Post Snetterton Repairs

Nothing major to repair after Snetterton, just a bit of bent aluminium and broken fibreglass. Its just so annoying that the brand side pods and new aluminium panels i made lasted 30 seconds of racing!!! But it could have been so much worse, so i'm counting myself lucky! Plus it gives me the excuse to paint the side pods white now!!!

If Colins wheel had impacted 30mm forward or rearward it would have missed the chassis outrigger and his wheel wouldn't have been destroyed, i must try harder to point the soft parts of the car at him next time!!

The fibreglass has been getting very hot near near the exhaust, even after cutting a lot of it away after the test day. The top edge of the pod has lost its shape as it was obviously very hot and soft after the race and as it cooled it was all out of shape due to the collision. and set hard again in the wrong shape. I wanted to try straighten it out as much as i could before laying up the fibreglass repairs so heated it up with a blow torch and reshaped it as best as possible. I really need to try and stop it getting this hot!!

After a bit of reshaping i screwed the pod to the work bench ready to lay up the patches

The rear tub had lost its shape quite badly due to the lump of body missing and the cracks, so before laying the GRP up i clamped the side against a straight piece of wood, hopefully the patch of GRP used to repair the hole will hold the tub back to about its correct shape. I forgot to take any after GRP'ing shots, so you'll have to take my word for it that its all finished.

I didn't have a piece of aluminium larger enough to replace the panels, so a bit of panel beating got them back to a roughly the correct shape!

While i had the spare time i took the opportunity to check the car over ready for Mallory. The one front pad was completely shot, luckily i think there is about 1 micron of pad material left so it didn't damage the disc!! What did concern me was that the 3 other pads had at least 4-5mm left on them, and they had all worn at an angle. At least i got my moneys worth out of the one pad ;). I decided to try a different pad this time, as the RS-14's fitted are the most expensive pad you can fit, and i'm not convinced the extra money is worth it as the car is so light. I'm trying some EBC yellow stuff this time, they may turn out to be crap, but the brakes have very little feel now, so i can't see how they can feel much worse. If they turn out to be rubbish, i just chuck them in the box as spares so nothing lost.

I found a small amount of up and down play in the input shaft to the rear axle, there shouldn't be any so i think its getting nearly time for a rear axle rebuild. I won't get this done for mallory, but its something to put on the the to do list. The play may have been there for a long time and i've just not noticed it, so i'll keep an eye on it at Mallory. 

So other than filling and rubbing down the repaired areas and refitting the body the car is all ready to go to Mallory, which all seems a bit too prepared!!! I'm sure something will scupper it!