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How Not To Build A Rally Car


altezzaclub

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Great stuff!

 

Soo.... now I have to build a motor that spends all day above 7000 & hauls 8000rpm... that's a big ask! I wonder who built them in the 1970s?

 

Had a 5 k that would ;) sorta...

Edited by coln72
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  • 3 weeks later...

Well, another two weeks intense rally car building is over, complete with two big road trips and two new cars! Actually, this was all rally car repair rather than moving ahead with the build, so its pushed our faster motors off 6months each, but it will still happen.

 

In theory the local panelbeating master (nowadays a custom car builder) was going to pull it all straight and sort the panelbeating, but his man had to go back to QLD and was off work for a week, so we decided to tackle it all ourselves.

 

Steve had a thousand head of cattle to round up, drench, weigh, wean, move, and do whatever farmers do, so I was on it more or less by myself unless I could drag him in for particular jobs. We left the car on the truck, which, while it made the woolshed very cramped it was something to chain it down to as a chassis straightener and it gave a lovely steel workbench. Sadly I haven't taken enough photos over the time, but when I get busy I forget everything else.

First up was a strip, throw all the panels in a pile and whip out the motor and gearbox, then look it all over. I reckoned we could pull the driver's side up and forward and outwards to get it back in line.

 

We moved the 3ton hoist from is original beam with 4 turns of #8 wire, (for lifting engines out..) to the next beam, closer to the wall, on a hard steel chain. You don't do this off a ladder, I can't even pick that hoist & chain up...

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Then I folded up a little steel bar and bolted a chain to the crushed inner guard, and hooked on the hoist.post-7544-0-94583600-1372592001_thumb.jpg

To hold it down I grabbed a grinder and cut a couple of holes just above the chassis rails for a chain to go through.

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That chain we tied to the truck deck, then with much creaking and ominous cracking sounds we tried to lift the truck into the air. Once the top chassis rail was slightly higher than it needed to be we left it overnight. The timber pieces were to spread the weight along the rails and hold the chain off the metal edge.

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That worked OK, but once the rail was straight it was obvious it needed to have the lower curve lifted and pulled forward. I figured using the tractor and a tree on it, bit it was less work to go and cut a half-nose off the spares car, a lovely straight rustfree RA40 that was born with the disadvantage of a fastback instead of a coupe backpost-7544-0-09665100-1372592129_thumb.jpg

That took a day, then cutting the rallycar to suit took another, but soon I had the driver's side from just behind the turret and right across the front within 2mm.

Then Steve's Dad had to go to town for a couple of days, so without having to chase mooies we grabbed the chance for a road trip. Swiping his Dad's ute we made a 6am start up to Coolangatta to catch up with my brother for a cup of tea at 4pm, then off to Brisbane to get a 6speed gearbox. Of course the guy was fitting an Altezza 3SGE to a Lotus Seven style kitcar and owned a turbo Glanza Starlet, so we spent an hour of more chatting

The off to get a pile of RA40 doors. THIS guy had 6 RA's in his driveway and garage, 23s and 28s, a show car, a race car, a wife's car, another show car... and knew EVERYTHING about Celicas. That probably took a good couple of hours.. It was after 9pm when we picked up the mudguards from a 3rd guy, and after midnight when we got back to Coolangatta for the night. No food since an early lunch that day! Of course we couldn't leave the 6speed in the back of the ute overnight, so it went into the back seat and would punch a hole in the upholstery by the time we got home... I let Steve shoulder that one with his old man!

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Up at 5am as we had to head back up to Brisbane to catch a guy before he went to work at 7am, so no breakfast. That bought us a complete RA40 coupe that Steve got a one-day permit for, and we had Subway at 10am before we rego'd it and left. It wouldn't drive of course.... it must have been owned by an older gent for most its life, it really was in good condition, then some young guy who smacked the driver's guard and ruined the alignment. It had massive positive camber, toed in enough to howl the tyres and lift the nose WAY up in the air.

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Edited by altezzaclub
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So 15minutes later we were at Bunnings buying a pipe wrench and a straight bit of timber, and an instant carpark alignment later we were all go! Once he found out it drive so well after an alignment and everything worked, the motor and drivetrsain is great, the body is great.... bang went the idea of another rally shell, its too good!

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What surprised me was how the toe-in made such positive camber, but it all sorted itself out nicely with half an inch of toeout added. We got back to Walcha late in the evening and stuck it in the woolshed.

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Now we had a guard to test our new engine bay before we welded it in, and it looked good.

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The passenger's headlight bracket spans both bits of chassis and the holes lined up perfectly. I gave the panels a good 20mm of overlap.

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The bottom lines up with the top of the chassis rail, so it will be firmly attached.

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Meanwhile I took the passenger's door with its torn-back edge and stripped it. The car landed on that side first and slid along, peeling back the outer skin and rearranging the front of the door frame. It bent the hinges, jammed the door backwards against the B pillar and folded it into the door frame of the car so the door wouldn't open.

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A back-breaking 36kg became 16kg without a plastic window, so we will do something there in the future! Actually, another Kg or two as I'll weld in a bit of exhaust tube as a higher-up intrusion bar above the cage, but still maybe 20kg instead of 36. ..and I'll need to weld in a panel from another door.

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A quick hack with a grinder took off the dented part, and then some subtle panel-beating tools re-arranged the door frame to what it vaguely was.

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I swapped hinges with the spares car (door already used in previous incident..) and rearranged the door frame in the car a little.. until it fitted!

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