It's all in the preparation


	It's All In the Preparation! hilst reading the January Acorn, particularly the various references to preparing for the new season, it occurred to me that I really ought to make a small contribution to our illustrious magazine, especially as I have already competed in my first event of 2001. The event was the M.C.C. Exeter Trial held on Friday/Saturday January 5/6 of which more anon, and the vehicle was the Old Spot Piglet. (For those not familiar with it, this is a 1965 Reliant Regal based machine with a Marina 1.3 engine and Morris Minor back axle, together with severely minimalist body, some in fibreglass but most in aluminium. There is no roof, no windows and a small folding windscreen. Power is "adequate". It will spin the wheels on dry tarmac, but this is not recommended! Preparation itself started after the Edinburgh Trial in October and consisted of doing something about the diff - it broke again and we had to fit the spare in pouring rain of course - tracing what sounded like a crack somewhere in the exhaust system and investigating the gearbox mounting which seemed a bit spongy. As far as the diff was concerned we took the plunge and purchased a new "bulletproof" unit worth more than the car! from Michael Quaiffe and fitted it along with toughened Minor drive shafts. The exhaust system fault turned out to be a cracked manifold. No problem, except of course a Marina 1.3 is not a common sight! The local B.M.C./Leyland/Rover/B.M.W dealer wasn't very helpful and the final solution was to find an (early - A series) Metro at the scrap yard and remove the manifold. A task not made easier by the fact that it was on top of a later Metro and had to be done whilst standing on the bonnet of an adjacent Rover 800! Anyway it fitted, even to the extent of having the right take off point for the brake servo. The gearbox mounting followed a similar story except that I couldn't find a Marina 1.3, and these mountings are very individual. Fortunately Duncan Welch came up with a little used example and it only remained to fit it. Normally this involves simply unbolting a cross member and replacing the mounting. Not on this one…the vehicle had been built from the bottom up i.e. added to as construction progressed and this meant that the cross member was sandwiched between part of the old Reliant chassis and the remaining bodywork - oh bother! Some hours, much angle grinding and a little welding later (doesn't fibreglass smell odd when it melts??) the job was finished, and so to the event... A leisurely run down to Popham Airfield on the A303 (the start of the event ) on Friday night turned to disaster when we apparently ran out of fuel on the M3. Having put in a further gallon courtesy of a nice man with a spare can, we continued only to stop again in two miles time. This time a very, very nice man provided a further gallon but we were beginning to suspect that low fuel was not the real culprit. Arriving two-hours late for the start, we nonetheless continued on the trial route (fortunately we had an early number and as there are some 300 entries, you can run with later numbers) and had no more problems until breakfast - a 'fry up' at two in the morning near Yeovilton - at which point we took off the bottom of the float chamber, shook it out and convinced ourselves that there was water in it. It then ran faultlessly for the next six hours until grinding to a halt once more. Off came the float chamber again but no water! It then ran OK … to the next lay by. Having repeated this some 6 or 7 times and with time now definitely against us (about 3pm on Saturday afternoon!) we almost gave up, just outside Newton Abbot, but took off the carb instead. Having undone various jets and assorted little pipes, a brass nut revealed a filter which we did not know was there and guess what - it was so tightly packed with SH one T that it's amazing the car ran at all! Two minutes to clean it out, half an hour to put everything back and we were on our way to a hard earned hotel meal and stopover. Driving back from Torquay on Sunday it ran like a train (perhaps not such a good analogy these days!) and all we have to do now before attempting the Centenary run (a three day event in May Harrogate/Jedburgh/Chester/Wales/Bristol and finally a quick 250 mile run round Devon and Cornwall) is to install an in-line filter and check out the fuel pump and lines. All's well that ends etc… Clive Cooke Back to February's Home Page