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Steve200TDi's New Racer!!


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For revision 1 of the rear wheel arches I have used some 34mm OD 2.5mm wall tube.

I bought a hole saw to do the notching.

Although Abracs was down the cheaper end of the hole cutters, it mentions it can cut stainless steel and has the pin locking system on the arbor so the hole saw saw is easy to remove. It all cam in at £10.40 and the arbor is the big one and goes up to 150 odd mm hole size. It cut the two notches I needed perfectly.

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And so with the help of a load of wood clamped to the back of the chassis as a sort of jig to rest the tube on I came up with this. I also plated the chassis too.

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Just need to add the big tyres and some paint and I'm pretty much ready for Slindon at the weekend.

Steve

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  • 2 months later...

Slindon was fun and everything worked, wheel arches were fine too.

So onto the last few things that needed to be done before the start of the 2018 SCOR Comp Safari season.

I had bought a discovery TD5 washer bottle with the associated pumps and had done a quick flow test and found there not to be a difference between the windscreen washer and headlight washer pump. So I now have two pumps feeding the two washer jets running through washer tubing of the 3mm variety rather than hose pipe that was on there before!

I refitted the mudflaps and checked it over.

I had a leaky rear hub seal and the bearing needed tightening, so I ordered a new seal and set too sorting it out........Oh so the inner bearing has collapsed or disintergrated leaving the inner part still on the stub axle when I removed the hub. So cut a long story short I have now fitted two new sub axles, two new disks and four new bearings!

I tightened the front wheel bearings up and replaced one of the rear prop-shaft ujs.

Topped up all the fluids, added fuel and we were ready to go!

Also I adjusted the kickdown cable to its tightest setting and it does kick down now, so I look forward to seeing how it performs at the race.

Report to follow :)

Steve

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After setting out early we were over at Tilmanstone quarry near Dover in good time (even though we did think we would spend the whole day stuck on the M2 because of a car fire and the traffic not moving at all!) We passed scrutineering and were ready for the off.

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The first lap was a bit slow on not flowing at all because we were constanlty searching for were to go next, that's probably why we ended up here! I thought it was a bit out of character for the course! And yes were were truely stuck up to the tree sliders! Fortunately it wasn't just us who had a mishap on the first lap and so we waited until the over turned car was rescued first.

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In the process of trying to get out I had managed to get the kickdown cable stuck in the 'IN' position and so I had to lift the bonnet and pull the cable out so I had some accelerator pedal travel to limp back to the pits.

Once two vehicles pulled me out backwards over the ridge I could access the damaged, if any. All mud flaps were still intact and after a closer look at the kick down cable it was now in the fully 'OUT' position. 

As I hadn't even completed a lap (well I completed 80% of the lap!) I thought it was all going to go pear shaped and we would be going home early. 

As the cable appeared to be stuck I decided to go and do one lap and see how I got on and what the gearbox was and wasn't doing as I hadn't got anything to loose!

The engine was revving higher in gear and was still changing up, so all was good! After one more lap of getting my bearing I started to get in the zone and the course became more flowing and I was able to think more about where to not break and where I could go faster rather than worrying about if it was left or right!

We ended up doing 4 lap stints with our times constantly coming down from 9:26 to our fastest of 8:43. The fastest time was set by this thing powered by a Chevy LS engine with independent suspension. I quite liked it :wub:

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So after a not so good start it turned out better than expected!

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A small list of to do thing:

I suspect I will need to swap out the kickdown cable now its jammed!

There's a little slack in the wipers mainly down to the spindle adapters being loose.

The exhaust came loose due to some of the mounts shearing off, so that will need to be remounted.

There will be a video uploaded soon of my fastest lap, but for the next round I'm going to remount the GoPro and use the open housing to get some more engine noise in the video!

Steve

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

So as the kick down cable was now jammed I thought I had better replace it. I had done lots of research and found a few websites which had photos etc. So I thought I would take the plunge and get it done! I printed off one of the photos that had all the bolts you had to remove too.

So I drained the oil, removed the sump.

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Removed the filter and kept as I had only just done an oil and filter change.

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And carefully removed all the crucial bolts and drew a rough layout. The bolts aren't all the same length!

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Then this came off, fairly heavy, but manageable.

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Unhook the kick down cable off here and pull the cable out from above.

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It had a few tight bends in it and the inner white tube had broken up as you could feel it catching as you pulled it each way. The new one runs so freely!! The hardest part was feeding the plastic end into the gearbox as it was difficult to get a grip on it to push it in, but I got there in the end.

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The valve for the kick down is on the valve block which I removed, so when you operate the kick down cable (pull it) you don't feel the extra detente at the end because that is the valve moving! I thought something wasn't right, but all was well when I reinstalled the valve block. I torqued all the bolts up, refitted the filter and sump, added oil and it seems to move forwards and backwards! So all is good!

I tried to be as clean as I could, as you don't want dirt in it!

Steve

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Also, just watched your video, you can definitely see you getting faster compared to your earlier videos, great stuff!

