Details, Details

October 16th 2013

Now that I've tried the new engine and installation at two events I have just about settled on the spec.
Coming away from the last event at Sedbergh I had a couple of things that really needed attention.

Manifold air leak and rear fiddle brakes.

Air Leaks. I already knew the flange on the manifold was not totally flat. The welding I have done created a bit of bowing. The centre of the flange was the highest part so I had hoped that, using a thickish gasket paper, it would seal properly. However it meant that the lugs on the carb couldn't be tightened right down. there was also a risk that they may crack.
I had already asked my engineer friend if he could plane it on his milling machine, but as the two flanges were offset in two dimensions he couldn't mount it securely on his machine.

This was the original adaptor

Then I added a water jacket to help avoid carb-icing problems. This extra welding probably caused the bowing of the flange.
So I made a jig to hold the flange level.

 I took this for machining and asked him to put a groove in so that I could seal it using a rubber O-ring.

This highlighted the unevenness of the hole I had cut!  I'm not bothered and am not going to smooth off the welds on the inside of the adaptor throat either. This roughness should help tumble the fuel mixture at low revs.
I've now fitted the adaptor and carb. The seal seems to have worked properly and the engine runs well.
I've also connected the water jacket using loads of bits of rubber hose I got from the scrap-yard. This seems to have worked and there are no water leaks.


Fiddle Brakes. I've always felt there wasn't enough travel on the fidddle levers and Brian, who I bought the car from, had had the same feeling.
The master cylinders were 0.70" bore and I found that 0.625" ones were available.

 That amounts to about 10% smaller. Not a lot, but the extra movement on the lever should allow more sensitive control and using the same "pull" would achieve greater clamping pressure.

Taking the pads out showed that the nearside pads (the inner one particularly) had not bedded in as well as the offside ones.

 Nearside

Offside

A competitor suggested this may be due to the custom-built nature of the hubs, discs and calliper mounts. They may not be entirely parallel and high spots on the pads may need wearing down.

I fitted the new master cylinders and after bleeding I jacked the car up and ran in-gear against the brakes for 5 minutes or so. I've yet to pull the pads (which I have marked with dobs of paint, so I can put them back in the correct place) to see if the wear has improved the pad surface.

I've also fed the oil vapour pipe from the rocker cover to the air filter. I'd had it exiting beneath the car but it covered the sump skid with oil mist. That prevents me spotting real oil leaks.

The next things to address are very minor. I want to repaint the rear wheels and close off the hole in the bonnet.

But now I've got the bits of the car working pretty well I need to address getting the thing up some hills. If I don't have to overcome brakes and throttle issues it gives me more scope to concentrate on the surfaces and the grip. Oh and steering in the right direction.

Freestyle Grp and Wheels

November 10th 2013

 GRP Moulding By Eye
 Having tried the Weber carb on the car, and stupidly cutting a hole in the bonnet for it instead of trying it without a bonnet at all, I now have a hole to fill.

Going back to the SU-style carb left a Weber-shaped hole in the bonnet. For the trial at Firbank I taped over it with red gaffer tape (which was a really good match).

In fact in Glen's pics you can hardly tell.

But that won't do for me so, I decided to make a proper patch, in-situ, by laying some grp mat over some bubblewrap under the hole in the bonnet.
I put the bubblewrap on the engine with some soft cardboard on top, covered in parcel tape to prevent the resin sticking. Then I wet-out the GSM matting with resin and stuck it to the inside of the bonnet, which I then put in place, so the cardboard pushed the GSM up to the required position.
Easy to say, bit more tricky to do.
This is the grp matting cut to hole-size and laid on the packing on the engine. It's just see that the concept will work.

This is the mat, resin-bonded into place. The shaping is provided by the bubblewrap pushing it up from below. It is bonded to the inside of the bonnet about
an inch inwards from the edge of the hole.

Next I put some filler over the grp mat. It was a bit lumpy to be honest, but as it needed rubbing down to get the right profile that wasn't a problem.

Once I managed to get the right shape some primer made it look better. I added a slight bulge on the left of the hole to clear the new progressive throttle mechanism.

Then a bit or top coat and it looks sort of OK. I used what the yanks love to call "rattle-cans". Aerosols, if you are not a red-neck.

