PPC In the Park, then Pissed in a Field

Saturday was a busy day for me. I got up early (for me) and headed off to PPC In The Park at Mallory Park in Leicestershire. I really like this venue, it has a lot of character, and I haven't been for years. PPC ITP is a sort of open track day where interesting and oddball stuff can buy a 15-minute slot on track and go for it. There was everything there, and we even got a handful of NSCC cars along - myself, James, John P, Derek B and Simon B, plus new guy Andrew E in another TVR.

I'd always fancied going, but it was Martin Drake's kind offer of a free ticket that really swung the deal. In the pits, Simon's Bootlegger Camaro was certainly the favourite of the camera-phone crew, but sadly not the tech inspectors. With the local council paying a worrying amount of attention to goings-on at Mallory, plus a surprise visit from the clipboards, Mallory Park had dropped the noise limit to just 98 decibels, and even with his four-box duals on, Simon still fell foul. Bugger.

Silver lining, though - Simon let me have his track slot! What a gentleman. The NSCC was out in force in group G, and having unloaded all the junk and shite from the Mustang I passed my own noise test and headed out on track. Jeeez, I wish I'd checked my tyre pressures ... erm, this month. Still, driving a car is most fun when you're on the limit. A full-weight Mustang on budget radials with an automatic gearbox that changes up and down on its own schedule finds the limit a lot quicker than some lightweight, race-bred special! I got blown away by a Morgan, a white Fiesta Popular Plus (yeah, right) and plenty of other stuff, but had a great time in the process.

I also got dusted off by a real sleeper, a Rover 110 with proper patina, full leather and wood interior and stock tyres. Under the bonnet was a Corvette small-block and T56 six-speed manual, and even with stock single-circuit non-servo brakes, he still blew me away. He said he was struggling halfway down the straights, as the stock SU fuel pump couldn't quite keep up...!

Just as I'd loaded all my junk back into the boot, Simon asked me if I wanted his second track slot! I did, so I unloaded everything again and went back out after lunch. This time I had a clue about what I was doing, and my mission was to try to shadow John. I now had a passenger - Sarah B - who had been out with John in the first session, and was kindly taking some photos for me. I tried my damnedest, and managed to keep John in my sights. Sarah said that riding shotgun with John was a pleasant and relaxing experience, whereas with me it was a tyre-sqealing, oversteering thrill ride, which is a nice way of saying that John knew what he was doing and I was going at it like a dog at the postman's leg. She also had to upbraid me for waving to Womble on the spectator banking at Shaw's hairpin.

We got dusted down by the same Fiesta again, but I didn't care. I'd had the most fun I've had all year. Derek had a spin in his TVR but lived to tell the tale, while Neil L'Alouette managed to lightly kiss the barrier in his big-block Chevy pick-up, a bent bumper and cracked fibreglass wing bearing the brunt o the damage. After the clipboards had gone home, the organisers did let Simon out on track for a few laps, bless 'em, but I was already queueing to get out by then.

That evening, I went up to join the other half at a bike rally near Garstang. It was around 9pm by the time Womble, Sarah and I got there, and the evening's festivities were just getting going. I've been to a few club bike rallies now, and they always slightly puzzle me. People turn up on a Friday, pitch a tent, get pissed, then some go for a ride out on the Saturday but most just start getting pissed again before the main evening's drinking session, then on Sunday morning they pack up and go home. Aside from the mode of transport upon which they arrived, there doesn't seem to be much "bike" about a bike rally - it's just people getting pissed in a field. That, to me, seems like a weekend wasted - at least at the strip there's a day's drag racing in between the getting pissed.

However, the evening's clubhouse bash was a treat. Two bands and a DJ, and rock tunes all the way. The bar sold bottles of Spitfire, Speckled Hen, Bishop's Finger etc for £2 a pop - cheaper than my local Co-op - and it went on into the early hours.

Overall it was a top day at the track, and a top night at the bar. It was just a shame they had to be about 150 miles apart.

Eugene

Valve Lap Dancing

Here's the latest in the ongoing (read: dragging on tediously) saga of the Bedford CF with the crook cylinder head.
I have decided to go back to the original cylinder head. Yes, it was cack and the valve seats had receded so far they were almost in another engine belonging to a passing Peugeot, but at least it was a known quantity. So, I set about the head with some degreaser and a toothbrush.

After cleaning it up and scraping off all the welded-on remnants of the previous gaskets, it began to look okay so I had all the valves out. Obviously, the exhaust valve with the chunk missing would need replacing, so I nicked one out of the other head. The inlet valve on pot #2 was absolutely caked with shite, which would suggest a lot of oil down the guide, and lo and behold the stem seal was knacked.

