Old News - 14/7/2003

It runs again!!!!! After about 12 months of the car being under (re) construction I fired the engine up on Friday night. It was the first opportunity I'd had to check the engine wiring under operting conditions. The new oil pressure gauge worked with the original sender which was great, I had two choices which temp sender to wire to, naturally I picked the wrong one, still that was an easy fix (unplug - replug). The Alternator still charges and the Hella side indicator lamp (that was very hard to track down) works well as an oil light, certainly wont miss that if comes on while going around the track! The Tacho wasn't working and it turned out to be the the pivot for the needle wasn't right! Nothing that couldn't be fixed with a jewellers screw driver.

I test fitted the modified clutch fork and bearing carrier which worked perfectly, thanks to Graham's excellent engineering skills (now he's got the spherical bearing strut tops to modify!). While I had the bellhousing and gear box maincase bolted up to the engine, I went and got the extension housing and bolted that up as well so we could get some measurements for the new tailshaft to be made. Andrew is going to get that done this week.

The bodywork is coming along well (I'm only motivated to bog and sand for few hours at a time!!), another few hours should see the the RH rear quarter (where the rust repair panel was welded in) blended together and the holes where the roof vents smoothed over. Then it will be off to the painters. I enjoy doing most things involved in building a race or rally car, but not the body work, when I build the VL shell up, I'm going to find a nice straight one with good paint to start with so I don't have to do much to it to get it ready for painting. On the subject of painting, I'm thinking about painting it Ford XR Blood Orange, rather than VK Brock Commodore Blue.

So the wait continues for the new gear box input shaft and toploader rebuild kit to arrive from DK Toploader Transmissions in Texas. It was sent surface mail on the 12th of May, so it's been over 2 months now so it should be getting close!

Once the gear box is rebuilt with the new input shaft I'll be able to install it and that will have the driveline complete. With the car driveable again the first stop will be the paint shop. Once it's all one colour then it's off to Duval Motor sport for a dyno session to get the Quadrajet set up. Next it's off to Traction Tyres and Suspension for a wheel alignment. Finally I'll be able to head out Calder Raceway on Wednesday for private practice and start putting some miles on the car (and getting used to being back in the drivers seat).

I hope to do the Mt Leura Hillclimb on the 24th of August, and the John Mott Memorial Sprint at Sandown on the 30th of August.