Skoda Rally Blog

I was reminded the other day (thanks Jon!) that it’s only 60 days to Rally GB.  Or rather it was at the time.  So I thought it was time to get my finger out and get the car ready, so I’ve set about sorting the list of things to do out.  Fortunately the weather has been good today, and even more fortunately, I got the afternoon off completely out of the blue.  So I thought it was time to get the engine and gearbox out, so I can get ready for the new bottom end to be mated to the head, and then put back in the car.  Obviously I’ve done this a fair few times now and most of it has been on and off regularly, so I hoped that nothing would go wrong, and that was pretty much it.  At 2:30 I drove the car into place, and by 4:45 this had happened:

Engine out, been a while for once!

I’d have done it in under 2 hours but I had a visitor for a while – it’s just like the Haynes manual, really – 1: Undo Bolts. 2: Remove Engine.  I’m not going any further with stripping the engine down as it currently runs, and while I’ve had some of the engine parts turn up (OK, 2 gaskets!), I’ve not had any of the others (bearings, pistons, liners, shims, etc) – they are coming direct from the Czech republic courtesy of Jorily, so I’m hoping they’ll arrive during next week and I can get the engine built and refitted by the end of next weekend.

In the meantime, the rear shock has been sent off to Proflex to be repaired, I’ve bought and received a new Terratrip probe and the new straps to make the extinguisher legal (it will be sent off for service on Monday), so that should only leave the seat to buy, which will have to wait until I get paid at the end of the month – this self employed lark is all very well, but it makes it difficult over the summer!  I also need to take a look at the diff as it’s not really got much preload on it so I want to beef it up a bit – nothing crazy, but it can do more than it currently is, for sure.  I should get a chance to split the gearbox over the weekend and measure the current preload and then see what needs to be done – Gripper diffs have fairly cheap parts so even if it does need plates it won’t break the bank, thankfully.

Tonight I’ll be putting some areas on the car on eBay, so check out the Sponsorship page above if you’re interested and want to bag yourself somewhere on the car – the first space is already gone!