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Bloody Hell, indeed!

To: pyramid!pyramid.pyramid.com!phile@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Philip J Ethier)
Subject: Bloody Hell, indeed!
From: sgi!pwcs.StPaul.GOV!phile@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Philip J Ethier)
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 90 16:14:02 CDT
  


      Saturday the 21st was the warm-up day for 3M members, run concurrently
      with the driver's school for novices.  The Spridget was running
      horrible, even though it ran well on Wednesday.  Bob Bownes and Pete
      Jarosch  helped me diagnose it.  The plug-wire-pulling routine
      revealed #2 and #3 were doing nothing.  I swapped plugs middle-to-end
      and tried again.  Now #1 and #4 were dead!  The damned Bosch plugs
      were no good!  Pete gave me a lift in his Pantera to get new
      Champions.  Much better.  Bob tuned up the SUs for me.   Ah!  The Dr.
      Bobwrench touch!  The car ran like a million bucks.  I took five
      practice runs.  The car worked fine, the Yokos stuck like glue.
      Several people told me it looked much faster than last year, but we
      didn't have times.  Bob wrung out his RX7.  He went through to the
      cord on one tire.  His new tires weren't in yet and the TR is still
      undergoing body work, so he decided to bring the Beretta for Sunday's
      autocross.

      Sunday morning the weather was just as nice as the day before.  The
      Spridget felt great on the freeway out to 3M Center.  I could hardly
      wait to get it through the timers.  I unloaded, registered, slapped on
      the numbers (no team.net sticker yet, though) and cruised over to
      Tech.  Bridget passed tech just fine.  I jumped in and headed back
      towards the paddock. First gear.  Second gear.  Stop sign.  First
      gear.  First gear.  First gear.  Wait a minute!  THIS LEVER WON'T
      MOVE!!  I motored at substantially reduced speed to the paddock and
      removed the shift lever.  Nothing wrong here, worse luck.  Bob Bownes
      was there, as was Brian Erickson, MGB pilot and professional mechanic.
       We tried rocking the car and all the other normal tricks.  We were
      just discussing cutting the top out of the tunnel when Bill Cammack
      arrived with his road racing 240Z.  Bill used to autocross with me in
      the old days, then he got into SCCA road racing and hadn't autocrossed
      in years.  He'd called me on City business one day and I'd invited him
      to the autocross.  He'd said that they would come out with his
      brother's Mazda.  The Mazda was in the shop, so they decided to bring
      the Z-car.  Bill had a pair of tin snips.  I decided this body will
      never be restored, so why not?  We all laughed about "Kids, don't try
      this at home on your freshly-restored Spridget".
     
    After I completed the massacre of the tunnel from the shifter hole
    forward to the firewall, we unbolted the remote-control unit and
    pulled it out.  While Brian and I examined it, Bob started fiddling
    with the selector that was still in the car.  Bad news.  The
    remote-control unit is OK.  About this time Sue and the kids arrived
    ready for a picnic lunch and an afternoon of watching Daddy race.  I
    assured the guys that I had parts at home, so we didn't have to be
    afraid of breaking something.  We put a breaker bar against the
    selector forging and hit it with a hammer.  No reaction whatsoever.
    Bill let me take his truck and trailer so I didn't have to drive home
    in first gear.  Sue and the kids followed.  I returned with the rig
    and stuck around for the rest of the event.  Bill lives just down the
    street from me, so I rode back with them.

    Thanks to all who helped.  I was happy to meet up with autocrossing
    folks again.  Some, like Bill Cammack and Larry Felsing, were coming
    back to autocrossing after an absence of many years, like I did in
    '88.  I have waited and prepared for this event for six months, so it
    is a bitter disappointment to have the car fold before I got on the
    clock.  I suppose I'll have to remove the engine and transmission now.
     I really hate to take this stuff all out and  then put it right back
    in he same ugly body.  I would appreciate input from anyone who has
    had a problem like this.

    phile@pwcs.stpaul.gov    (612) 224-3105 or (612) 298-5324

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