Events - 2004

6th Mar - Harvey (short course)

Just raced in another short-course down at Harvey.  Things started off badly, with the rear brakes being locked on during the prologue.  After some fun trying to unseize these, we had a partial power steering failure during race 1 (of 4).  The problem made turning the wheel extremely difficult for about 1/4 of a turn, every 1/2 turn of the wheel.  It was known that the power steering box was leaking, however this was felt to be more mechanical.  Anyway, with some judicious CRC on the steering uni's and quite a bit of lock-to-lock the problem gradually got better and eventually disappeared.  We then posted a class leading time for race 2, trailing behind a 4WD.  Race 3 saw us up against the same 4WD as the previous race.  For some reason the 4WD appeared to be going slower (or we were going faster).  Anyway in trying to retain a good position to overtake, a rough corner pushed the car towards a fairly large tree.  The front right wheel clipped the tree, snapping the steering arm, buckling the rim, slicing the tyre, straightening the z-bar, ripping off the z-bar mount, and pushing the entire remains of the wheel/rim/hub/brake combo back into the driver foot-well where it effectively killed the throttle linkage.  Due to the location of the incident, we were unable to repair the car and that was the end of Harvey.  In summary we'd gone from expecting a finish, to possibly not starting, to a possible last place, to a possible first place, to a DNF; all in one night.  :(

24th-25th Apr - Brookton (long course)

Things were going well at Brookton.  The car was running like a dream and we had a reasonable lead on the rest of the class 5 brigade.  The end of day 1 saw us with a complete car capable of continuing the race the following day.  With this thought we hit the hay pretty early and put off the inevitable check-list until the following morning.

The following morning was cold, so we rose late, had a nice quiet breakfast and then proceeded to run through the check-list.  After about an hour we got around to checking the bolts in the back-end of the car.  Upon doing this it became obvious that we had some work ahead of us.  The right-lower control arm had fractured through at the front and was wandering around on the bush.  We ripped it off and raced down to the owner's workshop to reweld the thing.  Running out of time, the owner mentioned that there was a burnt-out Commodore in the rubbish pit.  We quickly raced out there, grabbed the arm (a nice rusty one) and flew back to the race car.  With 10mins to spare we had the thing mobile again; and so the racing started.  Things were going well until the new locker decided to leave the party.  It started as a sort of whine; something like a tyre rubbing on a guard.  This quickly degenerated into a nasty metal clunking; and then suddenly the back-end was locking up.  We ended the race stuck in a paddock, with a chewed crown and pinion.  Funnily enough, our closest competitor (Peter Kozak) had also done a diff, and as such we effectively came away with the most points!

29th-30th May - Boddington (long course)

Took a trip down to Boddington, for the long course put on by the Nissan Car Club.  This track isn't quite normal...  It has lots of off-camber sections, is quite tight, has LOTS of corners and is reasonably slippery (I'd hate to see it in the wet).  Anyways, the race was broken into 2, 4 laps apiece of a 27km course.  Not many cars had made it down, as there was another race to be held the next weekend.  Even so, there were 5 class 5's to compete with.  We actually made it down there with a bit of time to spare (really unusual for us), with the car in one piece and ready to race.  Race 1 took about 2h15m to complete and we averaged about 33min laps.  Sometime through the last lap, the rear brakes went; however this was fixed by locking them off with the bias valve.  As I had to leave (mum's birthday the next day), we jumped into the check-list to find the right-rear brake line had been ripped off and the rear-upper-right control arm had sheared the bolt.  It took a good 2hrs to fix this stuff, by which time it was nice and cold.  At this point I left, leaving Jez with a fill-in navigator for the second race.

Race 2 went reasonably well until it was noticed that the car was losing power; so much eventually that it stopped (half-way up a hill).  Something wrong with the fuel delivery???  Hoses were removed/replaced and the Holley Blue fuel-pump appeared to be the culprit.  It was also noted that the rusty rear-lower control arm had fractured (see notes from Brookton below).  Anyways, it was all reassembled so that the car could be put on level ground to continue the fix.  Surprisingly it started and ran just fine.  It continued like that until the end of the race.  So about 24mins was lost, however Pete had pulled out with some fire and Stuart had engine problems; which was enough to give us a class win and 4th outright!  More fixing required...

Update: After having taken apart the fuel delivery system it became apparent that the foam we're using in the tank sheds the occasional flake or two.  These had gradually built up on the pre-filter to the Holley and effectively blocked it.  So a simple clean should fix it!