I reckon your passenger wants a toeboard/something to brace themselves against though :)

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Mike - I'm racing in D. 

Bowie - Thanks! Dover was good! I was trying to lift off instead of brake over some of the bumps as it makes some of them bumpier if you do brake. Also on some of the wash board sections, flooring it made it slightly smoother. Yes, I'm in the process of making a little foot plate for Nix!

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1 hour ago, steve200TDi said:

flooring it made it slightly smoother.

I remember hearing rally driver Ott Tanak interviewed about breaking his suspension over a pothole. He said he misheard a pace note and was on the brakes over a depression where he should have been full power to make the wheels climb out rather than dig in. Makes sense if you think about it - it just hadn't occurred to me before. 

Enjoying the updates, looks like you're really getting on top of it  :)

 

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23 hours ago, steve200TDi said:

Mike - I'm racing in D. 

Bowie - Thanks! Dover was good! I was trying to lift off instead of brake over some of the bumps as it makes some of them bumpier if you do brake. Also on some of the wash board sections, flooring it made it slightly smoother. Yes, I'm in the process of making a little foot plate for Nix!

Id consider shifting the autobox manually & seeing if it helps as i found on my old auto truck with a hp22 that if i left it in D it was grim to drive quickly,

My current truck is an auto with a manual valve body & its much nicer to drive than a manual although i still have to change manually,

 

In regards to the bumpier terrain, if you have the balls to stay on the power it does get smoother, although if you lift or brake it can put put you in a whole world of pain, 
this is a video we did when we were testing last year, it took some working out in my head to keep it lit whilst heading for the rough stuff but its definetly smoother than slowing down

 

 

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I'm curious - how does that work selecting the gears manually?  Does it select the actual gear, or does it just limit the maximum gear that will automatically be selected?  I take it there is no torque converter lock up in the lower gears even if selected that way, rather than using "D"?  I've only driven my current Volvo auto, which is a electronic six-speed with sequential shifting for manual control, which seems to lock up the converter in low gears too, but I suspect that is very different from the old ZFs...

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11 minutes ago, landroversforever said:

My understanding was that it just limits the gears it can change into. I guess by shifting that bit manually you can make it rev out further before an upchange.

I had understood that selecting 1, will retain 1st, 2 would allow 1st and 2nd, 3 would allow 1st, 2nd and 3rd and D allows all gears, so it's still shifting automatically but restricted.  Is that what you mean too?  I think that's what my father told me thirty odd years ago with his SD1, but I may have got completely the wrong end of the stick.  The selector lever on my Volvo is very different, though - it only has P, R, N and D on the main axis, with a sideways movement for manual selection (blip forwards to increase and back to lower, whichever gear you choose locked in).  I wonder if the electronically controlled versions (4hp24?) could be made to work that way, so you have the best of both worlds?

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Thanks, Ross.  I haven't seen it yet, but the 200Tdi Discovery 4hp22 that I bought from David (Honniton Hobbit) is almost certainly all-hydraulic, so must work that way.  I'm not that familiar, but I though the innards of Steve's box look like they have solenoids at the aft end of the valve body, but I guess they're just valves controlled by the governor.    You're putting a Merc unit in yours, or is that a Merc car that you're driving?

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2 minutes ago, FridgeFreezer said:

I have a long waggly stick thing and an extra pedal that allows me to select any gear at any time... could be worth a shot? :ph34r:

:lol::P  I want the quietest and most reliable unit I can have, and my R380 has the all-too-common 2nd gear crunch that'd be nice to leave behind.  Besides, a little extra leg room for my left leg would be nice in the 109!

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6 minutes ago, Snagger said:

Thanks, Ross.  I haven't seen it yet, but the 200Tdi Discovery 4hp22 that I bought from David (Honniton Hobbit) is almost certainly all-hydraulic, so must work that way.  I'm not that familiar, but I though the innards of Steve's box look like they have solenoids at the aft end of the valve body, but I guess they're just valves controlled by the governor.    You're putting a Merc unit in yours, or is that a Merc car that you're driving?

Yeah, Merc box going into my 90 with the OM606. 

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1 hour ago, Snagger said:

I'm curious - how does that work selecting the gears manually?  Does it select the actual gear, or does it just limit the maximum gear that will automatically be selected?  I take it there is no torque converter lock up in the lower gears even if selected that way, rather than using "D"?  I've only driven my current Volvo auto, which is a electronic six-speed with sequential shifting for manual control, which seems to lock up the converter in low gears too, but I suspect that is very different from the old ZFs...

On mine, 1st is first, 2nd is 2nd, so if you put it in 3 & try to pull away, it will pull away in 3rd gear,

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8 hours ago, RedLineMike said:

--SNIP--

In regards to the bumpier terrain, if you have the balls to stay on the power it does get smoother, although if you lift or brake it can put put you in a whole world of pain, 
this is a video we did when we were testing last year, it took some working out in my head to keep it lit whilst heading for the rough stuff but its definetly smoother than slowing down

So similar to how motorcrossers attack the whoops? Go at full speed and skip over them without going to the bottom of the hole each time.

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