I cleaned the valves up on the poor man's lathe (put the valve in a drill and use a screwdriver to chip the shite off) and they came up alright, though the exhaust valve in pot #1 was showing some radial cracks so I nicked another out of the other head and began the tedious and charmless lapping-in process.

It was while lapping in #4 exhaust valve (the one that had a chunk missing) that I spotted a tiny crack in the seat. It's so tiny I could barely get a photo of it, but if you look hard enough at the photo, at about 4 o'clock on the valve seat there's a bloody crack. God damn it. I don't think it actually goes further than the seat, and after all this mither I'll just have to live with it. I also found a tiny bit of play in all of the valve guides except #1 exhaust, where there was a sodding shedload of play - about 2mm at the valve head. This will get a new stem seal and it had better make the bloody best of it. I've ordered a new head set off eBay (which is due to arrive tomorrow) so, at this rate, I should just about have the poxy old nail up and running in time for it to fail its MoT in July.

In other news, I went along to the NASC Neil's Springnationals at Drayton Manor yesterday. What has happened to that show? There seemed to be about 150 cars, and despite the organisers' best efforts, the atmos was truly lacking. The weather was sodding miserable, raining, windy and cold, and everyone looked like they'd rather be somewhere else, but I spoke to some people who had done the weekend, and they said that the evening do in the clubhouse was just as lifeless, but for no good reason. Where has the spark gone from this event? It was such a blinder, back when the HRG crew helped the set-up and organisation, it really was what you spent all winter looking forward to. Now, I went along for the day, got there at 12 and had buggered off again by 3. Most of the showfield had thrown in the towel even before then. I don't know what's gone wrong - it doesn't seem to be a lack of anything on the NASC's part. What's the answer?

Eugene

Off With Its Head!

I've been posting a lot of tripe on the HRG Faecebook page about my Bedford CF cylinder head woes. The latest was that I'd replaced the cylinder head with one from another 2.3 CF and now it boils within 7 miles. Having checked everything, flushed the system and checked everything again, I had to take the head back off. First thing I noticed was that the little bypass hose between the water pump and this little water manifold bolted to the front of the block was definitely on its last legs.

It was looking a bit plump before the multiple boiling episodes, but now it was looking like a pot-bellied dick. Anyway, it came off along with the water pump which, naturally, was fine. I was hoping that would be the nice, easy explanation. No such luck. With the head on the bench I gave it a damn good coat of looking-at but failed to see any problems.

It all looked pretty good. There was a lot of sludge that had accumulated in the water galleries despite repeated flushing, but not enough to actually stop the water circulation. I checked the intake manifold side against the old original head.

The original is on top; the replacement below (with the blue gasket-goo all over it).As you can see, the water jacket hole on the left-hand end is a lot bigger on the original, and there are a few slight machining differences, but not enough to cause any major issues, surely? I was starting to get really pissed off with the whole show. Then I had a shufti at the gasket itself, the brand-new, very expensive Payen head gasket that had covered about 25 miles.

Well bugger me with a gypsy's stick, there's a dink in it. A little groove going from No3 piston straight into the water jacket. If anything, this photo makes it look worse than it is, but it could certainly account for pressurising the cooling system, couldn't it? But here's the issue: I'm damn sure the damage wasn't there when I fitted the gasket, but did I do the damage while FITTING the head or while REMOVING it again afterwards?! Because the engine is half under the bonnet and half in the cab, plus it's canted over at 45 degrees, there's no easy way of dropping the head onto the block, especially not for a slack-sided glass-back like me. I could well have done this while fitting the head to the block, or equally easily while taking it off again.
I think what I'll end up doing is putting an exhaust valve from the head I've just removed into the original head, grinding half a mil off the tops of the valve stems and putting it all back together. It does mean I've got to shell out for another gasket set, though, damn it.
To top it all off, I thought I'd better flush the remaining sludge out of the water galleries in the block. I also thought it would be a fine idea to wait until it was almost dark to do this. Poke hose pipe in one gallery, watch rusty sludge and bum-gravy pour from another. Poke hose into another gallery, watch same crap pour from another. Poke hose into another water gallery ... and, nothing. Ah! Could this be the cause of the overheating?

No, it couldn't, you great bell-end, because you've just put the hose down one of the oil drain-backs and filled your sump with tap water. Better add another gallon of 20W50 bogwash to the bill, too...

Eugene