Skoda Rally Blog

OK, the engine’s in, but there’s plenty more to do.  The first is something that has needed doing since the last time the car moved, and that’s replacement of the fuel lines.  They were new when the car was built in 2007, but they had degraded somewhat, and the fuel tank end had started leaking – hardly a good show.  So after looking at various other solutions I have decided to replace them with solid fuel lines instead of the braided hoses, with short (easily changed) lengths of braided hose at the engine bay and fuel tank ends for the connections to the standard fuel rail and pump.  The other option of replacing the whole lot with high-quality braided hose wasn’t an option as the PTFE liner wouldn’t work reliably with push-on (jubilee-clipped) fittings.

So, the first thing was ripping the old lines out, easy enough as I bolted them in place, and they run inside the car (for obvious reasons on a rally car).  But getting the new ones in….well, let’s just say there are some times that you do a job and then remember what a huge pain in the backside it was when you originally did it.  Trying to make a neat job of getting an inflexible pipe into the car is bad enough, but then getting it so that the end where the fuel tank is is in a good place to connect the hoses where there’s minimal room and very little access was best done with lunch in between one pipe and the second.  It’s not the neatest job on earth, but it is very solid, and the pipes will run to 120bar safely, 40x the fuel pump pressure.  So that’ll do.  Biggest bonus?  The braided pipes ‘sweat’ fuel, and the solid ones don’t, so there will no longer be the smell of petrol inside the car.

Then there were lots of things to reconnect.  And a decision to make about the inlet manifold.  Given that we will be doing Rally GB this year if I have anything whatsoever to do with it, and with that in mind, using the GpA-legal manifold is the way to go.  So with that in mind, the exhaust got bolted into place, and then the inlet manifold as well.  Which took an age as the studs needed either removing (in the case of 2), or the threads needed a die running down them, which involves removing the stud and then doing that on the bench, and putting it back.  Which takes a lot longer than just “put on manifold, do up bolts”.  And then the two studs that came out… had to go back in to hold the thermostat housing!  Then connecting various things up, putting the starter motor on, fitting the crank sensor and making a list of broken things to replace – all minor, but all of them need to be done.  And that was that, Sunday done; while it seems that the epidural may be finally having some positive effect, I’m certainly not out of the woods, and my body was saying it was time to stop.  So I did.  No more progress until Saturday, alas, as I have a full week of work, but it’s going in the right direction.  Slowly, but the right way.