I’ll update as and when I remember, just so you all know I’m not that reliable with regular updates.
So the beginning of this was me finding a cheap (lol) red 1.7 puma that needed a “little work”!
Inner and outer sills, 3 arches, floor pans, new ecu because it wasn’t the right one for the key, and some other bits. Managed to get another ecu with key and halo so the car would start but not run, tracked that down to the throttle body only having one bolt, tried to fit the other 3 but wouldn’t fit so I took the throttle body off to find that the previous owner had tried to fit it upside down, flipped it over and bolted it on properly and hey presto! That’s when I found the leaking water pump and thermostatic switch for the fan not working.
It was around this time that I found the lack of floor pans and inner sills. I was offered another (cheap) red 1.7 so the first one gave up all the salvageable parts and took its final journey.
Soon discovered that the second one wasn’t as crisp as it first seemed, although it wasn’t as crispy as the first one, so I made a start.
Interior out and on to welding, first job was to get bucket seats and harnesses in, to add motivation I booked a 12 car navigational event for my son and I which would be our first event ever. Having fitted the seats and harnesses it was off for mot!
Failed!
Low brake effort on rear drums lack of metal in lower sills and floor pan ( dejavu! ) those were the major issues, there were other minor issues but nothing too serious although I did find the clutch was slipping so I ordered a new old stock sachs 2 piece.
I was now working nights so I had very little time in the day when I wasn’t sleeping to get work done, a friend of mine helped with welding up one side of the car so I could get the other side done and rebuild the rear brakes.
Eventually got round to taking the gearbox out, only to find I’d been sent a clutch for a ka! So with the retest booked for the next day and race day the day after that I wasn’t going to get another in time. So I had to resort to breaking the glaze on the flywheel and pressure plate with some 80 grit emery cloth and hoped for the best. Box back in, sump guard on and back for mot.
She passed, so off to the races we went.
Having never done this kind of motor sport I thought it best to do a beginners event, meeting at a village hall we were guided through how to plot the navigation through the clues that were given, thankfully my son seemed to be quite good at it, whilst he was doing that I went through Scrutineering withe the car, only a couple of things were less than desirable but easily remedied whilst the scrutineers checked other things, and with that done it was into our start order and ready to go.
We made our first mistake on the first section, wrong turn meant that we were dead last after the first section, we did manage to claw back some time over the next two sections and into the half way mark.
This is when we were given our second set of clues to work out the second half of the route. The boy seemed quite happy to crack on with it which left me as a bit of a spare part so as we had stopped at a petrol station I went and got a coffee for me and a bottle of fizz get him, when I came back he was done and ready to go, we only had a little while to wait before we were off again.
The second half was a bit of a comedy, we arrived at the first check before the marshals, there had been some confusion about who should have been where, we weren’t early but waited around until it was becoming obvious we had been forgotten, on our way to the second check the gearbox decided that 4th was the only gear required! My fault entirely, I thought I’d done the pinch bolt up tight enough, however I found out after that that wasn’t the case, so from that point onwards I had to nurse the gearbox and tease the other gears out of it.
We made it all the way to the end despite thinking we would have to retire if the gearbox got stuck in fourth again (which isn’t fun when your trying to get the nose out of a bush and all you can do is go forward because the box won’t relinquish its grip on its favourite gear!
By the end of the night we were 7th which considering everything I’m quite proud of.
Our second event is booked for the 28th of December, just need to finish the roll cage on the 27th and tighten that pinch bolt, refit the interior, check all the bolts, fluids etc….
Fingers crossed!
So the beginning of this was me finding a cheap (lol) red 1.7 puma that needed a “little work”!
Inner and outer sills, 3 arches, floor pans, new ecu because it wasn’t the right one for the key, and some other bits. Managed to get another ecu with key and halo so the car would start but not run, tracked that down to the throttle body only having one bolt, tried to fit the other 3 but wouldn’t fit so I took the throttle body off to find that the previous owner had tried to fit it upside down, flipped it over and bolted it on properly and hey presto! That’s when I found the leaking water pump and thermostatic switch for the fan not working.
It was around this time that I found the lack of floor pans and inner sills. I was offered another (cheap) red 1.7 so the first one gave up all the salvageable parts and took its final journey.
Soon discovered that the second one wasn’t as crisp as it first seemed, although it wasn’t as crispy as the first one, so I made a start.
Interior out and on to welding, first job was to get bucket seats and harnesses in, to add motivation I booked a 12 car navigational event for my son and I which would be our first event ever. Having fitted the seats and harnesses it was off for mot!
Failed!
Low brake effort on rear drums lack of metal in lower sills and floor pan ( dejavu! ) those were the major issues, there were other minor issues but nothing too serious although I did find the clutch was slipping so I ordered a new old stock sachs 2 piece.
I was now working nights so I had very little time in the day when I wasn’t sleeping to get work done, a friend of mine helped with welding up one side of the car so I could get the other side done and rebuild the rear brakes.
Eventually got round to taking the gearbox out, only to find I’d been sent a clutch for a ka! So with the retest booked for the next day and race day the day after that I wasn’t going to get another in time. So I had to resort to breaking the glaze on the flywheel and pressure plate with some 80 grit emery cloth and hoped for the best. Box back in, sump guard on and back for mot.
She passed, so off to the races we went.
Having never done this kind of motor sport I thought it best to do a beginners event, meeting at a village hall we were guided through how to plot the navigation through the clues that were given, thankfully my son seemed to be quite good at it, whilst he was doing that I went through Scrutineering withe the car, only a couple of things were less than desirable but easily remedied whilst the scrutineers checked other things, and with that done it was into our start order and ready to go.
We made our first mistake on the first section, wrong turn meant that we were dead last after the first section, we did manage to claw back some time over the next two sections and into the half way mark.
This is when we were given our second set of clues to work out the second half of the route. The boy seemed quite happy to crack on with it which left me as a bit of a spare part so as we had stopped at a petrol station I went and got a coffee for me and a bottle of fizz get him, when I came back he was done and ready to go, we only had a little while to wait before we were off again.
The second half was a bit of a comedy, we arrived at the first check before the marshals, there had been some confusion about who should have been where, we weren’t early but waited around until it was becoming obvious we had been forgotten, on our way to the second check the gearbox decided that 4th was the only gear required! My fault entirely, I thought I’d done the pinch bolt up tight enough, however I found out after that that wasn’t the case, so from that point onwards I had to nurse the gearbox and tease the other gears out of it.
We made it all the way to the end despite thinking we would have to retire if the gearbox got stuck in fourth again (which isn’t fun when your trying to get the nose out of a bush and all you can do is go forward because the box won’t relinquish its grip on its favourite gear!
By the end of the night we were 7th which considering everything I’m quite proud of.
Our second event is booked for the 28th of December, just need to finish the roll cage on the 27th and tighten that pinch bolt, refit the interior, check all the bolts, fluids etc….
Fingers crossed!