Skoda Rally Blog

The next job to get done was the tank guard – the last one died rather a death on the last day of Rally GB, although given that it was made in haste during Rally GB 08 after excellent scavenging by Ian Bowler (it was a piece of an Army toolkit!), it didn’t really owe us anything!  I had one here which was part of the job lot of bits I bought years ago (and the only part I’ve never used), but it wouldn’t fit straight on; partly because of my handbrake cables (the car it came off of didn’t have a cable handbrake), and partly because my exhaust mountings are a bit different, so a bit of modification was needed at the front, plus making up the front mountings.  The rear is also mounted to the body (unlike the last ones which have been axle-mounted), so those brackets needed sorting out, which isn’t straightforward when you’re trying to juggle two things at once that you can’t hold properly or see, and when you’re getting facefulls of dirt from the underside of the car – there were several “blind” moments, but eventually the rear brackets were made up and fitted, so they needed to come off and be painted and left overnight.

This morning it all went back together and then was put onto the car, and that part went pretty smoothly (barring several gritty eye moments), and the back of the car was looking pretty good.

Then it was time to look at the front – a new gearbox mounting has arrived, having been made by Jim Jones who is a Skoda legend and all round good bloke – if he doesn’t know it about Skodas, it’s not worth knowing.

Lovely new mounting

This uses a Skoda bush from a Fabia to significantly improve this lower mounting, which had given up the ghost on Rally GB, mostly down to the on/off throttle problem giving it a hard time.  That was a fairly simple job to fit, although different bolts will be needed for a permanent fitting.

Typically, though, it’s time for an MOT for the Felicia, and a quick check showed that one of the inner CV boots was a bit split.  Closer inspection showed that the inner joint had got some grit in it and was worn, so it was time to change driveshaft, thankfully I have a few stored in the shed, but it does of course mean getting the strut out the way, so that all takes time, and then draining the gearbox oil out (which needed to be re-used as it’s the very good Bardahl stuff which worked a treat and would cost about £40 to replace!), etc….  Easy enough, but all takes time, so by the time this was all done, it was time to stop for the weekend.  The car is pretty much ready for the MOT which I will book this week, probably for the week after – it’s quite difficult finding time at the moment, so I’ll need to get it done on a Friday afternoon as I don’t have any other time when I can get there.  Hopefully it’ll all go smoothly!