I find them a bit crap really. You have little control over the viscosity of the paint, and in addition humidity and temperature have an enormous effect on the finish. Arcylic paint virtually never gives a finish from the can, so you have to flat it and compound it. As the rattle-cans lay the paint a bit thinly you can easily cut-back through the top coat to the primer.

I think for the next year summer break I may buy some cellulose and spray the whole car properly. I have a compressor and spray gun and can get a decent finish with that.

Which I did on a previous project.

Wheels

I had decided the gold wheels were no longer suitable as the only thing they keyed into was the gold stripe on the bonnet, which I no longer have.

I thought of all sorts of options. Red and silver, black and gold, black and silver.

I tried them out on a photo in Photoshop but still wasn't sure. I know I hadn't liked them when they were all silver, which is how they were when I bought the car.

So I stripped them and painted them in primer. Then I put a coat of silver on before trying different coloured centres. However, I quite liked the silver this time. So that's how they ended up.

I have just ordered some bead sealer. These older tyres go down slowly. A  test shows slight leaking all around the rim. It doesn't really matter on an event as we reduce the pressure anyway and the wheelspinning brings the pressure back up a bit. But in the garage over a few days they go down and need pumping up. So some bead sealer should solve that.

The next event is next weekend.

Trailer Trials

December 18th 2013

For some time I have used a small trailer I modified to carry the car, (see the header).
It's fine but doesn't have any room to carry spares, which have to go inside the car. Also, with it not having brakes and my Grand Vitara being a 3-door the towing limit is not even the full 750kgs that un-braked trailers are limited to.
The 3 door GV has an un-braked limit of 550 Kgs. The car + the trailer (without the spare mounted) is 540ks so I am legally close to the limit and that means I have to carry the spare wheels and trailer spare wheel and ramps in the GV. Plus tools, car spares and clothing, boots etc.

I bought a caravan chassis last May intending to convert it for the car and have just done this. It's an Alko chassis with brakes. That means the GV can tow up to 1500kgs, although the trailer is plated for 1000Kgs.

I added some cross members to stiffen it up and decided to add a steel frame to the top of the chassis to make it stiffer and cut down on the sway that the back part of the chassis suffers without the caravan floor bolted in place. This would have boards on it to make a flat-bed trailer, making it more flexible (in respect to carrying things, not flopping about).

You are not supposed to weld to the Alko chassis according to Alko as they have designed everything to depend on the frame to supply the strength. Welding may weaken it. The steel has a high manganese content and isn't easy to weld anyway. So I planned to bolt the steel frame to the chassis in the same places the wooden caravan floor had been attached.

This was the plan for the frame.

And this is it completed

I used scaffolding boards to deck it. They are heavy, but cheap and very strong.

I fitted lights and ramps as well as the props from my other trailer. The mudguards are new.

The position of the car was worked out earlier, before I cut the planks, and includes allowance for the wheels and spares at the front of the trailer. I will build a box there for those bits in time. The noseweight worked out at 65kgs which is ideal.

I took the finished trailer loaded with the car to the weighbridge in Kendal and it registered a total weight of 780 kgs. I weighed the car on it's own which weighed 420 kgs so the trailer weighs 360 kgs.
That is ideal as the complete loaded trailer will be 200 kgs under it's maximum and 700 kgs under the tow car's maximum weight.

This shot shows the tread plate for the wheels. The front wheel guides. The tie-down hooks and the front marker lights.

Old and new trailers.

It was time for a trial.

The Yuletide event was on 8th December at Wreay, a couple of miles South of Carlisle.
I went up the M6 for ease and found the trailer towed really well. The older one gets a bit nervous over 55mph, which is probably due to it having a much shorter wheelbase.

We had a mixed day as usual. Some good runs and some silly mistakes. There was a rather odd problem which cost a few points.More of which later.

The site is only 3 miles from Ian's home so it's a late start for him. Me, I was loading up in the pitch dark.

It's like an amphitheatre, and is mainly grass with some dead bracken. After a week of rainy weather the grass gets quite slippery. The first runs up the 6 hills were not too bad with good grip so low revs and careful control of the throttle and brakes are what should work. By the second runs the grass has been squashed and the sap combined with the wet ground mean you're starting to have to use more power.

One particular hill was mainly downhill to begin with, then a traverses across a slippery slope. You have to negotiate the poles (yellow to right, blue to left) without hitting them. They are never in line of course. As the car wants to slip downhill you have to aim uphill and hope that you've got it just right and will pass between the poles at each gate.
Then the course turned directly downhill for short and very steep section before turning sharp left through another gate. The ground was so slippery that it was nearly impossible to go slowly. Applying the brakes starts the car slewing and if you can manage to get it to slew the right way it sets you through next the gate.

