This sorted things out under the bonnet once I had the carbs on & hooked up to their throttle pivots. Of course all this shit you buy aftermarket is in imperial thread sizes for Fraud Escorts, so it hits the bin instantly. That means I have to replace it all with metric and that takes some doing in a woolshed that is imperial only! Luckily Steve has plenty of Coronas rusting away in paddocks as clutch & brake pedal springs make perfect lightweight throttle returns.

The sump-guard we cut down to 2/3 its width and made new flexible mounts onto the front of the engine cross-member, then reinforced it with steel angle welded on its underside where it bent to go horizontal. A block of foam between that and the sump stopped rocks getting in there and having the sumpguard slam the rock through the sump.

With the driver sitting up higher we had to strip out the hood lining. I'd have loved to cut the cage feet off and raise the whole damm thing, but we didn't have time.

and as the cage was 2" too low we used a grinder to cut a diagonal out of the cage where his head fitted.

The spare wheel well had a cross of steel bolted over it and a threaded pole welded in to lift the spare up to floor level and give quick access.

That was because the tank fed down to the surge tank sitting in the wheel well, and then into a filter before feeding the pump. The fuel line ran through a braided line inside the car, held down beside the battery +ve. The battery was re-mounted in the boot and got two holding clamps. (never trust one!) That put the fuel line, brake line and battery cable straight through the car, and all the stuff under the floor was stripped out.

When it was all in there was just enough room for the spare wheel.

The Landcruiser steering bar was cut up and modified into an adjustable cross-strut bar. This took quite a bit of cardboard modelling & engineering, but it worked well.

It turned out to be a solid chunk of steel on each end!

We had the body going back together and as usual the bonnet didn't really fit, until I fitted the cross-strut bar and wound on some grunt. Suddenly the bonnet had 4mm down each side!

 

 

but it leaned on the tower, not on the wings welded to the top rings, just the way I wanted it!

Edited December 25, 201213 yr by altezzaclub

Down to the day before the rally, I had pulled the butterflies out of the DCOEs and re-set them, and checked the float levels and made sure the rubber hoses were clean and OK as I was swapping the fuel feed around from front to back and shortening all the lines.

 

Starting it, the carbs opened perfectly and idled, but it wouldn't run above idle and it crawled along on one carb. We stripped the tops off to check and found the front carb low in fuel, so checked the pump flow rate. With a stroke of brilliance Steve said to use the wine bottle full of fuel to top up the empty carb & try it, and the motor ran fine... so we stripped the carb tops once again and took it all inside at midnight.

 

On the kitchen table I found I couldn't see through the T-piece very well, where the first carb was fed, and Steve got a screwdriver then pushed the mud-wasp's nest out of the pipe! Re-assembled, the carbs tuned up beautifully.

Saturday we loaded it onto Steve's dad's farm truck and headed off for a 3hour drive to the coast, Steve & I in The Girl's KE70 and navigator Adam in with his Dad. We still hadn't replaced the stock rims with rally tyres, so we were flat-out as the first cars left. When it came to car 45's turn they drove up the road only to find the Terratrip didn't work! I'd checked it turned on, but not being used to terrtrips I never checked it actually counted, and the parts car brakes didn't have the right clearance for the sensor! So they headed off without a Terratrip (or an intercom... another problem we'd missed...)

His dad and I did 'The Old Dudes in the KE70' trip around to the end of the stages and caught up at the end of Stage 2. All I could see was a dirt-covered turnip with a helmet on and a grin splitting the face in half as he yelled "Yeah bitch, THAT's what I'm talking about!!"

 

So we figured the car was working better than ever!

 

I didn't get enough time to take a lot of photos, but I did notice that a lot of the competition were Datsuns, straight out of my days in the '70s and '80s rallying.

That day was stinking hot, I don't know how the control officials stayed alive, but I was sweating just standing still in the shade. The drop-out rate was pretty high, half the field, but the mighty 18RG gave no problems at all. We had taken the oil cooler off as superfluous and it seemed that it was. They have a reputation for suffering oil surge, and the stock sump had no extra baffles fitted, but we just added an extra half a litre of oil in case and it was OK.

Things were fine until after second refuel (AND the 33L tank used 20L each time!) when he had two punctures from ripping the tyres down through the canvas. As they had done 5 rallies and were only half worn we hadn't thought to replace them, but this new arrangement was ripping them down. One stage had the control official with his 12V compressor blowing up a sinking tyre until the 10second count!