Skoda Rally Blog

On Saturday something happened that I said never would. Today I sold R477KRU. To be fair, it had been coming for a while – not only when I’d made the decision, but it had been clear since buying the Ibiza last year that one or the other would have to go, and despite N194DKE’s rather poor reputation (3 starts, 3 DNFs, two due to mechanical failure, one due to sister failure), it has shown itself to be potentially a far better car than the Felicia ever could be; without major surgery (i.e. a replacement engine and gearbox) the Skoda would never be able to match the Seat on power, and many other factors were in its favour. But I loved the Felicia, partly because I built it (and since I was a teenager I always wanted to build a “good” car, the definition of which really became a car that would finish a long rally), and partly because of the memories it held; while WRGB 07 was an unpleasant experience in some ways, 08 and 10 made up for it in droves. But it had to go.

First up on the day, getting everything ready to go. This was no mean task in itself – there were a LOT of spares that I’d collected over the last 7 years of running a Skoda, with loads of wheels and tyres making up the vast bulk of it, but in addition lots of spare parts which I’d bought at the right time or when I’d been bored on eBay of an evening. Either way, there were boxes of parts, alternators, pipes, starter motors, hubs, wishbones, all sorts. All of them needed to be sorted out and boxed, which took a couple of hours, and meant the garage was pretty full, and there were five stacks of wheels and tyres in the back garden. On the upside, the shed where I have all the bits had shelf space available for the first time in years.  Makes you think how much time, effort and money you’ve put into something when you see such a massive amount of stuff, though – nearly every eventuality was catered for with the amount of parts there.

I then needed to get the car started, and it hadn’t been for a month or so. It was a bit reluctant to start, but fired up in the end and was ticking over nicely in a couple of minutes. Lewis (the buyer) was unable to come and pick it up, but sent his friend Ian to do all the hard work instead, so when he arrived around lunchtime he had a van and a towing dolly and a fair bit of work to do. I wasn’t sure that everything would fit in the van, and as it turns out, I was pretty close – boxes of lightweight parts needed to go in the back of the Skoda, but we filled the van with the massive spares package (over 30 wheels and tyres) that came with it, and it took an hour or so of solid work to get it all done and loaded up.

Finally it was time to get the car loaded up onto the dolly to be towed away, and it went on without any major fuss, reliable and straightforward to the end. I put the keys back in the ignition and stepped out, the last time I’d ever drive it, quite a sad moment when I thought about all the other times I had been behind the wheel, but I guess that’s progress for you! Ian strapped the car in place safely, sorted out the tail board with lights on, and then it was time for him to set off. I stood in the front garden, looking a -bit- like a mad man as I watched the car go, taking a few pictures as it went:

Bye Bye, Old Friend.

And that, as they say, is that. A 5 year long ownership of the car (the longest of any car or bike that I’ve ever owned) comes to an end, and hopefully it’ll be off to do some more interesting events in the future – certainly if Lewis’ plans come to fruition then it will see some more interesting events. In the meantime, here are some final pictures of the Skoda on Rally GB, courtesy of Jon Suter – www.jmsphotographic.com.

Rally GB 08. Airborne, if not quite like Loeb!

Rally GB 08 – going for a swim!

Rally GB 10

Rally GB 10 – a bit sideways.

So, despite a number of promising leads, no navigator was forthcoming for Rally GB 2012. This is double disappointing because as you will know, the Felicia will no longer be WRC-event eligible from the end of this year (unless the FIA extend it again, of course, but given that it should have finished in 2008, it’s unlikely). And at the moment in the drive I have not only the Felicia, but also the Ibiza, and this is not a state of affairs that can last too long – insuring both vehicles is expensive, and of course I can’t afford to keep both long term. The entries for Rally GB closed a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been away on holiday since then.

However, a decision needed to be made – which car to keep. Both cars have their upsides – the Skoda is a car I built myself, with a great cage installation, with a shell that is in excellent condition, with an engine that’s strong for an 8v 1300, and has a great gearbox and diff. And most importantly, it has a set of Proflex suspension on it which is very low mileage (as all the internals were replaced when I had it rebuilt in 2009), and transforms the car – it’s the same step forward as a close ratio box is. The Ibiza has upsides – it’s a really well built car, with a lot of neat features. It has plenty of power, and the expensive bespoke 2 turns steering rack. Both cars have downsides, however. While the Skoda is quicker than it ever has been before, it’s not as powerful as the Ibiza. The brakes are not in the same league as the Ibiza’s £2000+ AP racing setup, and it has been built to homologated spec which is now expiring for WRC events (but still valid for other internationals for another 4 years) and the chances of me doing another International event are vanishingly small. The Ibiza has limitations – it needs a fair bit of fettling (cooling issues, driveshaft breakages), and the gearbox, diff and suspension are not to the same standard as the Felicia. But it has real potential.

Clouding all this is the fact that I built the Felicia. I’m not prone to sentiment for the most part, but when I was younger and started meddling with cars, I always said I wanted to build a car that would be ‘good’ (yes, I was that vague). And I built the Felicia in 2007 with the aim of completing Rally GB, which of course it didn’t due to an air filter breakup. It returned in 2008 for a near trouble-free run, and in 2010 it had a few troubles, but managed to complete the event, so I feel that I’ve built a decent car that is tough and quick enough for what it is. And it would be hard to let that go – anyone who’s seen Eric Bana’s excellent “Love the Beast” will know what I’m talking about here. Further complicating the decision is that I’ve never finished an event in the Ibiza; the Sunseeker was close, but not a finish, and as a result I don’t feel that we’ve “bonded”.

