Season 2002 Preparations
Target 150 Mph, March 2002
Current activities
The car is back at home. He has removed the head and fixed that up. There were 4 bent valves all up, so he has ratted the odd bits and pieces he has aquired for this motor to get enough good bits to put it back together.
Things to do
The canopy needs locating pins, as if it moves on the hinges
when closing, it bends the latch, and won't lock.
The clutch master cylinder need replacing, as does the battery
disconnect switch.
The gear shifting linkages are too springy, and need to be made
out of heavier material.
A set of narrower, but taller rear tyres would probably be nice
as well.
A better way of attaching the rear part of the body. At the
moment, it is held on with about 20 small screws and bolts. This
takes forever to get on and off.
A new tacho that won't break off, and is readable at speed. The
cheap one that I ws using doesn't handle the vibration too well.
Repair the self inflicted hole in the brake line.
The gear shifter.
The original shifter had many positive points. It was very basic, crude, cheap and quick to make, unfortunately, it didn't change gears too well.
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There are two separate rods that connect to the individual selector arms on the gear box. A 2 to 3 shift requires 3 movements, 2 with the right hand, and one with the left because when you are strapped in, the right arm can't be moved back far enough to reach the rear lever. The linkages are too flexible and difficult to use. The hose clamp behind the right gear knob is the reverse lockout. The lever under that is the remote for the main battery disconnect. The cable knob is the fire system. |
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This is the shifter that I have obtained from the self serve wreckers. It is off a Japanese van of some sort. I'm not sure what type, as it was laying on the ground. I also picked up some levers with pivots, some linkage ball joints and other similar bits and pieces, 4 metres of 10mm bright round and some tools. |
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I cut the shifter down, threw out the original mount, and fabricated one from 6mm plate (I have a lot of that). I have since cut about 4 inches of the shifter so that it clears the steering wheel and canopy. It seems to work fine, but is a bit tight where it passes through the firewall. I'll fix that up when I take it off to be cleaned up and painted. The intermediate pivot was needed because of the angle of the connection. Instead of moving the rod backwards, it was pushing it sideways. I made the pivot out of a bolt, some angle, some bar with a piece of copper water pipe pressed in for a bush, and a shelf support. The end on the main rod was milled on my newish (to me) toy. |
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This is the pivot that works the slide selector. The gear shift was working in the wrong direction, so I used this to both increase the travel, and change the direction. The pipe is the water connection for the radiator, the blue thing on the right the scattershield. This was an arm from a Hi Ace van, with a made pivot point. |
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This picture is a bit hard to make out, but it shows the other pivot. This was also needed to keep the direction going back and forward, rather than sideways. One week at the salt is very hard on a car. I managed to put a pinhole in the brake line with the welder, so a joiner is on the list of things to do now |
The next job on the list is the canopy locating pin, and a bit of work on the canopy hinges to remove some free play. I also have to move the fire system cable, as the gear shifter is there now.
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