That is what's happening in these few shots.

I need to turn around the yellow pole on the right in this shot

Turning downhill through the gate

Before trying to turn left

Through the gate.

The problem seemed to be that I couldn't get the traction up the next short, steep climb, which was a bugger as the next few gates weren't so bad. So we stuck at this point on each attempt.

The other side of the amphitheatre is more in the tree line and the ground gets very muddy as there isn't as much grass. It becomes so slippery that the start of the Hill gets too slippery to stop at. So the marshal allows you to slither down to the start gate and just keep going. Again traverses across the incline make it very tippy-toe. A bit of a blast is needed to get to the first real turn which is usually an uphill, around a tree.

This has caused us big problems in the past but yesterday we had more success. This has a slight edge to it as we concentrate more on getting past the first couple of difficult sections and just watch experts doing the later parts of the hills. This caught me out a couple of times when we reached parts we hadn't expected to reach. In one instance I'd seen experts having trouble with a right hand bend over a ridge and then turning left.
When we got there it wasn't as bad as I thought and my plan was wrong, I clipped the blue pole, which ends your run. I'd thought I would need to turn much more sharply than I needed to and was set up wrongly when I got there. I've said it before and let myself down before, but I must walk the whole hill to see every gate myself.

In this shot the start is to the right of the guy in the orange jacket (where the blue board is). However as it's so slippery there that you set off from the grass higher up and slither through the start gate.

Then you have to carefully cross the traverse and floor the pedal to try to get up to the tree that you have to turn around. We managed that a couple of times but I failed to get around the tree on the last run, which wasn't too bad as several others also failed, in the slurp.

A rather bizarre thing happened on the first Hill on our second run. It set off on the level, went for about 30 yds then up a short and very steep rise, turned left and into another traverse between gates which were offset so you had to weave between them.
We did well on the first run and almost reached the top.
On the second attempt the blast from the start line threw up a load of fallen leaves. I have long eyelashes (back girls...) and some stuck to them over my left eye. I couldn't see where I was going. I managed the left turn and started throwing my head about to try and dislodge them. I don't have a spare hand in these situations.
I carried on into the traverse, but because I couldn't see I clipped a blue pole with a back wheel. So we scored 9 on that attempt when we had scored a 2 on the first run (lower, better).
I realised afterwards that I had been stupid. There is no timing. The only stricture is that you can't be stationary for more than 3 seconds. I could have stopped at the turn, removed the leaves and carried on. Stupid Boy!

The results were the usual near the bottom end of the score sheet. However we didn't suffer any mechanical maladies and there were only a couple of Novices on the event, so we had lots of better drivers ahead. 
Looking back at the places that caused failures I see a common problem.
I think it may be dawning on me what I need to do so by the next event I'll have tried a couple of practices and may have better grip (see what I did there) of the matter.

Started The Year A Bit late

February 12th 2014

The first trial of the year was to be at Edenhall near to Penrith. The weather in the week was dreadful, rain and more rain. In consultation with my passenger, Ian, we decided not to do it. As we do it for fun we couldn't see the point in getting very cold and blathered in mud.

The next event was a fortnight later at Melmerby. The weather wasn't a great deal better, but as the site is in a deep valley we thought that even if it was windy we would be a bit more sheltered.

I'd been to my practice site with Robin Jager for a run around and we did find a slippery bit to try and work out why I have trouble with a common feature of the Hills, a 90° turn uphill.
Whilst we didn't really come a conclusion, except that I am too heavy-footed, Robin was very taken with my car's engine and gearing.

On the Sunday it was pelting down in Windermere, but as I got further North it cleared a bit so that at Colston Farm it was just a bit damp. The Hills were very muddy according to various people and so they turned out to be. The worst aspect was that people were falling down everywhere. Not too bad if you were sitting in the car, but if you got out, or were marshalling you would probably fall down.

It's a funny site as you drop into it from field level and go along some small and slippery tracks to the bottom next to a river. Each Hill is then a scrabble back up towards the track. The last two Hills (seven in total) were along another track further along. Once down to those two Hills getting back up became a major issue and eventually, after a bit of forestry, a longer trip to the end of the site made a more reliable chance of regaining higher ground.

