What did you do in the garage yesterday?
Discussion
Just back from the Le Mans Classic.
At 6.15am on Friday the Porsche 912/6 met us at Cobham Services running sickly on 5 cylinders, solved it on the other side in the car park of a Calais Citroen dealer.
A few hours later 'Ol Gasbag' had a relay go down just outside Rouen which took me an hour to diagnose and another hour to bypass. One of those high stress moments where a clear head and my multimeter saved the trip, many thanks to the Danny at Lloyd Specialist Developments for brainstorming the issue with me over the phone.
Then the texts start coming in from the Porsche 912 team again, "brakes locking on - help".
Arrived at Le Mans to find the Porsche had made it (just) but the Sunbeam Alpine had driven into a deep pothole entering the camp site resulting in its fan smashing into the rad & losing all its coolant (soft engine mounts). Repaired it on Saturday morning with a combination of the epoxy putty & K-Seal I carry in my bag of emergency breakdown spares.
Departed Le Mans Sunday afternoon, ran the Porsche to a local supermarket where I found there was zero free play between the brake pedal & master cylinder, trimmed the little ribber pedal stop to allow the piston to reveal the return port in the master cylinder and away we went to Honfleur.
Four breakdowns on three of our five cars (& one motorcycle), the Sunbeam did hit 105 degrees as it arrived in the London stop/start traffic but I'm pleased to confirm we all made it safely home.
In the words of the great Brian Hanrahan....
"I counted them all out - and I counted them all back"
What an epic trip
At 6.15am on Friday the Porsche 912/6 met us at Cobham Services running sickly on 5 cylinders, solved it on the other side in the car park of a Calais Citroen dealer.
A few hours later 'Ol Gasbag' had a relay go down just outside Rouen which took me an hour to diagnose and another hour to bypass. One of those high stress moments where a clear head and my multimeter saved the trip, many thanks to the Danny at Lloyd Specialist Developments for brainstorming the issue with me over the phone.
Then the texts start coming in from the Porsche 912 team again, "brakes locking on - help".
Arrived at Le Mans to find the Porsche had made it (just) but the Sunbeam Alpine had driven into a deep pothole entering the camp site resulting in its fan smashing into the rad & losing all its coolant (soft engine mounts). Repaired it on Saturday morning with a combination of the epoxy putty & K-Seal I carry in my bag of emergency breakdown spares.
Departed Le Mans Sunday afternoon, ran the Porsche to a local supermarket where I found there was zero free play between the brake pedal & master cylinder, trimmed the little ribber pedal stop to allow the piston to reveal the return port in the master cylinder and away we went to Honfleur.
Four breakdowns on three of our five cars (& one motorcycle), the Sunbeam did hit 105 degrees as it arrived in the London stop/start traffic but I'm pleased to confirm we all made it safely home.
In the words of the great Brian Hanrahan....
"I counted them all out - and I counted them all back"
What an epic trip
Well done Dave! very satisfying to solve things like that. Have you ever thought ? 
see below:
http://www.rac.co.uk/careers/types-of-roles
see below:http://www.rac.co.uk/careers/types-of-roles
QBee said:
Well done Dave! very satisfying to solve things like that. Have you ever thought ? see below:
http://www.rac.co.uk/careers/types-of-roles
Ha ha Anthony, I gave up my career on the spanners years ago in favor of a nice clean & warm desk job. see below:http://www.rac.co.uk/careers/types-of-roles
But you're right, keeping our gang on the road was very rewarding and meant I never bought a single beer the whole trip.
The best bit was rumbling into the Pistonheads/1st Tickets camp site in 'Ol Gasbag' on the Friday night in the pitch dark to cheers and a big round of applause from the boys.
My mates thrust a beer into my hand and immediately started pitching my tent for me as I downed three pints
This trip was all about the comradery of great friends
Not to mention some epic classic motorsport, an amazing road trip and quite a lot of this
There's nothing better in my world.
The breakdowns just add spice
Looks great Neal - hope you kept the pattern/details, suspect you might get asked to knock up a couple more in due course! 
