Skoda Rally Blog

OK, so this weekend was never going to go that smoothly. But what didn’t help was that on Friday the heavens opened. What I can only describe as rain of biblical proportions threatened to put a stop to any work on the car, and the forecast was for bad weather all weekend. So out with the trusty gazebo, set up in the drive in front of the garage to provide a sort of tent car-port. Which worked reasonably well once I’d finally got it all up with help from Mother! The big problem with it is that it tends to fall apart until you’ve got the canvas bit on, but then it was only ?20 from B&Q and it’s remarkably waterproof.

So, with that out of the way, it was time to get on with the work. Which was a bit of a trial in itself. Many little things to do, like wiring for the map light (re-doing that so the LED one I put in works properly), steering wheel (a nice Momo one, very rally style-eee) which involved some bolting and making everything fit precisely, fitting the new front bumper (amazingly the silicone-fitted indicator was easier to remove than the other, standard one whose clip was clearly designed by the Marquis de Sade) which involved welding as the captive bolts that hold it on at the side self-destructed so then needed to be replaced. And so on. You see, the problem with a rally car is that most of the things you want to do don’t involve a simple remove/bolt on a new one job, they mean making something up or making it fit. So that took hours instead of the 30 minutes you’d expect.

Then it was a case of getting the rest of the car ready for the seats, so making up the new sumpguard mounts was next (although these were just improved with big washers and new rubbers), and then the treadplate ‘mats’ to fit. However, these rattled a lot so big fat beads of sealer were left on there to damp them down and left overnight so they wouldn’t stick to the floor. Then countless little jobs and Stu arrived to put the new stickers on. Only to find out that the Union Flags I’d ordered were for the inside of a window, so no use at all! Idiot! However, the rest went well.

Finally, fitting the seats, which is always a trial as you have to make everything fit properly which means lots of readjustment, but they’re in and they’re spot on – precisely placed and with the new steering wheel it feels like a rally car now.

But driving it was a nightmare. Nothing less – it was hideous. The steering was imprecise, and putting power on made it lurch to the left then straighten up, and backing off a similar thing. The steering geometry was miles off, and I don’t trust Kwik Fit (they made a pig’s ear of the Favorit ages ago), so I adjusted it by eye and got it better, but it was still horrible. After some desperation on the Internet and to the guru (Mr. Colville) I was told that you can set a car up with two pieces of string running parallel to the wheels and measure from that. Which led to make a crucial discovery – the tyres were slightly different, despite being nominally the same size. I put a pair of nice new forest tyres on (with yellow wheels no less), and could make accurate measurements again. But far more importantly, driving it was not scary at all – it was the tyres that were the problem. Further adjustment improved matters, so I put an old pair of Yokos on and it was all good. A test drive showed no problems, other than having to put more steering effort/angle in when on the power, and removing that extra angle when backing off. When driving ‘with gusto’ it’s fine though, just have to remember to back off when, er, backing off!

There was also work to do on the recce car! Let’s just say that most of it went smoothly – the spare ‘tarmac’ sumpguard has now been fitted to it, and it has a map light that works, and a set of forest tyres. But the tripmeter was a disappointment – after fitting the probe and wiring, and Paul making up the mounting for the glovebox lid (second time lucky, shall we say?), it doesn’t bloody work! Paul dropped it at one point, and it would seem that it was a bridge too far. So no tripmeter, which is annoying, to say the least.

Other than that, and a few little things to do on Friday to the rally car (rollcage padding, a service, various little bits and pieces, then stickers when they arrive!), I think we’re mechanically there. Now I just need to

• sort out all the stuff we’re taking with us, spares, tools, gazebo (got a bit one on ebay for ?90)
• somehow manage to drive fast enough on the recce to get it all done in time
• learn to drive properly
• be more lucky than I have been over the next two weeks

Oh, we were interviewed for the Fire radio station on Saturday morning. I went off on one about how cheap the car was, and that we have half the power of anyone else, and about 1/5 of the ‘proper’ cars. Probably sounded like an idiot. It’s being broadcast in bits and pieces over the next 2 weeks, so that will be “interesting”. And we’re going to be in Motorsport News this Wednesday! Excellent! Pity our Sponsor didn’t come through – he’d have had a fair bit of cheap advertising. Bummer.