We had a transient, but recurring problem of the clutch pedal locking-up at the top of it's travel. This meant you couldn't declutch, which is a dicey thing when you are trying to control the car's progress. Twice on the same Hill it caught me out and I scored a 10 both times. The time it didn't strike I got a 5.
I also had two other Hills which didn't want to play ball. One with the dreaded 90°turn uphill and one with a bumpy route between two trees. The car just wouldn't stay in the tracks and leapt onto the tree roots, stopping further progress.
The turn uphill thing is just me needing to work out how much throttle and when.
But the car not going where I am aiming may have a mechanical remedy. In the bit of video I have made the headcam shots are taken on the transit routes between Hills, but you can see how the steering isn't really doing very much for my direction-seeking. Even using a fiddle brake to try and steer wasn't helping much. I am thinking I need to get my rear suspension sorted a bit more. We bottomed-out a couple of times and I think it happened at the problem Hill. I think it's a form of rear wheel steering.
I have already put stronger springs (125 lbs/inch) on as Ian and I weigh more than Bryan and Kath did who had the car before (with 100lbs/inch springs). I have raised the spring platform on Ian's side as he is heavier than me and preloading the spring effectively ups the initial spring rate. I haven't had much bounce set on the shocker and think I maybe need to try a couple of clicks at both sides and perhaps raise my side spring platform as well. These shockers don't have a rebound adjustment.
I'm also wondering if the front shockers have any life left in them. Whilst being under-damped may give a smoother ride on normal jiggly surface, when you hit a big bump it's more likely to lift the wheels after the heavy compression as the springs recover and push the front of the car back up.
That's my thinking anyway. I'll have to take them off and remove the springs to check them.

This is the awkard little bump as you turn between the trees. It doesn't show too well as this is a grab from the video.

However in the video you can see that Dougie's car doesn't leap as he passes over it. (at about 15 seconds).

The first car is Julian Fack. He has a bit of a wheelie moment there, but he really is very good. I'm getting into this sport too late to develop that kind of skill. (I notice his front suspension seems quite stiff.)

We did have an ambulance called at lunchtime. One of the marshals, and club stalwart, had fallen. As he had a bad back to begin with and seemed to have banged his head it was the wise thing to do. The Ambulance couldn't go further than the farm so trials cars were used to render help, and ferry him back after attention. He was better than feared and is now back in charge of the computer.

Out of 23 starters 5 cars retired. Brakes, wheels, carbs, broken stub axle and a flywheel fell off. The car that had a stub axle break off was stuck at the bottom. The farmer wasn't willing to go down on his tractor, but did agree to try and use his quad bike to retrieve it. That worked well and the car was back on it's trailer in the pits in no time.

Back at home I stripped the car and got the clutch sorted out. Strange really as the indication was that it was the release arm in the bell-housing that was jamming. Tapping it with a hammer freed it off. You could also induce the lock-up by holding the release arm up. However once I got the clutch mechanism locked-up in the garage and then slackened off the adjuster on the slave cylinder pushrod, the pedal was still hard as rock.
Replacing the master cylinder fixed it. Luckily the brake master cylinders I took off previously (to put on smaller ones) was the correct size so that was a no-cost fix.

I hope this rubbish weather bucks up. The next trial is at the beginning of March and I don't want to be frozen and soaked for that.

Eee! But It Were Chilly!

March 6th 2014

After the Colston Farm trial (Jiggers Jug) I decided to play with the front suspension and see if that was causing the wandering and bouncing off-line. I was going to get some coil/dampers from Bryan which he had fitted,  but then upgraded from. They were pretty new and have progressive rate springs fitted.
When I took mine off and removed the springs I discovered  the dampers were actually quite good, so decided to give them another go. I stripped and painted the springs and dampers and also polished the spring platforms, which are alloy. Not that any of this helps the performance, but I like doing it.
I mounted them the right way up this time. Some people say this increases the unsprung weight, which it may do a fraction, but the springs are red now and it looked better this way.
Some also say that oil dampers don't work well upside down. I don't know if they are oil-filled or not.

I also had thought that the rear suspension might be steering the car when it bottomed-out. Which is what it was doing on the Hill I found a problem on.
I'd already raised the spring platform on Ian's side of the car to preload the spring as he has more mass than I do. I raised mine by a similar 1cm and also cranked up the damper adjuster 2 clicks on each side. Ian's side was already 2 clicks up from zero.