3rd Jul - Beverley (short course)

The Beverley short course (run by the Nissan Car Club of WA) was staged on a short 3.5km track just out of town.  It was quite smooth (as far as offroad courses go) with a few twisty-turny bits, a small culvert/ditch filled with mud, but generally level loamy soil.  We managed to get down there with a couple of hours to spare and pottered around getting through scrutineering and reccy.  Then, as we're lining up for prologue, the car spits the entire contents of the cooling system onto the ground.  So we drive back to the pits and let the thing lose some steam (for about 15mins) whilst deciding what the problem might be, and what to do about it.  Our conclusion was it was possibly caused by 3 things: 1. Busted thermostat (even though it was relatively new and had run flawlessly throughout Boddington), busted water pump impellor (we've had this happen before), or engine compression leaking into the cooling jacket.  Obviously we couldn't fix the later, so we ripped out the thermostat, let it cool down some more and started filling it back up.  Water movement in the top hose seemed to indicate the impellor was still there and there didn't appear to be any large number of bubbles/frothing of the coolant, so maybe just the thermostat.  By this time we've missed the prologue and are started rear-of-field for round 1 (of 4); two laps of the course started alongside another competitor.  We took it pretty easy, not knowing what the cooling system was going to do, but managed a reasonable time.  It was also fairly obvious that the mud coated headlights (from the ditch) weren't going to help the times.  So, with nothing apparently wrong with the cooling system, we bolted a couple of spare spots to the roof.  Round 2's time was faster than round 1.  Round 3 saw another spotlight on the roof and yet another better time (being pushed by a 4wd all the way).  Round 4 saw us up against the leader of our class (5b), and everything fell apart about 200m into the race.  He'd beaten us into the muddy ditch and completely covered the car in mud.  It took about 100m to clear the windscreen and we missed a marker and had to do a loop.  As all the headlights and spots were covered with mud, it was like driving blind, and consequently a slow time was posted.  So overall, 3rd in class, about 60s back from 1st and 20s back from 2nd.  Not bad, but it could have been better.  Gonna be fun getting all the mud off the car... NOT!

2nd-4th Oct - Hyden Humps 400 (long course)

Well, a tiring but good long w/end...

Fri:

• Finished bolting together car, packed up tools/spares/food and drove out to Hyden. Arrived about 8pm. Got car scrutineered by 9:30pm all ready to race the following day.
• Went to bed at 10pm (to try and make up for some sleep we'd missed during the week whilst putting the car together), however the lighting tower generator didn't stop until 1:30am and some guys in the pits didn't quit until 2:30am.

Sat:

• Woken up at 6:15am by some guys trying to tune their car.
• Had a slow breakfast.
• Jez was having trouble moving because of his back (something about his kidneys being really sore), so I spent the rest of the morning preping the car myself (drinking water, tools, spares, fuel, nut/bolt check, nets, etc).
• Completed reccy without a hitch.
• Waited a while and then went and did the prologue; got caught behind another car so we had to do it again (prologue is a timed run, and being slowed by another car will obviously disadvantage you during the actual race).  Brought the car (which is running just fine) back to the pits and left it idling for a while. After a couple of minutes the darn thing starts spitting water out of the radiator overflow.  Dunno what that's all about, as the engine/radiator temp had been fine during the two attempts at the prologue (and during the reccy).  Turned it off and the water pretty much stopped coming out.
• Spent a while trying to figure out why the engine would be spitting out water???  Bit confusing, as at race speed the temps were ok.  The cooling system doesn't even have a thermostat in it at the moment (however there is a restrictor to pressurise the engine cooling jacket).  Started the car (after leaving it for 1/2hr to cool down) and within 5min it had started pushing out water again???  We're thinking maybe one of the head gaskets has popped a leak, but couldn't really see why it would've survived the two prologue races (each about 10min long).  So we find some coolant leak-stopper additive and chuck that in the radiator.  We figure that if it dies during the race, then so be it.
• Race 1 starts.  The engine seems to be lacking power.  Are we about to blow the engine?  Water temps look ok.  Continue racing around.  Course is really rough (and getting rougher).  On lap 3 (of 4) the back left wheel shears off and rolls away into the bush.  We get stuck next to the race track for 3hrs waiting for the sweep car to pick us up.  Couldn't fix the car on the spot as we didn't have the right tools.  Finally get back to the pits, grab some tools, get back to the car, and install 5 new wheel studs.  Brake disc has a crack in it so we don't put it on and just bolt the caliper up with a shackle cable-tied in between the pads so the piston doesn't pop out.  The rim also has a crack in it (where it hit the caliper) so we put the spare tyre on.  During our 3hrs in the bush waiting, we've walked back down the track and found 3 of the 5 wheel nuts that were on that rim; so we put them back on.  I drove back to the pits with the guy who kindly drove us out to our car, sitting in the passenger seat.  He couldn't get over how smooth it was; compared to his 4WD.  Got back to the pits and notice smoke coming from the back right wheel.  I'm thinking the caliper has probably got stuck again (we have been having problems with them).  Smoke stops and about 5mins later there is a loud 'pop' from the back right wheel and a large cloud of smoke erupts from under the car.  Turns out the brake line has let go and dumped brake fluid on the hot disc (hence the smoke).  So now neither rear brake is working.
• Jez returns in the 4WD (he's going a bit slower), we have dinner and start ripping apart the rear end.  Gotta put a spare disc on the back left and replace the caliper and line on the back right.  Finally get all that done and leave the thing sitting on the jack and axle stands overnight with just the wheels to bolt up in the morning.

