How To Build A Rally Car

[altezzaclub]

Worth a try Banjo!

Back home this afternoon, the last few days were busy!

First was to move the machinery parked outside the workshop-    That was fun!

Then we used ripper to make a trench 600mm deep..

Yeah right....

So using one tooth and spending half a day on finding out how to set up the ripper properly we got it done. The next day the sparkie turned up and put in a cable, and then we had to fill it in again!! All the soil that came out has to go back in...

What THIS meant, is that we can now turn the lights on inside the workshop!!

..and the hoist, the vacuum cleaner, any 240V power tools..  In fact its all very civilised. That bike is due for a cleanup and a tune then selling, its a complicated payment swap arrangement for a Rodeo farm ute that we have to rebuild.

We even hauled Mr Owl out of the Woolshed and gave him a new home!

but sadly the swallows are well aquainted with him, and were happy to roost right above his head!  Something will have to be done about them!

The 240RS is back to the dyno man tomorrow for a change of idle emulsion tube, then it is finished. There's a couple of Km of trench to dig for irrigation stuff, and this test case showed the ripper was NOT going to do it.  Once that is sorted, we will actually get onto the rally car!

maybe....

 

  

Edited September 18, 2018 by altezzaclub

[Banjo]

Love the pictures !    Almost convinced me I've just got to paint my garage/workshop floor soon !  As you say; makes it very "civilised".

When is the kitchenette, beer fridge, & coffee making machine going in ?

Cheers Banjo

Edited September 18, 2018 by Banjo

[ke70dave]

Which one of these flannelette clad petrol heads is you Altezza?

[altezzaclub]

I'm the one behind the camera~

There are a couple of photos of me back in "How not to build a rally car", one of Steve's mates came up and he was a keen (and very good!) photographer. So both of us ended up in photos.

I'm not sure what's happening until mid-Oct, Steve is busy, Ronnie is going to start stripping cars for his 4AGE conversion, Ado is cleaning that Yamaha up for sale and Leichty is picking up the 240RS.  Always plenty to do!

[altezzaclub]

Well, the October trip was busy!  I drove to the Coast to see the 240RS in action on a rallysprint. It still fluffed low down, but a passer-by reckoned the Illumination igniter was the problem, and as we had been all over the carbs it would be a fair bet.

Steve was in Sydney that week, making adjustable bumper brackets for KE70s!

That turned out very well-

Then I dragged him up to my rental in Kingaroy for some work. On the way up we delivered the white KE70 to its new owner and yes, you can get over $4K for a stock nice KE70!

Up there it was new clothesline time, which was one reason I needed Kobar and the welder-  A quick grinder and the new one went straight onto the old pole base.

The plumbers came to blast out the blocked septic tank pipe, and they dug a slope up from the water tank that was buried 600 deep in the ground-

That was a mistake from when the tank was new & I wasn't there to supervise the installation, and I'm glad to have it finally up on the concrete!

Next was the carport.. raise the roof & slope it the other way to catch the water & put it onto the house gutter system.  Seemed simple until we tried it, cut the legs, raise it up, weld it up...

Eventually it turned out OK-

Yeah, those acmena trees were trimmed too, a bit of climbing & one-handed chainsaw art..

 

Edited November 2, 2018 by altezzaclub

[altezzaclub]

We saw where the typhoon went through just South of Kingaroy. The road was lined for kilometres with trees blown down-

Hundreds and hundreds were stripped of leaves-

The smell was amazing!  A perfume of working in a sawmill with the resin of different trees.

Back home we finished welding the lowloader trailer to get that shell inside-

and it works just like it should!  Rally KE70 #2....

We spent a day getting an old Landcruiser running for the guy who sold the lovely blue Rona wagon to Steve a couple of years back.  He bought both Toyotas brand new.  I can see a pattern here...

and on that trip we picked up over a Km of 50mm polypipe for the cell grazing.  We'd spent a day marking out 75x150M areas with a 3-4-5 triangle to get them straight & square-

and now we have to get the 150M lengths straight, fitted with couplings and taps, and buried 600mm down!  It was really all about Leatherman versus tinsnips!

So, back up in a week!  But the WRC comes around then so there's another distraction, and the trenching machine is due for the polypipe, and then it needs tank stands welding up and tanks fitting and a bore pump and solar power and 800 or so steel pickets driven in with electric fence on and...

Anyway, at least we got ONE rally car photo in the thread this time!

 

 

 

[Banjo]

So how was the WRC at Coffs Harbour ?

