Bloody cars ……! Why do manufacturers try to cram so much into such a small space? I mean, the front of the engine two inches from the inner wing. I know I’ve got dainty hands but how am I supposed to change the cam belt? Answer …. I’m not!!!
I am of course referring to the Puma and some routine maintenance that was overdue. Are you sitting comfortably, then I’ll begin. The car is now 5 years old and has done 56000 miles or thereabouts. Some of those miles have been fairly hard fast miles, as many of you will know. The handbrake has never been great but I figured that some new shoes (yes it has drums on the rear of Ford’s little sports car!!!) needed changing. Also the ancillary drive belt, which does absolutely everything, water pump, alternator, power steering and air con was cracking. In addition and although Ford say 100,000 miles on a cam belt, I felt that prevention was better and undoubtedly cheaper than cure.
So brakes first, I’d already whipped off the offside drum to inspect the linings so knew they needed doing. However starting on the nearside led me to encounter the sight of brake dust collected around the wheel cylinder, the type of dust that doesn’t blow away! Back down to Ford in Oxted for one wheel cylinder then back home to replace the leaking one. Onto the offside and upon squeezing the rubber dust cap on its cylinder, guess what leaked out of that one? Back down to Ford for a second wheel cylinder, the guy was getting used to my face now. Fit that, put everything back together and replace the brake fluid completely. A 45 minute job had taken 2 ½ hours up to lunchtime, a normal occurrence when working on cars then.
OK, now the fun started. Getting the ancillary belt off was easy, it has like most modern cars, an automatic tensioner that you just put a spanner on which allows it to be moved enough to get the belt on or off. Next on the list was removing the plastic cam belt cover. Some bolts holding it on I could see and actually get at, others I couldn’t. I should’ve stopped there but by that stage I had only caught my knuckles once, there had to be far more pain available with further spannering! Anyway, I could see one bolt but couldn’t get anything on it so removed the alternator, that worked, bolt removed but the cover wasn’t budging. Another recessed bolt underneath the power steering pump pulley. Remove the four nuts securing the pump to the engine block and just prise it gently clear of the obscured bolt. Removed bolt but the cover still wouldn’t move. Another bolt that was easy to get at but I just couldn’t see, needed removing and the cover was now showing signs of movement. What’s interesting is that this reads in less than a minute but I had been at it for at least 3 hours by now! Ok, the water pump pulley was stopping the cover from coming off. Bugger me, were those 12mm bolts tight but they came out. I had by now learnt to put on a heavy glove when undoing these tight bolts as they do have a nasty habit of coming undone very suddenly! Finally the cover came clear, frustration had turned to relief although that was to be short-lived. I could see the cam belt in all it’s glory ….. what I could also see was the top engine mounting that needed to be removed and the front crank pulley which in turn covered more bolts which secured a second small plastic cover. The engine mount I thought won’t be a problem, best try first of all undoing the crank pulley bolt. With the limited space I had available, it wouldn’t budge. I started thinking the worse if I could’ve undone it. I haven’t a clue how the variable cam timing works but it went through my mind what might happen if I were able to release the tension on the cam belt. Would it be like one those automatic wind up things that have a huge flat spring in them that if the end comes detached from it’s fixing point you hear the metallic scraping of the spring as it unwinds followed by silence and then a few choice expletives! It was academic anyway, not being able to get the crank pulley off meant my afternoon of removing a plastic cover was fruitless. Only one thing to do …… put it all back together again! I know I’m getting older and I’m sure 5 or more years ago I wouldn’t have been defeated by that, but I now know when to say no, sod it, pay someone to do that, so that’s what will happen.
Knowing when to say ‘No’ brings me nicely onto a certain Press & PR officer of this club. The Sunday of the Kent Road Rally was indeed spent mostly in bed. Sam, despite your youth, it might have been wise for you to contemplate doing the same! I hate to say it, no I really do!!! …. but the team might just have had a better result with a slightly more refreshed driver in the hotseat. Still, you enjoyed yourself and it does give us all something to read about. Were you the only member of the team who had done the excellent service of being out all night on the Kent Road Rally?
