Skoda Rally Blog

First up is that today this site and our exploits have finally made their way into the Bournemouth Echo – with a full-page write-up and some video on the Echo Website of SS3 of the Sunseeker (you can see the full video here), so if anyone who’s reading this is doing so as a result of reading the Echo, a big “Hello”, and please have a good look around.

Echo Article, Sep 26 2009

Secondly, I’ve made a huge amount of progress since Thursday.  Having asked around and done some research, it looks as if there was a problem with the head which led to the head gasket failure, including oil getting into the cylinders and leading to detonation (the fuel mixture spontaneously combusting before it should do).  This has led to me putting my “spare” head onto the car, which I handily had bought a set of brand new valves for, so an hour was spent grinding them in and getting the head built up.

'Spare' head, built and ready.

Next, putting the head onto the engine, although it couldn’t be easily fully tightened until the engine was in the car (much easier to do as the engine isn’t falling about on the garage floor that way).

The other problem was the gearbox.  Regular readers will know this is my least favourite part of the car, but as I’ve had to do it so many times recently, I’m actually getting reasonably good at it – splitting the cases is getting much quicker, and taking it apart showed that I’d made a mistake building it before – there is a gear which presses into place on the shaft which was loose, and it had moved, leading to an extra 1mm of clearance, explaining the huge amount of noise and also the oil loss as the shaft could move around.  Handily I’ve taken apart so many Skoda gearboxes that I had exactly the right shims to get this all sorted; I replaced the two bearings anyway (as I don’t fancy taking it apart in a hurry, and it’s ‘only’ another £20), and once it was all shimmed up correctly, it span like a dream.

However, like many things when you were a kid, putting it back together is much more difficult than taking it apart; this is partly because getting the gears in place is a bit of a juggling act; the gears have to be in the right gear, as does the casing, and even then it’s a bit of a knack.  Once they are in place, there’s reverse gear to go into place, and then the shaft that activates it, along with 5th gear.  Although I didn’t forget how it went back together, pictures were taken as I took it apart anyway, just in case…

Pointing to the bit that needed moving...

When all of that is in place, you can finally put the casing back on, and this used to be the most difficult bit, but now I have a knack of doing it, plus it’s much easier if you ask someone (OK, my Mum!) to hold a pair of cirlip pliers in place to allow the bearing to slide into place.  Once that’s there, it’s just time to put all the bolts back in place, and then finally 5th gear, which goes on the outside, and one more little casing.

What used to be a horror of a job was complete by 12:30.  And the sun was still out, without a cloud in the sky.

Next up, getting the engine and gearbox back together, which is much easier to do when it’s out of the car, and took about 2 minutes; the knack with this is to get someone to wiggle the crank of the engine while you push the gearbox into place, which allows the shaft to engage.  Easy.

And then, putting it back in the car.  Again, I’ve done this quite a few times recently, and it all went really smoothly; before lunch it was bolted in place.  Then there’s just a case of putting all the other things back in place – exhaust, inlet manifold, gear lever, driveshafts (one of which needed a new boot, taking another 15 minutes or so) – even these have become easy with the ‘greasing the circlip’ trick.  Water pipes all needed to go in place, and then time to do the head bolts up – they need to be done by an angle (90 degrees), and then the same again; crucial given the problems with the last head gasket, so this was done with great care.  Then adjusting the valve clearances (a tedious job involving a screwdriver, spanner and feeler gauges), and connecting everything up – fortunately I made the engine loom very neat, so it nearly falls into place.

While this didn’t take long to type (and admittedly I did take a break to watch the rather tedious F1 qualifying), it took a few hours to do, and by 5pm, it was all done – oil and water all filled up, and everything connected.

The moment of truth – would it work?

YES!  As soon as it had oil pressure I connected the coils up, and it fired instantly.  Sounded a bit lumpy, but then it’d just been fired up, and soon sounded fine, and didn’t smoke at all (unlike the other head).  No leaks, no mess, no fuss.  Checked the gearbox, and had all 5 gears plus reverse, and it sounded a lot quieter than before, so hopefully I’ve got that spot on this time.

This was a lot more progres than I expected – I was planning on only getting the two problems fixed and having the engine and box bolted in place, with nothing connected.  As it is, everything is done, and ready to go.  Obviously the mapping will need re-doing as the head is different, but that’s no problem really.

However, today is just 4 days before the closing of entries for Rally GB, and at present we will not be entering.  Obviously I’m more than a little disappointed by this, and typically it looks like we are more prepared than ever before, but given the problems we’ve had getting any kind of coverage for what we’re doing, combined with the current economic situation, I guess it’s not surprising.  The sad thing is that I’ve had a lot of interest from publicity-generating sources behind the scenes, and I really do think we’d get a lot of coverage this year if we were entering, but at present it’s a vanishingly small chance of that happening – we’d need another 170 people to sign up to make it financially viable to enter the rally and provide everything as promised for each sponsor – and this will still leave me footing a £2500 bill to do the event!   If you’re thinking about signing up and just haven’t done so, please do so – you have nothing to lose as if we don’t enter, you will get a full refund.  If you have already signed up, then thanks for your support, it’s hugely appreciated.