 

[InSaNiTy]

Yeah another great weekend, as WRC always is, but only 27 entries in a world class event when all the roads are already closed and spectators are forced to sit around waiting... then make it invite only to only those who can afford it?

We need to push for it to be a round of East Coast Classics with generic shared pace notes or even better... make it blind like a real rally with just a roadbook. Stop selling out our sport and passion.

But anyway... we have news! We're building the rally car again!

Our next event is our local forest... 9th March 2019 (3 months away) Wauchope Rallysprint for anyone who is still following haha :)

[Banjo]

What a weekend !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld_-6JitVyE

Some of those camera men have nerves of steel; or are very trusting !

Edited November 20, 2018 by Banjo

[corollaart]

Hi woolshed crew ,

If you really pulled your finger out this would be a good shake down https://www.facebook.com/groups/357128997652589/

See you there in something  i guess 

rob

[altezzaclub]

WRC was tough.. we shared the Opal Cove resort with Toyota, so when Yari won the rally & Toyota won the manufacturers championship it was a noisy time!  We were eating with some very famous people each day..

Through a different route we got invited into the Ford service area and watched them work on Ogier's car from close up!

The day before the rally started the boss was away flying someone else so his GF & I went downtown for some shopping. This was a complimentary ride via WRC organisers who were based at the hotel, so we didn't have the ability to ""OMG! Stop the car I want to get out and put a phone number on that perfectly original un-molested AE86 parked on the kerb there!""

Not a resto job, it looked its age, but it was sitting there in Coffs Harbour.

I'll just process some photos now.

[altezzaclub]

Well, the November trip...  When I arrived I found Steve had bought yet more cars!  This one was in Parkes, a farm ute that hadn't been registered in decades-

It came with complimentary dust of course-

..and needed a lot of servicing and sorting out!

We finally got the rally car diff assembled and into the car, the rear suspension is awaiting the rest of the car being finished before we work on final ride height & travel. For the front we refurbished the Celica's Sigma LCAs and ordered two new balljoints..

Then it was off to the World Rally Championship at Coffs Harbour. We flew down and landed on the lawn at Opal Cove, where the rally is headquartered and Toyota were staying.

Then three days of watching the top dozen drivers in the world hurl cars sideways on gravel at 160kph..

 

Edited December 1, 2018 by altezzaclub

[altezzaclub]

Some stages are in tight forest

Some on smooth fast Shire roads

and often the ability to keep a car sliding for hundreds of metres into blind corners or over crests at high speeds is still not enough

Which is why Mr Perfect Line here has been world champion for years in a row! This corner below started out of the picture to the right and the car screamed in sliding for several hundred metres, full sideways, full power in 5th or 6th gear and just amazing car control!

He is always tucked in right at the apex without cutting the corner and finding the hidden rocks.  There is nothing between the top drivers except luck and constant reliability under tremendous pressure, and Seb Ogier has both-

 

[altezzaclub]

Of course developing those skills can be expensive.. This was over a blind rise just past where we were standing, we heard the sudden lack of engine noise and the crunch crunch sounds..

Some guys bought their Gfs along, although they tended to be a distraction..

We were lucky enough to get slipped into the Ford Works service area for close-up views. In case you've ever wondered how those cars can make those jumps...

Here's the man himself about to setle down for a day at the office. The guy in the background is the boss, Malcolm Wilson, a top rally driver back in the 80s. He's thinking...  "FFS don't crash Seb, the whole team depends on this rally!"

 

So, as it turned out Seb won the World Championship, although Yari-Matti won the rally itself and Toyota won the Manufacturer's Championship. The lounge was packed at the resort and I saw Yari carrying trays of Coronas over to the team. He was the happiest man in the room!

[altezzaclub]

Back to work!  The 'Rona wagon was back in for a new master cyl & booster tidy-up, and it got a Woolshed wheel alignment too. I think we've solved all the teething problems, like the lack of dash lights after the cig lighter caught fire on the last owner, or the way it pulled hard right all the time, so it should be a good reliable car for Steve's GF now.

We bolted the J160 up to the 4AGE and dropped it into the rally car.  It will fit in the tunnel OK, but not on stock engine mounts. Decisions now depend on engine mounts, getting it in and out over the rack (won't do it), getting the 4th carb trumpet off the clutch master cyl (jams and blocks it), having a reasonable driveline angle to the diff..   Lots of things!

Anyway, the crew are thinking hard upon it-

In amongst it we had the local car club come around for a visit, an interesting collection of cars.

..and went to an auction to buy a couple of 22000L water tanks for the cell grazing.