Winter Rebuild 2012

A few things have happened since my last update - the car has been run again at Paratutu with the Taranaki Car club I have made an abortive attempt to sell the thing and now it appears to be in a lot of bits in the garage - must be winter!

So how did that happen?

After our outing to Hampton Downs in September 2011 where the car delivered a creditable (but also frustrating) 1:24x lap (not the 1:25 previously noted...

Trying to find the issue - me on the ground at the wrong end - typical!

Hitting 11500 RPM in 5th and waiting for the great leap leftwards....

All the day I was  battling a overlength drive shaft on the left and some very unstable straight line behaviour - it was pulled down and the immediately visable issues sorted out - (drive shaft and worn rodends on the front arms) which  I thought was all that was required.

Summer came along and being New Zealand and Taranaki in Particular there were no events that were suitable to test the cars handling - the last place I want to find the car jumping to the left is on a hillclimb! So I visted my home town of Oamaru - got introduced to Steam Punk and came home with some new ideas.... 

SteamPunk Oamaru

   I also got distracted on to another project so I could have something to improve my commute to work - its the 128's little brother - bomba - a beige Fiat 127 now with an over active cam - big exhaust and lowered stance...  not to mention a nice oldschool corduroy race seat... such class...



Bomba 127 and the Bomb Factory 128



Old School Italian Cool



Bomba - and its legal.... ish

Since the 127 had been sitting for 7 years it took a little time to get back on the road (five months of part time fiddling!) - Its legal and on the road so job jobbed... 

now it was s back to the main game - Except I needed headlights for the 127 and this came up for the price of two sealed beam units ($200 NZD) - cheap and interesting I thought...

turns out its the straightest and most rust free Fiat I have ever owned... now things are complicated



New project - for the price of a pair of headlights! Fiat 126

 Thats now three 1970's Fiats - which is about two too many for most sane people... so of course I came up with a plan - and then went over the top!

I have fallen in love with the P2 Class Hillclimb Prototipos (Proto P2) and so thats what we are going to have. Which also accounts for the Holeshot racing Turbocharged Yamaha R1 engine sitting in my garage....






And yes I am deadly serious - new build log coming up....So thats the distractions that have lead to the following sequence of events - Back to teh 128






First up I changed the front pick-up points to clear a few things and change the anti squat/dive characteristics - and so I could pull in some more caster.... more on that later
 

New on left





New Pickups installed - note sloppy seam weld - cringe...

  As it was coming up to the start of April and the Car Club was running the Paratutu street sprint again I thought it was agood idea to get the car out for that...



First job make a list and stick it somewhere obviois



 Tidy up a few loose ends - polish the the beast and off we go....


Finished reverse setup - I avoid actually using it - but it does work









Looks fast as a trailer queen



 Now as with all good plans there can be some issues - the Weather was great - I was photogenic and made the paper as a steely eyed race car driver - and the car survived the day again... but I have managed to out think the development curve...



 Those who have egale eyes will notice that in the two photos above the car looks slightly taller - in the second it has just crested a slight hill in the first it is a whole 30mm higher than it was when it left home... that was a desperate attempt to reduce the impact of the new caster settings - which moved the short right hand drive shaft to the limit of its articulation and and pushed the output shaft into the diff i.e. it was too long - duhhhhhh

There is a rather long video on youtube that demonstrates all this and the fact that the brake bias was off as well if you listen to the audio on the first run you can hear the tripode hitting about 20 seconds into the first lap... we didnt notice the tripode carrier was trying to mill the bearing carrier until later otherwise I would have gone home...



So - I left it sitting for a while when I got home and took it apart this weekend - result is diff is leaking (its been doing that for ages) and the right hand side output oil seal has survived the pounding that did the work below...

Gouged out diff carrier and tripod carrier that shows autograph marks from the tripods...

Diff comes out without removingthe engine...

Short shaft  not short enough

 And to add insult to injury I have blown a seal on the Right Rear Koni - three events since it was serviced...... bugger!



 So now its back to fettling the car and getting some serious miles on it - I have been slack and that must stop!