Onwards and Upwards

February 9th 2017

After our enjoyable day at Croglin our next outing was the first event of 2017, at Eden Hall.
It's just east of Penrith on the road to Melmerby.

Again it's an event I've not done before. I did take some excellent video there last year (Well. I thought it was excellent, anyway). But just to confound me the Clerk of the Course (Neil McHardy) used the top of the fell rather than the bowl at the bottom which was where I had seen the event previously.

The farmer greeted us as we drove in. It's a quarry workings and the pits are usually at the bottom next to the scrapyard. He advised us to park higher up in the quarry as he said that some "customers" of the scrapyard "get confused" and may take bits off your cars.

Good start. 

Again it was nice weather. Not too cold, not wet and almost sunny.
OK. I lied about the last bit.

John has been watching other crews and decided that he needed to get a bit more active in the car.
Now, some passengers are a bit acrobatic and let's face it, could do the Dying Swan if the principal dancer at Sadler's Wells was to drop dead. But that wasn't what John was thinking of. He used to ride a trials bike, back before there were roads, and could sense that his input could assist the grip.
I like to try different approaches. I know that the passenger out on the uphill side is a good thing, but can't help feeling that leaning across behind the driver raises the CoG more than staying in the seat. So the extra weight over the uphill wheel may not be as useful as it is when the uphill wheel is on the passenger's side.
Just my thoughts. But I'm all for us acting as a well-oiled machine, so he practised some leaning and gripping. Thinking there may be good positions to fit new handles we asked Karen Briggs as we were parked next to them. She helpfully tried our car and declared it fine for handholds.  Her leaning and stretching impressed John to the extent that he almost considered losing a few kilos to make himself more nimble.
The feeling soon passed.


On to the Hills

One side effect of the small engine having a trials cam in it is that because there is no valve overlap, in order to aid torque, the motor is unwilling to even run properly before it's well up to temperature. We set off up the road out of the pits and the car in front stopped to pick up somebody. That was it.
I hadn't warmed the motor and it wouldn't get going again. So apologies to those who had to file past whilst we warmed the engine.

We got started on the Hills and again we were surprising ourselves. It's easy to become over-chuffed with your progress and we have to remember that if we are doing quite well, so is everyone else. But it does help to re-enforce the theory that it's better to lay out a course with a gradual climb in difficulty rather than have a nasty surprise at post 11.

We were doing pretty well with some low scores on the first round.
I am beginning to think this little car is the best one I have had and despite having a small motor it has a lot of heart. I could just do with slightly lower gearing.

Actually he was leaning past his GPP (geriatric pivot point) earlier on that corner

We were finding that some of the turns were as much as the car could manage, relying on the fiddle brakes to get us around.

This was one that we found later in the day to be a problem. I just didn't have enough lock to complete it.

In this pic I have just come around the pole in the foreground and managed to get back to the 6 gate. Later on I was having trouble.

Another thing I have found is that I'm starting to think for myself. "Someone" suggested a speed to use at an awkward drop over a track and I did think I would prefer another method. However I tried the advice and it didn't work in my case.

Horses for courses. As you start to develop your own driving rhythm it seems that some things just don't work for you.

This was another spot where I didn't have enough lock. The two times that I got around and back through the 6 gate, I cleared the Hill. But twice I got stuck at 6 with the pole between my front wheels.

Whilst Richard in the silver car in this video does use his fiddle brake to effect the turn, his lock is good anyway. Bob in the red car has a really good lock and just drives around.

Apart from that, the day went very well. This is the first event in which we have improved our score round by round. That may mean we were simply rubbish on the first couple of rounds. But it does mean we are learning.

If you had suggested we could get 7 clears and 5 ones before we started I would have had a proper laugh. 

The big thing that needed attention was the steering.

Back at home I had a good look about and discovered that I had not been careful enough in shortening the steering arms. The ball joints were fouling the axle and preventing any further movement. Also one steering link was going over-centre and making straightening up difficult.

See how shortening the steering arm has brought the joint up against the axle.

Also not having the "eye" for the taper horizontal has pushed the joint even further into the axle.

In this comparison shot, on the left, you can see the rubber bellows on the joint because it is displaced. In the image on the right you cannot see the bellow because I have turned the "eye" back to the horizontal.

This has had the effect of moving the ball joint away from the axle and gaining some more rotation of the hub upright. 

Then I discovered that the mudguard stay bolts were fouling cotter-pin nuts on hub upright. Using some flat headed bolts cured that and grinding a little from the generous welds that hold the king pin carriers to the axle gave a little more movement.

Just very minor things, but now the lock has improved enormously.

Before

After

Of course. It never ends. This has show that the king pin carrier on the passenger side was fitted to the axle wrongly and the KPI and camber are both wrong.

You can see the wheel is laying over backwards in the upper shot.

It also manifests itself in positive camber on that wheel.

At this stage it will be easier to either:

A:- Cut and weld the axle tube to correct it

B:- Ignore it.

I tend towards B