Breaking stuff

It's always a good idea to go over the car the day before any sort of event, so that you can break all the things you would normally have broken when it really mattered.

Saturday was spent in the workshop, which is something I haven't done for a while. The idea originally was to just go over the car with a spanner and find anything that had worked it's way loose. It turned out to be a little more than that. Interestingly, whilst a lot got done on the car, very little of it was done by me....

First job of the day was the halfshafts - these are the bits that come out either side of the diff and go out to the wheels, and provide the drive to the rear. They weren't seated properly in the diff, which whilst wasn't a terrible thing, meant that the diff would throw a little oil out. This eventually would be a bad thing. So it was out with the tyre lever and a bit of leverage later, one was in. The other required removing the rear wheel, putting a long piece of wood against the CV joint, and whacking it as hard as possible with a hammer to get it seated in. Now both are clipped into the diff. This has also made the speedo a little more reliable - the speedo works off a hall sensor that 'reads' the number of bolt heads that go past it in a second. These are now closer to the sensor, so that it gets fewer false readings. So I no longer do 80kph sitting at a red light....

One of the characteristics of my car has always been a heavy clutch, heavy accelerator, and a sticky gearshift. I've always just taken this as part of the car, but apparently, these are bad things ;-) It got to the point where someone was testing out the accelerator pedal - and broke the pedal. Yes, you had to press hard enough to bend a 4mm ali plate. This probably indicated a problem.

It was at this point that my car became cause celibre for others for the day. I had at least three people working on it, with me sort of spectating, as the entire throttle cable was removed and replace (somehow the outer sleeve had been damaged), and the link to the throttle bodies themselves was re-engineered. I have to say the change is dramatic - the pedal throw is longer by about 30%, but there's a massive reduction in effort required. Not that it was hard work, it's just that you can't control things as well when the pedal movement isn't progressive.

The other area was the gearbox. Ever since I've had it in the car, the movement has been really, really heavy. We put a short-throw lever on it which probably just made it worse. So Frank re-worked the gear lever, making the throw a little longer, which has again made it a lot easier. It's still some way off what it should be, and perhaps the next time I have the engine out, we'll take the gearbox apart and see what's what. Perhaps a selector fork is bent, or something is causing excess friction somewhere.

There's a list of tasks for me to get on with over the coming weeks - I'm down to part time again at work, so I'll have a few days to spare to focus on the car.

The things to do are:
1. Pack the gear lever forks with grease - hopefully this will make the throw easier still
2. Redo the diff mounting plate - the mounting bolts keep working loose. These need an allen key to tighten - but the mounting plate covers the bolt head. These are coming out and are getting replaced with hex heads, but it does mean taking some of the back end out
3. Sort out the engine bay - put in the engine breather tank to take oil off the top of the engine

And, of course, what-ever else turns up, as it seems to do every time I look at it ;-)