.

It's nearly time to go racing in 2017 "bring it on"

93. And so it starts.....again!!!

We are just about in March well tomorrow it will be March so there are some things that need doing to get ready for the new season. First on the list was finding something big enough to legally tow the new trailer, I had been looking for some time now but the small range of vehicles that I was after seem to be getting rarer and rarer especially those in my price range...LOL. But I did find something eventually. Say  hello to "Rambo"

Rambo has done a lot of miles but he has LPG conversion on board which will hep the atrocious fuel consumption of the 5.7 litre V8, I have had to order a new upper arm for him to stop the bloody annoying squeaking from the worn rubbers, 

and he does have some bubbling under the paint around the rear wheel arches which I may deal with this year or maybe next I haven't made my mind up yet. My trusty Citroen will have an MOT next week then she will be sold, then we will decide what the fate will be of the trusty old truck but by doing this I will have have got rid of one lot of insurance, MOT and road Tax.

I have also ordered a new bigger tow ball for him so it will fit the trailer and the electric trailer brake controller will be here this week as well.

The dragster will swapped over into the trailer in the coming weeks after Steve has fixed the oil leak and Dave has had a go at the paint on the chassis, Steve is also sorting out the wheels and tyres for the trailer. The fuel catch tank and trans brake cooler have arrived so something else for Steve to fit to the car.

I have renewed my racers club membership and my membership for the "Wild Bunch" so now its just a case of getting everyone and everything together...bring it on...!

92. Headache after headache

Ok so it seemed like a simple idea.....the truck is costing the team too much money to run and it only moves 6 to 8 times a year. So do away with the truck get a trailer and change my Citroen for something that can handle the weight. "Simples right"? Save tons of money right?

After the horse has bolted I find out there are some laws regarding towing and trailers, our trailer is just on the max size that can be pulled by a non HGVvehicle 7m x 2.55m, next problem is one of the four tyres has a dip in it so needs replacing and the spare has a flat spot which I knew about, it turns out that these tyres are special load bearing commercial tyres and an odd size £175 each...ouch!!! Steve to the rescue he found 4 brand new tyres for the right size that were coming off a vehicle that was being modified and only had delivery mileage on them all 4 for £275 bargain.

On Sunday most of the team assembled at the storage depot to re-fit the axle and have a chin wag about the coming season, race dates etc.

I was here that I found out there may be a problem with sourcing a suitable tow vehicle as the law mentions something max tow weights and the vehicles I have been looking at have max tow capacity of around 2.5 to 3.0 tons which is not enough as the railer weighs 2 tons empty, so it looks like I will have to look for something like the Dodge Ram pick p truck, I know crap on fuel, but not as bad as the 9mpg I get from the old truck and the steering wheel is on the wrong side.

At least it can pull just over 6 tons, anyway we will see might end up selling the trailer and keeping the old truck at this rate LOL.