Skoda Rally Blog

No updates for a while, not because I’ve been slacking off (far from it), but because I’ve been too busy. In the time away, all the last things were done to finish the car off – sumpguard fitting, tankguard final fitting, various minor things to help keep the car going, etc.

Today has been a milestone for me. Took the car to be logbooked this morning (which was a far more pleasant experience than I was led to believe), and it passed, everything was in order and I came away with quite a few handy tips and things to improve the car, which is good too. ?28 well spent.

What wasn’t so good was that I’d forgotten to put the bonnet pins back in before driving home, due to some re-opening of the bonnet – basically my fault, ‘cos I normally put them in when I close the bonnet but was told we’d be re-opening it, never did, and forgot. Idiot. Result – one bent pair of hinges and a dented bonnet, and 2 hours to fix it. Not happy at all about that, but there you go – no-one died, and it could have been a lot, lot worse….

Sorted out several minor additions to the car, such as the 5v supply for the GPS unit and the PDA (which will have sat nav, etc, on it), better spotlamp wiring (as it had to be removed to sort the bonnet out), intercom wiring extension, etc.

Tomorrow will see the last bits done, and then a week’s worth of driving just to bed everything in. However, (not wanting to tempt fate), it does feel very good at the moment; the weld-in cage makes the shell so stiff that it feels incredibly taut and precise, much more so than the last car. Hopefully the engine and ‘box will hold up and be reliable; I know that the car won’t be that quick, but it’s quicker than the old car, and should be OK up hills, despite the lack of a C/R gearbox – Chris Bennett has again picked up the box and taken it away, and I’ve heard nothing since – I wouldn’t risk fitting it at this stage, I’d want at least 2 weeks of driving the car with it in before I’d trust it, and as Day 2 of WRGB is 2 weeks away, that’s never going to happen.

Oh, the title is a reference to the song – “Keeping the Dream Alive”. I’m still doing it. Just about.