Busy times

In between losing some wisdom (one tooth’s worth…) a lot of jobs have been finished off on the Micra.

• Filled the cooling system
• Fitted the dizzy and HT Leads
• Fitted the newly reinforced sump-guard, which took a LOT of fiddling to get fitted where the chassis mounts are now a little ‘well used’
• Fitted the sump-guard side splash guards
• Mounted the bumper back, and sorted the OSF wheel arch liner
• Adjusted and improved the new washer system, with a second pump and one-way valve
• Replaced the OS driveshaft which had a split inner gaiter, and topped up the gearbox oil
• Fitted the airbox, and finished tidying up the new headlight wiring and testing this.
• Checked rear brake adjustment and bearings
• Full bolt check, found one major gearbox mount bolt loose!
• Changed oil and filter

The car is now almost ready for some test drives, jobs left to do before the WRGB Media day

• Fit new mud flaps and mounts
• Sort stickers, sunstrip and polish car
• Test run and bleed cooling system
• Paint wheel arches white
• Rain-x car
• Check new hub nuts dont move under use
• Fit rear wheel scrappers
• Check tracking

One other job to be done, are to sort out the last few tyres for WRGB, which I will hopefully be collecting this week and getting fitted at The Rover Centre

Lots of small jobs

With the WRGB Media day looming up soon, I have been busy in the garage in the evenings in an effort to the get the car ready before the media day.

Yet more Blue Print parts fitted to the rally car.

Recent jobs done have included :-

• Finding the OEM Rear ARB (needed to try softer ARB options, to try when testing in a hunt for more grip), cleaning and painting
• Fitting a new Auto Rad, with an Auto fan. The new fan is much more powerful than the standard fan, plus the new rad will flow a lot more air through it. Plus the main issue of where the old fan rubbed against the old rad it was wearing through the core which have lead to a leak at some point in the near future.
• I have re-build the distributor, fitting new rotor arm, cap and HT Leads
• Replaced the ECU Coolant Temp sensor, which will hopefully cure the running issues we had on the last Targa Rally.
• Reinforced the bonnet pin mounting points which on inspection were very worn, and could have lead to the bonnet opening at speed!
• Finally, further tidying of the wiring loom and protecting it with spiral protection tubing.

The WRGB Media Day is on 9th Oct, which isn’t that far away now. This should be an interesting day with us lining up with other clubman crews and WRC Stars like Evans in his Ford WRC Fiesta!

A day out in a different Micra

With us deciding to not enter Woodbridge Stages this year in our Micra to save funds for WRGB, it seemed a little odd to end up spending the day navving in another Micra.

After a bit of work on the rally forums, I ended up paired up with Robert Kennedy is an ex. F1000 Junior driver looking for someone to tell him where to go for the day.

The day dawned bright and sunny and we had great weather all day long, in fact a little too hot at times for our tyres and brakes. The little ex. Junior F1000 Micra was well built and inspired confidence that it would safe if it where ever needed…

We had a good day with very little drama’s all throughout the day, the new layout at Woodbridge following the demise of the Budliegha sections, meant it was really a power venue and with just a standard 998cc CG10 Engine we were always going to be up against it. However Rob’s Junior F1000 experience showed through with a very committed driving style which saw us airbourne every time over the jumps 🙂

In the end we ended up 39th overall & 6th in class from 55 entries.

As ever it was good to see how another Micra was set-up and run, as you can always learn new ideas (fitting mud flaps being one for use soon) and a good drive by Rob.

Possibly the biggest thing learnt was how relaxed and stress free rallying can be when you don’t have to run a car, just turn up, belt up and go rallying. Much less stressful than packing cars with spares, working out fuel and tyre usage & strategy and then that niggling feeling about how will you get the car home if it all goes wrong. I could get used to this navving lark! The other thing that made the event was the smooth running of the day down to the great work by the CMC Crew and how good it is to go rallying with all your mates 🙂

All in all a great days sport.

Here is one of a few stages we go on-board footage of, more can be found on my YouTube Channel – Matt Endean Rallying

A productive days work

After a few days of working on the Micra where it felt like I was making slow progress, today has been much more fruitful.

First off I had to work out solutions to the new layout of the new dash, which meant new mountings for the heater controls and ECU. After a number of different options, the answer was zip-ties! These now support both the ECU and heater controls and it works very well.

Then it was on to fitting the dials and finishing off the wiring for the additional switches (horn, rad. fan & lamp/corner pods).

Next up was fitting the rally clock and trip meter and wiring them in, this all went smoothly and they look very smart on the new flocked dash. (No pics as my iPhone has died :(…. )

I then set about tidying up the rest of the inside of the car, and fitting all the spares, fluids etc.. that we carry on multi venue events.

Last week we were confirmed for the WRGB Media day, which we now know is based on tarmac. So I worked out which wheels and tyres we will use. The wheels are ones I got in a deal with the LSD Diff, which are VW wheels. I then prepped and sprayed them in ‘Motorsport’ white (Poundshop spray paint!).

Lots more work still to come, but a slightly shorted list now we know the media day isn’t on gravel.

Final thing, we are now looking for a gravel testing venue ideally local’ish to Aylesbury and cheap! Anyone know of anything????

A teaser of WRGB

Thanks to the great work of rally-maps.com, you can now see maps, on-board videos and a flyover of all stages for this years Wales Rally GB.

http://www.rally-maps.com/Wales-Rally-GB-2014

Here is a video of what will be our first stage om this years event, which will feel familiar as it was our first stage on last years WRGB.

A good flocking……

I have always liked the look of flocked dashes, when one came up at a good price. I couldn’t turn it down, and as part of a a trip to Wales with work I collected the flocked dash.

Removing the old dash proved to be a lot of hard work, with the roll cage being welded in, it was always going to be a bit of battle to get the old dash old. After a lot of work, and some scruffed knuckles and choice words. I managed to remove the dash.

With the dash out, I was able to remove nearly all the sound proofing hidden behind the dash, which combined with bits of dash not returned to the car, has seen a weight saving of over 2.9kgs!

Also with the dash out, I was able to route the pipework and wiring for the newly relocated screenwash bottle, which now lives behind the drivers seat. The new bottle is smaller, so it will hold less screenwash (weight) and is a lighter bottle too.

Oh and cracked the windscreen – oh boll*cks….!

A bit of a catch up

This little lot arrived from one of our sponsors – Blue Print, which will be put to good use in Wales either on the car or keeping us warm.

Also on Thursday I sorted out the fitting of most of our tyres for Wales Rally GB, by another of our sponsor The Rover Centre in St. Albans

Today (and a few evenings) I have fully re-wired the headlights, lamp pod and corner pods wiring. The original set of wiring I put in was in a hurry and a real birds nest of a set-up. The new system is a lot better and looks a lot smarter freeing up space in the engine bay.

Also I started fitting all new HT electrics, and an oil change.

The re-wiring work too rather longer than expected, so on with more work