Ready for the 10CR?

One very vital but also rather boring and time consuming part of next week’s 10 Countries Run was finished yesterday. Checking the satnav files, copying the road book to some maps and loading the various GPX files to my TomTom over the weekend. Hopefully we won’t be needing the atlas but I always find it somehow reassuring to have maps at hand in case all else fails and a road is closed for whatever reason!

And as mentioned in my previous post I found out the lock nut for the left hand steering rod end was slightly loose. And today being the first day of my vacation, I decided to take the car to a friend’s workshop, to have the front suspension’s alignment checked. Glad I did! The tracking indeed was out a bit. Not by a huge amount, but it could have been enough to cause problems over the distance that the car will be covering next week.

The final job for the first day of my vacation was cleaning the car’s interior and impregnate the leather of the seats with some hide food. Rather time consuming and a bit messy 😶

Remains the question how the brakes performed. To be continued!

Almost ready for the 10CR

Again managed to spent a few hours tinkering on the drophead over the weekend. This time the front suspension and brakes got some attention. I had some hopes I would find something explaining the still rather long brake pedal travel. It wasn’t to be. Though a drive with the car last week showed the brakes were at least consistent. So that should rule out air in the system (actually the system was flushed and bled less than 1000 kilometres ago). Also no discernible play in the bearings that could cause pad knock-back. Which was hardly surprising after her recent MOT pass!

And the Mintex M1144 pads still have more than enough life left in them for the oncoming almost 3000 kilometres off the 10 Countries Run in just over a week’s time.

Actually the only thing that needed rectification was a slightly loose lock nut for the left hand steering rod end. Though I will have the tracking checked later in the week just to be sure.

And for peace of mind I disconnected the handbrake cable from the rear drums and gave the brake pedal a few hefty pushes in an attempt to get the brakes shoes out a bit more. Don’t expect too much of it but who knows!

More 10CR checks

Spent a few hours over this weekend, preparing the car for the 10CR. Starting on one of the lifts in a friends workshop, with the aim of checking all rubber fuel hoses from below. First check was the fuel hose between the (FI) fuel tank and the 8mm metal pipe running to the engine bay. After cleaning 12 years of road grime from it, I found out there was nothing really wrong with it. Which turned out to be a good thing! Because I was reminded that on a FI tank the supply hose connection is 12mm. Clearly forgot that over the 12+ years since I restored this car 😶 At the time I fitted a fuel resistant 8mm hose with a 2mm wall thickness inside the hose end that connects to the 8mm pipe.

So that would have been a challenge to replace with a half empty tank and only normal fuel hoses at hand. All the rubber fuel lines in the engine bay were also in good condition. Not really surprising as these were all renewed in the past few years.

To prevent future problems, I think I will replace the two separate outlet and sender units for a normal carburetted version. The tank’s redundant hole should be straight forward to close up with a round steel plate with the same dimensions as the sender unit’s base plate.

Next job was a bit of tinkering and cleaning of the carburettors. Starting with the suction chambers and pistons. Main job here was polishing the inside of the suction chambers and the pistons outer rims. Though one of the pistons had clearly accumulated some dirt on its piston’s surface.

With the internals cleaned I spent some time on the custom carburettor linkage. Mainly consisting of a good clean and some fresh grease inside the link rod ends. Inspecting the rod end’s surfaces proved there was nothing wrong. And as such still one of the better adaptations on this car.

Final jobs were a detailed general check of the engine bay; emptying the catch tank, changing the routing of the two fuel hoses connecting to the carburettors, checking the earth point (found and rectified one loose bolt behind the RH headlight, caused by a stripped thread). Next weekend I will have a look at the front suspension. But in between I’ll start with preparing the route for my GPS and mark the route out on a good old fashioned paper map!

Pré 10CR check DHC

Spent most of this Saturday’s afternoon on another check for the car of choice for next month’s 10 Countries Run. First area to get some attention were the rear brakes. Because the brake pedal’s travel is still to long for my liking. The drums where a nice tight fit over the brake shoes, with no ridge.

Of course hardly surprising as they were machined in 2019. And after that the car wasn’t used as much as I would have liked due to the Covid pandemic. But despite the lack of use the handbrake adjusters were still free and working properly. And no sign of leaks from the 5 year old rear brake cylinders.

With a clean bill of health for the rear brakes, it was time for a rather simple but also important job. Checking the valve clearances. And about time these were checked. The last time I checked and adjusted them was in 2007, when the engine was in the Bordeaux red DHC.

Rather pleased with the condition under the cam cover. Especially considering this engine has been in use since 1994. It is actually the first car engine I built myself!

And 15 years and 44.531 kilometres on I found the clearances weren’t too bad. One spot on, five less than 0,05mm to tight, one between 0,05 and 0,10mm to tight and one 0,05mm to wide. While typing these words I have still not decided whether to adjust them or not ... To be continued!