So. Ready for the next event, I got bit of bad news in that Ian was working and couldn't get a shift swap for the Sunday meet on 2nd February. I decided to try and find a temporary passenger so that I could still go to the event.
It's at Blaghill which is the site of an old lead mine just North East of Alston, which is the highest market town in England. It's about 1300 ft above sea level up on the Northern Pennines.
It's a steep and hummocky ( I just made that word up) site with no trees. I like sites like that. Not that it makes my performance any better.

I did find a passenger from amongst people I know. A couple of people were keen, but then found they had other commitments. It would be interesting though as Steve, who was up for it, is probably about 11 stone which would make us a balanced crew and would contrast with the usual slightly "tilted" look. Not saying Ian is huge, but he is short and his volume is spread around .....

The weather forecast during the week for Sunday was a fine, sunny day with no wind.

Ha! So much for forecasters.
It was cool and windy with, initially, some fleeting glimpses of our mother star. The cloud started covering over quite soon and the wind started picking up.

We went for a mosey around the site to give Steve a bit of practice at leaning out of the car. After a few climbs (not on the set Hills of course) with about 10psi in the tyres.Then I dropped down to about 4 psi to see if we could get a bit further up the slopes and hope that Steve was getting used to the idea of the angles you get to.

Then the clutch gremlin that I posted about in the last missive struck again. It manifests itself when I try to de-clutch. The pedal is solid and will not shift. The car will usually stall, in gear as it happens when I have been about to slow or stop. It's difficult to select neutral as the car is normally on a steep slope and the weight of the car is preventing deselecting the gear you are in.
Once we got into neutral we free-wheeled down to the pits. I selected the correct tool for dealing with this problem. A hammer.
The recognised method is to tap the clutch release arm where it exits the bellhousing. Upwards seems to work best. This means getting on your back under the car. In the mud. Or worse, sheep shit.

People seemed very jolly at the start and despite the coolness the atmosphere was warm.

We were running just behind Simon. This is a 2-edged sword as you can spot the proper line to use and the technique to follow. On the other hand he makes it look too easy and we usually end up thinking, part-way up the Hill,  "why have I stopped here?"

The first two runs before lunch were a bit of a nightmare. We kept getting stopped by the clutch problem. Some people say you don't need to de-clutch on the upward bits, but I like to when manoeuvring. It's just the way I feel comfortable. Watching others you see some do and some don't. The jamming clutch release stops me in my tracks. If I'd been planning to de-clutch and steer, the car just carries on and it's usually too late to use the fiddle brake. If I am planning to use the fiddle for a turn it doesn't really matter as I am not wanting to de-clutch.
Either way, it's not right.
As we moved through the Hills I was jumping out and bashing away with my hammer under the car more and more.

Something needed to be done.

At lunch I spoke with Bryan and a couple of people. We came to the conclusion that the release arm may be over-throwing forwards and getting caught up on the end of the spigot shaft sleeve which the release bearing moves along. I decided that if I adjusted the master cylinder push-rod that attaches to the clutch pedal, I could use the bulkhead as a pedal stop to prevent over-throwing the release arm. The trick was to lower the pedal enough to prevent problems but retain enough movement to release the clutch.
It sort of worked. The clutch did still slightly jam but stamping on the pedal cleared it.
This brought about a great increase in our performance and we did a lot better. However as it was so cold,  with sleet and rain  in the wind, the organisers sensibly decided to do just one run after lunch. The marshals at the top of the site must have been freezing.

Another thing we tried was on the climb between Hills 1 and 2 and the remaining four Hills at the top of the site. It was pretty steep and bumpy. I had to take a few runs at it to get up initially. The car was losing grip as the bumps upset it.

So after getting stopped partway up we backed down and I slackened off the setting on the rear dampers by a couple of clicks. The next attempt we ran straight up with no problem.
As a novice facts like this are difficult to find. Ask people and some are unsure or hazy (or keeping quiet!) about things like this. But here I had back-to-back attempts which showed better result from a softer back end.

However this is great for our new, svelte, lightweight crew, but when we are running with Ian as passenger the tendency to bottom-out is still there. I did put 125 lb/inch springs on (previously 100lb/inch) but without some compression stiffness wound into the damper, they still bottom on the bump rubbers.
Bryan has lent me some progressive springs to try. They are 120/160 lb/inch so may be what's needed to control the back end.

