Other Peoples Race Cars

Just for fun the bomb factory went for a nice relaxing weekend of visiting with Team Enzed Abarth in sunny Rota-vegas - the plan - shift some stuff in the toyshed - go for a test drive in the Abarth (fresh(ish) engine for this years Targa (3 weeks away)-  apparently it feels a little *tight*.....) move the Chinese Peoples Army bmw side car combination out of the way - chuck the spare Fiat Dino on the trailer and have a bit of a general tidy up.

 

That was the plan

 

first job - after measuring some spare 600 parts cars up - start up 'Barty (Team Abarths F-Abarth 1000tc Berlina Corsa) and warm up prior to giving it a bit of a run around the lake.... starts - idles - miss - fart - miss - clunk..... dead - loud swearing noises.....

long story short - brand new oil pump drive ate itself - mangled - ripped to shreds even - but the break away shear pin did not shear - the clunk was the disturber shaft finally locking solid stoping the engine - looks like the shear pin was responsible by being a little too long - causing the gear to drag and eat itself - no wonder it felt TIGHT!

 

Targa now looking very unlikely

6 working hours later we had stripped rebuilt and reinstalled various oil pump combination 4 times - replaced two oil filters and one oil gauge (wrecked when one combination didn't do *any* oil pressure relieving at all......) used 8 litres of castol RS - and took some lengthy breaks to evaluated progress - note we are not really engine guys and are consequently suspicious - until we restored normal oil pressure service.....

 

Targa was looking more likely.

 

The only thing left to do was to find out how the car went -

noisy

fast (down hill anyway - Team Abarth just loves going down)

scary

or more succinctly -  'Barty? well him, he was back........

the last five minutes felt like being an ice cube stuck to the side of a cocktail shaker powered by DC 10 jet engine.... while playing in traffic -

Dr. Phil you have all my sympathy....

 

Targa will be happening - this will make 11 years straight - same car - same engine - same driver (and the same sponsor...)

 

oh and the side car combination went away - so that makes  two things done.....

 

The Bomb Factory also used the opportunity to up-lift the rear wing for the 128 - ah yes - if nothing else it will give us something to put the beers on.....

 

All in all a Great weekend - its always better to break in the shop with somebody around and no deadline,  than to do it - Day One - Stage One in the middle of somewhere rural - see I can be positive....

 

Raining

sanded some bog - smoothed some welds - ran out of primer - marked out the rear parcel tray for amputation, I am not sure it that's a smart idea or not but it will be in the way and I want the damn thing gone.... had a close look at the front valance, gonna be an icky job that one - pouring with rain - went home.

 

2 hours added to the tally

 

need to add a another smoothing coat of panel filler to the rear quarter, smooth and prime then fix the valance - it was too wet for that this weekend -  then the cage is coming out - then another weekend dicking about patching anything that will be masked by the *new* cage then make a dolley to transport it on - then its gone.... end of October at the earliest is my bet!

 

off to Rotavegas this coming weekend to play cars with Team Enzed Abarth (TEA) principle Ing.Mike Lowe and to pick up a few Bomb Factory Parts that have been hanging out in the care of TEA.... 

 

ciao

 

 

 

 

Bogged

Another five hours on a beautiful day and the back end looks like its part of the 128 again - ground back the wheel tubs flush with the side panels - resulting in a lot of popped tack welds - finish welded the resulting gaps - and the welder is running really well - even I was impressed with the results... hit the welds inside the wheel tubs with the flap wheel (I love this things... expensive but they last forever) and applied some very sticky polyurethane gap sealant...... and lastly did the the bog thing - some nice newtech aluminium filled stuff to start with - which I will go over next week with the standard issue pink putty....

 

I couldn't bear the thought of the car going into some one else's workshop for the cage work looking like a stockcar refugee

 

There is always more work to do - found some very interesting rust in the front valance - both left and right corners which back on to the front cross member i.e. exactly where the front pickups are sighted (its a natural water collection point)  - after considering this for a while I have decided to let in a patch panel to assist the rigidity of these points a little and to to at least let the car look somewhat solid

 

The "spare" 128 arrived in my drive way this week - after sitting around at the local transport yard for a few months (unde a tarp) along with the rolling (just) shell was supposed to be a 1500 'short block' - what I got was a block - crank and pistons - nothing else - my definition of a short block is obviously different to that of my vendor.... still you get that when you don't apply the "bull shite" filter to deals.... I wont be taken for a ride again!

 

comments section is now open for use - go for it!

 

Later

w

 

Front Shocks

Quick Rack

Quick rack and Shocks

Shiny Bits

The photos above are some new toys for the bomb factory 128 - Coil Over Konis and Quick Rack and Pinion

The Konis are freshly rebuilt items that have had a previous life in a hot rod SCCA Autocross Yugo - as full coilovers they eliminate the rear transverse spring - spring rates are in the filling shaker catagory - 650# rear 400# or 500# front - the camber plates are custom jobbies and there are some very simple but very trick thrust bearings inbetween which will help my puny arms somewhat!

The Rack asembly is compliments of the White Horse Blitz racing club founder in the UK (Blitz are a 126 based off-road racer) and is probably the last one in captivity (maybe) it features a 6 tooth pinion which gives 20% or so faster ratio -

The whole project is taking on a UN flavour.... wonder if I can get any french bits in the car -anyway - the budget got a hammering and consequently completion is either a way off or closer depending on how I look at things

Next item on the list is the roll cage... after I have done some bogging :-)