Sun:

• Wake up at 6:30am.
• Had a slow breakfast (as there's nothing to do but bolt the wheels up).
• Bolted up the back left wheel.
• Bolted up the back right wheel, and one of the studs shears off.  Panic!!!  Only have 10mins till the drivers briefing, then it's pretty much straight into the racing.  Managed to get the rim off, unbolt the caliper, knock out all five studs, unbolt the axle, drop out the old studs, put in the new studs, bolt up the axle, bolt up the caliper, all within 10mins before the drivers brief starts.  Bit of a rush getting ready for the race start, but we make it with a couple of minutes to spare.
• Race 2 starts.  Car is running well.  Water temps are ok.  Finish race 2 and the car goes into parc ferme.  Scrutineer walks across to where we've having lunch and tells us he wants to recheck the car before we start race 3, as there is a wheel stud missing from the back left.
• Parc ferme ends and we grab the car and start working on it.  Have to knock out all the studs on the back left (again; that's 15 for the w/end).  This time we swap the front tyres/rims to the back (as we've run out of the correct wheel nuts for the rims we have left) and Loctite^TM all wheel-nuts on the back end.  Note that the front wheels haven't been even slightly loose during the entire event.
• Race 3 starts.  Car is running a bit hotter (but the day is getting warmer).  We came in at the end of lap 2 to check the rear wheel nuts; and all are tight.  On lap 3 we notice both the cars in front of us (time-wise) are broken down, so we just cruise to the finish.  Course was getting pretty rough by then...
• Notice that brake fluid is leaking out of both rear calipers.  Will have to do something about the rear brake package.

Mon:

• Start the long drive home and blow a tyre on the trailer.  The steel belt from the tyre has been wrapped around the trailer axle and broken the fixed brake line; so no brakes on the car-trailer anymore.

Summary:

• Came 4th in class (I think there were only 4 finishers in class 5b); so that's not too good.  But it can't really be helped because of the 2 laps we missed on Sat.  The other cars either completed all 3 races, or more laps (ie. 11 complete laps to our 10).

All in all, a good w/end. Gotta few things to sort on the car, but nothing really expensive.

• Rear brakes.
• New (larger studs; probably early model falcon)
• Better wheel nuts for the rims
• Fix the cooling system
• More castor for the front wheels
• Raise the car a couple of inches to get more travel
• Panel and paint

... all before Easter next year when WA (and WDR) hosts it's first round of the Australian Offroad Championship, at Hyden.

20th Nov - Harvey (short course)

We went into the round hoping for a win to wrap up the state championship for class 5.  Well it just wasn't our night...  We managed to have two flat tyres (both fronts) as well as snapping one of the axles, during the four heats (best 3 of 4 count).  Unfortunately our main contender had no such problems, and easily beat us to take the night and the championship.  Pity really, as the car was putting along quite well.

Best racing for the night was the tin-top shoot-out (4th vs 3rd, then winner vs 2nd, then winner vs 1st).  We were 4th fastest tin-top overall for the night and beat both the 3rd and 2nd place contenders before going up against a Baja bug.  This final race was going to be close, but after our windscreen washer water ran out after the first couple of corners (the track was rather muddy), we had to be satisfied with 2nd.  Anyways, it's now 23rd Jan (as I write this) and we are just about to wash the car (it's been sitting dirty in the factory this entire time).  We've got to get the car ready for Hyden (end of March) and round 1 of the Australian Offroad Championship.