But I think that all things considered, the decision needed is to keep the Ibiza and sell the Felicia, so to that end I have been thinking about what to do to improve the Ibiza. There are three main issues for me; I’m sure that with new, stronger driveshafts that bugbear will no longer be a problem, but suspension, gearbox and diff are definitely in need of attention. When selling the Felicia, I would definitely not sell it with the Proflex on it; it’s more valuable to sell on its own, and I have a perfectly good set of Bilstein suspension in the shed ready to fit to the Felicia to sell it. And a bit of quick measuring up showed something quite remarkable; the rears would fit onto the Ibiza with only minimal modification being needed; just a top mount spacer (from the Ibiza’s original setup) would need to be modified by drilling it out (it was threaded originally), and the rear just bolted up. The fronts would need more work, as they are a completely different fitting, but interestingly it looks possible to make a bolt-on adapter which the strut would sit in and then have lugs for the Ibiza front hub to bolt to. I am drawing this up this evening to take to get a price for them to be made up, and then I will see how it goes from there.

That left me with the task of getting the Felicia ready to sell. First up was a review of the spares that come with the car. And there are a lot. No, really, it’s amazing how many parts I’ve bought over the 6 years I’ve had a Felicia. I’ve got 28 Gravel tyres (good ones), 8 tarmac tyres, most of which are on wheels – enough to keep the next owner rallying for a couple of years (if not more). I think that’s about £1200-worth of wheels and tyres alone, let alone anything else. There are loads of bits to keep the car going, I reckon it would be possible to use it for a few years without spending much money at all, plus parts to build a 1.4 bottom end should the next owner want to go down that road.

Anyway, aside from that, I have done all the work needed to get the car ready to sell – that involved a damn good clean first, which took a few hours, but it’s looking nice and shiny. Next up was fixing a few things that should have been done a while ago, and also replacing parts which were past their sell-by dates. The car has a new set of Titon harnesses fitted, a new set of front brake discs, and the front brakes serviced as the sliders had become a bit sticky. Brake fluid was changed and re-bled, and a new sensor fitted for the Terratrip. The Peltor intercom is not going with the car, but pretty much everything else is, and it’s all nice and clean inside and out now; with new extinguisher pull fitted it’s ready to rally, give or take.

The car has been advertised for a while and I had some interest while I was on holiday, although the first serious purchaser wanted the spares freighted up to them in Scotland, which wouldn’t have been possible, but I have someone else seriously interested who has been asking the right kind of questions and seems to be serious about competing in the car and giving it the future that I wish I had the time and crew to do so – taking the car abroad to Ypres, for instance. Hopefully this will pan out and the car will be off to a new home in the next couple of weeks.

It’s been a while since the Felicia has been used – in fact, I think aside from moving out of the way of the Seat when it was in the ‘Number One’ position in the drive, I don’t think it’s been used since October – once the engine was all sorted out and I’d done some mapping on it, it was put to bed.  However, I have the next couple of weeks off, and one of the things I want to get sorted out is the Skoda – get it MOT-ed and sort out the list of issues it has; in essence get it ready for its next event.

First, there was a problem – not with the Felicia – in that the Ibiza wouldn’t start.  Or do anything.  It had done this before, and the battery was weak when I got it, and hasn’t improved since.  Time for a trip to the MDC and to get a new one, and off it went.  Then, time to get the Skoda out, up on ramps and take a look at a few issues that I knew about.

Getting some long overdue attention

Once I got the bonnet up, I noticed there was a bit of a smell of petrol, and a quick look showed why – there was loads of it leaking out of the fuel pipes, pooling nicely on the inlet manifold:

Oh dear.

Oh dear.  Still, nothing too difficult to fix, so off to the shop up the road to get some more braided steel fuel hose, and all the bits under the bonnet were replaced.  No more leaks there.  A look underneath showed some gearbox oil leaking because the reverse light switch was loose, so that was easily fixed.  Everything else looked OK underneath, so it was run up and left for a few minutes, and nothing else undesirable fell out or off, so that was good.  Everything for the MOT was checked over and seemed OK, all the lights work as they should do, and nothing seemed too bad.  Splendid.

Ages ago I’d made up a list of things to do, and some couldn’t be done as I need parts, but one could be; a while ago I replaced the hoses between the fuel tank and the rigid pipes in the car, and I didn’t think too much about the routing of the pipes, leading them to be in the way of the inspection cover in the car’s floor.  The access to them is really difficult, and to do it properly meant replacing one of the pipes, meaning the tank needed to be dropped down, so the back of the car was up on ramps and then tankguard needed to come off, then the tank dropped down, hoses replaced and all back in place (minus about 4 kilos of stones which were on top of the tankguard).  Sounds simple enough (and it was), but still took over an hour.

The MOT is booked for tomorrow afternoon, so it should be straightforward, aside from one thing – the car has next to no fuel in it, so I’m hoping that after the UK’s panic buying of fuel last week there will be a petrol station nearby that has petrol so that I can actually get to the MOT!