In bits

With cadwell over, even though it never got started I decided it was time to give the suspension a refresh. The rear bushes have been fitted for a few years now and it doesnt feel very smooth so have pulled it all out and ordered some new bushes. 

While its all out dad is going to check the rear axle over and change any bearings that are looking worn. Also while its out we are going to attempt to straighten the axle as last time I measured it it was showing 1.5 degs of toe out! We will attempt to get it to 0.5 degs toe in with 1 deg of negative camber, but I'll report back on this after we have tried! While the suspension arms are out I also decided I may aswell have them powder coated, hopefully in the metallic anthracite the engine mounts are done in. I have also ordered new rose joints for the front suspension so order an extra couple to make a panard rod with rose joints rather than the rubber bushes.

Cadwell none starter

The journey up to cadwell involved a snow shower and a visit to the KFC we witnessed the young chav eating the secret recipe from his young ladies belly button a couple of years ago . Arriving at cadwell we were charged £10 per adult to camp over night! The  bargain price included no use of the bar, as it was shut, so it was sit in the cold bus or hang around the toilets. We chose the bus.....

The night was cold, no heating with just our sleeping bags for warmth, but survived to be met my a lovely sunny, but chilli (-2C) morning. In an attempt to get warm I braved a shower, I needed to get something for my £10, and was pleasantly surprised to find them nice and hot, Cadwell may have a crap paddock but the showers are the best out of all the circuits we visit!

I headed out for the sighting laps, only to find I had missed them and was actually going out in the first batch of hot headed turbo jap tintop trackday wanna be hooligans. Oops! Anyway I decided to just go out and get the car warmed up and get my head back into it for a few laps. Within a lap it was obvious there was a huge diferential in speeds between my little fury and most of the other cars out there, and had to keep reminding myself that overtaking was on the left only, on the straights, with consent and definetly not by poking a nose up the inside coming into the mountain! To be fair every car I came across made a concerted effort to move over, but as I only managed about 12 laps all morning I didnt see all the cars, especially a certain EVO that "entertained" Paul Rickers for a few laps!

So back to the 12 lap issue...... After the first session I came in for the sound testing, which I failed miserably, only 114 db, 12 db over the limit! So the side pods and can were removed and opened up to reveal some wire wool and nothing else! Ok ok I know I should have checked this, but it was just one of those things I forgot to do! A scout round the paddock found a bag of wadding and the can was repacked, resulting in a noise test result of 98db, result!

After putting the rest of the bits back together I headed out for another session. The car was going well and I felt good returning back to the paddock where I was meeting Tim Harmer. As we were preparing to go out one of tims guys noticed a rather alarming crack in the front disc!! The disc looked perfect earlier in the week when I gave it a good checking over, and can only assume the rather dramatic crack occured as the disc was cooling after the last session. So that was the end of the day, I had no spare discs and they are thinned escort items from AB performance so no chance of a quick replacement!

Although a bit peed off the day was over so quickly, I'm relieved the crack was spotted before we went out and a far more dramatic, and expensive end to the day was reached!

All set

A couple of hours in the garage this afternoon and everything is back together. After cadwell I'm going to strip out the back end and clean it all up and replace the bushes as they are looking a little tired. The floor panels are also looking very sorry for themselves, but it maybe a step too far to try and replace all those before the start of the season.

Another feat of over engineering by the Greenways

To be fair to dad, he was going to use thinner plate but he had run out. And also looking at the state of the chassis in the corner in did need some serious repair and strengthening. I'm sure if the car gets hit by a nuclear bomb this part will still be intact, along with the bonnet!! The original design was pretty poor and although its had some horrible welding repairs done to it over the years (I promise the really horrible bird poo weldin was already there when I had the car) I'm surprised its lasted as long as it has! The only reason I think it never completed sheared off is that the rear suspension arms where probably supplying most of the lateral support as they rubbed up against the chassis or it was the diff nose rammed up against the tunnel saving it!

Hacked off

With the offending bits of broken metal hacked off and cleaned up you can see the chassis has actually cracked under neath the original panard mouting bracket. Dad is currently making up a replaceement bracket that will also strengthen up tghe weakend area, no doubt it will be built to hand the titanic off!

Dusting the Fury off

With season approaching I thought it was time to start checking the car over, especially as I have a test day at cadwell this weekend. Amazingly after a good look over I only found one issue, the rear panard rod mount was looking decidedly broken! This has been on the way out for a while, I had been adding more welds to the cracks last year, but its gone beyond a blob of weld now!

Its also obvious that the mount has been slowly giving way, allowing the axle to foul the chassis tunnel!!

So tonights plans are to fabricate up a new mount......