The better control of the suspension really helped on a couple of oblique passes over steep banks which some cars seemed to lurch over and we seemed to just pass over quite smoothly. In the past I would have expected to head off in the wrong direction in that situation. (See Simon at 44 seconds in the video. Our car managed that in a similar way).
Still not World-Beating but these little things give you the confidence to expect to go in the direction you intend.


I managed to snatch this video from my temporary passenger, Steve, who filmed it on his iPhone. The second car is driven by Simon who won the event. The other car is Jeff who came 9th. We came 19th. Not last. I've left the wind noise in as it helps to give a feeling of how chilly it was.

The others are here on Youtube.

The next post will be about the resolution of the clutch problem. Honest

Getting A Grip On My Clutch

March 18th 2014

These clutch operation problems had become serious. They spoilt the last event and whilst I managed to adjust the mechanism to just avoid totally jamming, it wasn't right.

So the choice back at home was do I carry on making adjustments to get the clutch to work without jamming at all, or do I whip the engine out and get to the bottom of it?

Obvious answer really. Whilst there was another event in 2 weeks time, I wasn't planning on doing it. It was to be at Keighley which, whilst it's 60 miles away , and so is Alston where I'd just been, the trip for my regular passenger Ian would be 100 miles as he lives at Carlisle.
Plus, he would be away for the event anyway, sorting out his boat on the Thames at Chertsey, after all the flooding.

My reticence to take the engine out is to do with the installation which I made so precise that there is no wiggle room. The gearbox is shimmed and bolted to the chassis and the bulkhead has to be removed to get it out so, realistically,  the engine has to come out on it's own. As I made the new engine mounts so precisely, getting any movement to fit the spigot shaft into the bush in the flywheel was very difficult.
I had no design slogger.

But a few minutes looking at it brought a light-bulb moment (or as Ian says, a "duh" moment).
All I had to do was remove the cast engine-mount brackets from the cylinder block and I'd have lots of room to joggle things about. Of course it meant having the engine hoist attached first. That meant re-inforcing the steel beam I had put up for it as when I used the hoist to hold up the front of the car when I removed the front coil/dampers the beam twisted.

With that done the engine was out and sitting on the garage floor in an hour or so. I wasn't rushing as I wanted to check various things as I removed them. Like the exhaust header I had made for instance.
I also made use of the better space as I removed bits to play about with the clutch release arm to determine just where it was jamming and what was really releasing it once it had bound-up.

Once the bellhousing was revealed and the clutch release arm and bearing were open to fiddling about with, it became clear that the release bearing housing (which is plastic) was jamming on the spigot shaft sleeve attched to the gearbox. This sleeve is stationary and provide a surface for the release bearing to slide to and away from the clutch cover.

The sleeve had a patch of rust on the top and the bearing was actually sticking on the rust. 

If I tilted the bearing slightly it would jam completely. I'm pulling forward with that finger, but it is stuck.

 So, to my mind, when it was pulled back from the clutch cover it was free to pivot on the lugs which the release arm uses to pull it backwards and to stop the housing spinning.
When you apply the clutch pedal pressure the release arm bears on the back of the housing to push it forwards, but it is not straight and jams.
This was what I had. I solid clutch pedal at the top of it's travel and not de-clutching at all.

Another thing I wanted to address was that when the release arm was right forwards, as it was when the clutch is fully disengaged, the curve in the  contact surface on the arm that is supposed to allow for the change of angle in the arm as it moves was not sufficient to prevent the arm catching the edge of the release bearing housing, which causing it to tilt at that end of the travel.

This was down to a simply error on my part.
Whilst I had inserted a 6mm adaptor plate to join the engine and gearbox, I hadn't thought to pack the release arm pivot pin out to make up for the extra distance to the clutch cover release fingers. So the release arm was having to push further forward to release the clutch.

I couldn't see an obvious reason for the rust to have developed on the spigot shaft sleeve though. It may be that I had been too thorough in cleaning up the parts before assembly. In it's life up until then there had been an oily film over the inside of the bellhousing.

I cleaned up the sleeve and applied a coat of Copperslip grease for the bearing housing to  slide on.
I also lengthened the lugs on the release arm which pull the bearing housing back from the clutch. The plastic tabs they pull on are not adjustable and I think that the arm hasn't been pulling the bearing clear of the clutch cover properly. It may be the clutch cover fingers that have actually been throwing the bearing back and that may have been what has been jamming it.

