My mk2 Rally car - Duratec power

[Jon Segger]

My gearbox is now with Competition Transmission Systems for repair. It seems that they have the exclusive rights for selling and repairing the older style Type9 sequential boxes now. The 3rd/4th dog gear was knackered, which is what was causing my problems, but the 1st gear was apparently also worn.

They're repairing it and at the same time upgrading the maincase to an alloy one. The original cast cases are a known weak point as they are prone to cracking.

Here's a few videos from Brands. I was braking far too early on almost every corner as I was still getting used to the brakes.

Stage 1. We went straight on at the first corner of the first stage as it was incredibly slippery:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOea3YyrzSw

Stage 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ENj7Vag30c

Stage 3:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNCW2ogZr-A

Stage 4. The gearbox fails at about 2 and a half minutes in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjL376qmgog

[Jon Segger]

I haven't updated this thread for ages - mostly because we haven't spent much time on/in the car. We had planned to do the Lynn Stages in October, but the event was cancelled. Although, as it turned out, we wouldn't have got to do it anyway as my second daughter was born on the day the rally would have taken place. The new baby has taken up quite a bit of time since then and that, in conjunction with not having as much 'spare' cash nowadays, has meant things have been a bit quiet car-wise.

Anyway, 11th Feb 2012 saw Mark and I competing in the South Downs Stages at Goodwood. Just like every time we've done it before, it was a very cold day. The oil temp gauge read -7.4 degrees centigrade when I started the car!

We got through scrutineering without any issues and then it was time for the first stage. I felt pretty rusty if I'm honest - not having driven the car for a while, so I was pleasantly surprised that we were 12th fastest on the first stage. The second stage felt better and we were 7th quickest.

It all went wrong on the third stage though. Some of the chicances were marked out with lorry tyres and as I went through one of them it I just clipped one of the tyres with my right front wheel. It whipped the steering wheel out of my hands and as I grabbed it again to re-join the circuit, I could see that I'd done some damage as my steering wheel was now perfectly upside-down. The yellow tape marker was now at the bottom. The car would still going in a straight-ish line, although I could feel that something wasn't right. We finished the stage taking it a little easier through the rest of the chicanes and then inspected the damage when we got back to the service area.

The wheels were now toe-ing out somewhat and upon closer inspection we could see that the brackets on the crossmember that hold the steering rack were bent up and partly torn. There was nothing we could do to fix them, so we carried on for the rest of the day as it was, checking the rack mounts after each stage to make sure that the damage wasn't getting any worse. I had to be a bit more cautious for the rest of the day though as we couldn't afford to hit it again in case it pulled the rack off completely.

The last two stages were in the dark, which was great fun. We finished the day 13th overall and 6th in class. Not brilliant, but better than a DNF which it could have so easily been.

Here's a couple of photos:

So, this weekend I got round to repairing the damage to the steering. I had to cut one of the brackets off the crossmember and make a new one. I also had to repair the locating bracket that is welded onto the tube of the rack itself. I think the pictures show what I mean better than words:

[SHIFTY]

Congratualtions on the birth of your daughter Jon

Thats a sore one with the brackets on the steering rack and wcxm , fair play to you for keep on going.

Looks like your still having fun out there anyway

[Jon Segger]

Congratualtions on the birth of your daughter Jon

Thats a sore one with the brackets on the steering rack and wcxm , fair play to you for keep on going.

Looks like your still having fun out there anyway

Cheers!

I wasn't going to give up that easily... and yes, still having lots of fun, just a shame I don't get to use it that often.