The Rally of Kent has passed us by now and very successfully too, much to the relief of Colin Billings, Andy Kilby, Lyle Cathcart and others. The relief on Andy K’s face at Dettling after the last cars had finished was clear to see. I had been running with Howard Shaddock, Deputy CofC in the spectator safety car. We were an hour or so ahead of car 1 and so didn’t get to see any action. The spectators all seemed to be behaving themselves when we went through, but being so far ahead of competitors means that a hell of a lot can happen in the time between us and them. You really have to rely on efficient, courteous marshalling throughout the stages to keep spectators safe and thanks to all the marshals out on all the stages, as always it can’t happen without you. On the Saturday at Dettling, I was required with my BT hat on to extend the results phone line into the club caravan. The easiest and quickest way was over the roof particularly as it was temporary anyway. It seemed to attract a lot of attention and word of my roof climbing exploits got around quickly. I don’t know what the fuss was all about, it was a shallow pitch roof and metal clad, just walk where the fixing bolts are! Mind you, I wouldn’t recommend Mr Big Boy Billings to have gone up there!!!
Our last scatter took place on March 11th and once again, numbers were down. Six crews seems to be the norm at the moment which makes it just about worthwhile to organise. Those that did come out enjoyed themselves and I read some encouraging comments in the club chat room …… see, I do look at it occasionally! Results are hopefully elsewhere in the mag if Dawn has space for them. We do hope to have in place a Weald scatter championship when we return in October and hopefully this will boost the numbers significantly. The last 12car rally was testament to this idea. There was a full compliment of crews out on Chin’s 12car and Daren and myself were making good progress as Car 1 until we came across a type of navigation that confused the hell out of us. I think Chin was secretly pleased to get his own back on me for some confusing??? scatter navigation that I had given him a few days prior. We took a chance on a route, which was wrong, backtracked until we picked up a competitor coming the other way, turned around and followed them. We couldn’t overtake as we didn’t know where to go and we were then caught by the rapid 205 of Andy Ayling and driver whose name escapes me. We let them by in the hope that they would then pass the XR2 that we had been following. They did and we followed and there then ensued a very entertaining drive to the next TC. We lost 7 minutes on that section and nothing more after that. Dawn and Ralph did extremely well coming in 4th, actually second as the top three were all joint winners, with 0 fails and 1 minute.
Speed news now, the May 26th Wethersfield sprint has been cancelled due to obvious MOD activity. At the moment, this is the only event we know of that has been affected by the war; if any others are cancelled we will inform you as and when that happens. This event has been replaced in our Marketing Machine calendar by Rochester MC’s sprint at Lydden on May 5th. Regs are now out for Llys-y-Fran, Hethel and Debden. Karen Webber has informed me that if you’re going to Harewood later in the year and intend to stay overnight, you need to sort something now as there is some kind of convention going on in the area that weekend.
Finally Autotests. I’m sorry to say that I am still not in a position to confirm the venue for these. The owner of the farm at Nurstead spends several months of the year in Florida for health reasons. He is due back on April 3rd  but as I’m writing this before then, I’m reluctant to say anything definite on venues. Clearly the first event on May 15th could well happen before you read where it’s going to happen! What we will do, that is Clive Cooke and I, will be to mail all of last years competitors with either a flier or regs and entry forms when we get this sorted. It will also be posted on the website but if you’re a complete newcomer then please phone me or email me to register your interest and I’ll reply to you when the venue is confirmed.
Off to Daren’s shortly to do the final prep on the Nissan for the North Humberside Forest Rally on March 29th. The gearbox is back in and feels better than it ever did before according to Daren. The cracked windscreen, which was replaced by RAC Autowindscreens, is letting in water by the bucket load so we hope to have them back out before we head North. Wish us luck.

Mark Dawson (aka Spiderman—The Ed)