So now that I had addressed everything that I thought could be wrong I put it all back together.

The engine, without the engine-mount brackets, just slid back in in a few seconds and I bolted the brackets back on without any bother.
Adjusting the pedal pushrod again to get the right amount of travel at the right point was a few minutes work and I tested it.
Works beautifully.

At the moment.

Something to keep my eye on though.

This took about a week to complete working now and then and asking advice from a friend.
It was the night I finished that I got the final entry list for the event I wasn't going to do.
I realised I had been a bit previous in deciding not to enter as I could have probably got one of two local friends to passenger for me. Anyway, I thought I may nip across and either help or video some of the action. As it happened I didn't manage to do that as something else took priority.

Maybe I was lucky as the pictures that Glenn took showed it to be cold and windy and the Hills were maybe a bit steep for a first time passenger to feel comfortable with. I noted that Martin , the Clerk of the Course set the tyre pressure to 10 psi for the morning. Quite high and I assume he did that to make it possible to set less steep Hills but still make it difficult to clear them.

They look like they are pretty chilly to me...

Still, it would have been an opportunity to see if my clutch is behaving itself.
I'll find out in April at Hartside.

Winter Weather Has Beaten Me

9th May 2014

After the last trial and the work on the clutch I was looking forward to a good trial at Hartside, just outside Melmerby, East of Penrith.
There are some detail that I am going to miss out on but suffice it to say that the trial report said it started very wet and became very much wetter. The earth beneath the grass squirted out like brown toothpaste and blathered everything.
This was before the event had even begun. Getting the tow vehicles into the site was difficult. I had difficulty which I don't normally, but when I saw two Defenders getting stuck I knew it was going to be a bad day.

The first two hills were just above the paddock area and we were already having to carefully choose a route to reach them.
My bloody clutch started playing up again, so I was leaping out of the car, laying in the mud and tapping the release lever with a hammer each time that happened.
By the second runs before lunch we found it impossible to get to the start of Hill 2 (our last Hill before lunch). We didn't feel so bad when we saw Ian Bell trying various routes to try and get there.

At the lunch break our scores were dire (I'd also got a couple of 12s for not getting to Hills before the second runs, due to the clutch problem).
We were cold, wet and dispirited. I also had a problem with my tow car.
We decided to pack up and clear off.
That's the first time I have done that in the almost 2 years I've been doing this.

Thinking about it I realised that since the December event we had only had either bitter cold winds, or deep mud, or both, at events.
This wasn't what I wanted to do. I don't enjoy being either frozen or wet or muddy or any combination of those.

The next event was a 2 day one in May. I feared that if I did that one and the weather was good I would fool myself that it was OK really and I was just being a pussy.

So I advertised the car wherever I could think of and after a couple of enquiries two guys from Bexhill-on-Sea paid me near-enough what I wanted and came the 300 odd miles to collect it.
To be honest I could have held out for a bit more, but was in "Get It Sold" mode and didn't bother arguing about the odd £100 or so.

They got a bloody good deal. The time I spent on the engine change and the power and torque it now has made it worth every penny.
I even fixed the clutch problem (as far as I know) by fitting a clutch return spring to the release arm. I think that the release bearing was just touching the clutch cover fingers and the jiggling as the cover revolved was encouraging the release arm to droop so that the release bearing was again jamming on the spigot shaft sleeve.
I got a Reliant Regal return spring which has a long extension at one end. This allowed me to fit it in the confined space so that it not only pulled the release bearing clear of the clutch fingers, but also slightly upward. Hopefully that will prevent the release bearing jamming again.
They have done their first event and apparently the car went well.

I sold the trailer with it (although they did have a bigger trailer already). I slightly regret that now as it is a good trailer.

This was them at it Darn Sarf

They are double-driving, which is a bit tough on cars, but I reckon it should stand up to that.

So that's it for the moment. I don't have any plans to get another car (at least until Global Warming finally gets here).
I've enjoyed it and the club members have been great. The events ran like clockwork and those that weren't a mud bath I really enjoyed. I didn't even mind the sub-zero events when the sun was out, but the murky wet and wind-swept ones were too much like self-flagellation for me......

(I also don't like getting up before 07.00 in winter. Yes. I am a wimp)

The End