Skoda Rally Blog

So I’d planned to get the cage finished today. Mice and Men, etc. Reason being that firstly I didn’t get started until later than I planned, but mostly because there was a LOT of awkward welding to do on these tubes meaning muchola contortion, a lot of electrode re-grinding (if you touch the electrode in the weld pool you need to do this, and each time I need to wait for it to cool down before doing that), and also a bit of “I’m bored” also. Which meant that I started something else this afternoon instead – an “extra” (as if I have time), sill stand holes. This might seem OTT, but fitting these will mean I’ll be able to get a quick-lift jack for the car (and the jacking time is the biggest time-waster when changing a wheel) and not have a knackered underside as well. However, fitting them can be a bit of a hit-and-miss affair, reason being that you need to drill a large hole through the sill, which is 4 pieces of metal across around 150mm. I don’t have a drill big enough for this, or a hole-saw deep enough, so it needs to be accurately measured and then done from the inside and the outside. At the back this means being under the car, which isn’t too bad without the tank and exhaust there. And amazingly, I’ve done 3 and got them all within a mm of where they should be, which is good enough if you ask me. This might not look very pretty:

But it will do when it’s properly painted, and it’ll make a world of difference to working on the car.

So the cage is nearly done – a few little bits to weld, and one more tube to place which is a piece of cake – just runs between the two strut towers at the rear. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours and it’ll be done. Pity the weather hasn’t been this good for weeks, I reckon I’d have a finished car stood there by now if it had! But here’s how it all stands…

Tomorrow, etc….