Must be the day for fabricating - picked up my revised swirl pot earlier (entry pipe direction and angle modded) - excellent job by JC Weldfab in Wellingborough, and just had a call to tell me wastegate link pipe and downpipe are ready with flanges and lambda boss duly attached (done by a superb stainless guy in Kettering if anyone wants the details). Next fabbing job will be to mitre the wastegate link into the down pipe once all on the turbo and manifold- may need to invent some swear words for that one!
Only other 'progress' was finishing the MAP sensor wiring, only to discover my Emerald comms lead (link to the laptop) had died in the process when trying to prove the install - the individual signal cables within the lead are pretty delicate and it looks like breaks had occurred with manhandling. Tried re-making but the pins etc are far too fine for home soldering so replacement whistled up.
Must be the day for fabricating - picked up my revised swirl pot earlier (entry pipe direction and angle modded) - excellent job by JC Weldfab in Wellingborough, and just had a call to tell me wastegate link pipe and downpipe are ready with flanges and lambda boss duly attached (done by a superb stainless guy in Kettering if anyone wants the details). Next fabbing job will be to mitre the wastegate link into the down pipe once all on the turbo and manifold- may need to invent some swear words for that one!
Only other 'progress' was finishing the MAP sensor wiring, only to discover my Emerald comms lead (link to the laptop) had died in the process when trying to prove the install - the individual signal cables within the lead are pretty delicate and it looks like breaks had occurred with manhandling. Tried re-making but the pins etc are far too fine for home soldering so replacement whistled up.
Tonight, after spending far too long changing and setting up new brake pads on a bicycle (V-Brakes - grrrr!), proved the 5v supply to the MAP sensor, got the sensor configured (ish - but at least I have comms with the ECU again), trial installed down pipe and lambda sensor, and trial installed modded swirl pot with (very) revised entry spout and hose routing fettled. Anyone know a way of putting a retention bead on stainless tube without mega-bucks bead rollers? Tomorrow I will mainly be starting to mitre in a wastegate link pipe after removing the turbo etc (much easier on the bench).
New Flywheel ,Mcleod Clutch, gearbox on? Bed at 4am! Doesn't time fly when you are having fun!.
Pain in the butT lining up a twin plate clutch on my oWn with only a gearbox as an alignment tool! Stupid thing is that is the second time I have done it, the other being the Cerb. Was a case of in out in out shake it all about. Will also be the last time. On look out for 23 spline input shaft for T5!
Got there in the end, Just escaping back to garage now to finish off
Matt
Pain in the butT lining up a twin plate clutch on my oWn with only a gearbox as an alignment tool! Stupid thing is that is the second time I have done it, the other being the Cerb. Was a case of in out in out shake it all about. Will also be the last time. On look out for 23 spline input shaft for T5!
Got there in the end, Just escaping back to garage now to finish off
Matt
mattrosersv said:
New Flywheel ,Mcleod Clutch, gearbox on? Bed at 4am! Doesn't time fly when you are having fun!.
Pain in the butT lining up a twin plate clutch on my oWn with only a gearbox as an alignment tool! Stupid thing is that is the second time I have done it, the other being the Cerb. Was a case of in out in out shake it all about. Will also be the last time. On look out for 23 spline input shaft for T5!
Got there in the end, Just escaping back to garage now to finish off
Matt
What did you have done to the gearbox Matt? looking at beefing mine up over the winter.Pain in the butT lining up a twin plate clutch on my oWn with only a gearbox as an alignment tool! Stupid thing is that is the second time I have done it, the other being the Cerb. Was a case of in out in out shake it all about. Will also be the last time. On look out for 23 spline input shaft for T5!
Got there in the end, Just escaping back to garage now to finish off
Matt
Turbo and Y with down pipe etc removed, and mitre jointing of 44mm WG link into 76mm down pipe has commenced. A solid half-day's filing and grinding tiny amounts and about 2/3 done but going nicely. Strangely therapeutic - got to admire the skill of old time frame builders etc who did this with their eyes shut and with considerably more precision than I'll manage... 
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