A Dream Fulfilled - MY 904FF

[bjmullan]

Good to hear from you Bill and looking forward to the update.

[Kirklands 904]

For those of a nervous disposition, you had better look away now!

The 2022 season had started well with both Jim and I being satisfied with our performance at Shelsley Walsh on the 8th May. At the next meeting on 22nd May, we got in our first practice runs and Jim was really trying on his second practice run when he had an "off" going into bottom esse.













Two things were highlighted in this "incident"

1) The car being LHD meant that Jim was on the opposite side from the impact or he might have been seriously injured.

2) The HANS device which we were now using, after pressure from some scrutineers, did its job such that Jim escaped any whiplash. So after much resistance to using a HANS device, we are are both great advocates and now never think about not using it. I suppose it is like seat belts, you never think of not going "clunk, click"

After getting the car home, it was now time to try and work out what had happened. From various photographs that appeared, it looked as if the car was down on the front right to the extent that the left rear wheel was off the ground before the impact. There was also a puff of smoke from the front right as if a tyre was rubbing on the bodywork. Jim thought that his speed into the corner was higher than any previous run and that he had braked very hard before turning in.

On examination of the car itself, it was difficult to work out if some of the damage had occurred before or after impact! The rod end attaching the top wishbone to the upright had sheared.



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The consensus was that the rod end had failed, the upright and wheel were now pivoting outwards on the bottom wishbone, the tyre was rubbing on the underside of the wing, only the left wheel was steering and Jim could not avoid the Recticel.

The bottom wishbone had distorted and torn the mounting brackets off the chassis, the steering track rod was bent, the shock absorber rod had sheared at the top mounting, The windscreen was smashed, the right wing and nose had reverted to weatabix, the bonnet was cracked, the right door had moved backwards, the "B" pillar was bent which resulted in the roof being lozenged, the fuel tank was dinged and was leaking.

The good news was that the chassis appeared to be straight. As many of you know it was built in Scotland so the Forth Railway Bridge comes to mind as does IrnBru - built from girders.

No use crying over spilt milk, better get on and get repairs underway.

[neilbardsley]

Glad to hear Jim is ok. Metal is easily to fix than fresh

Sent from my 22011119UY using Tapatalk

[Kirklands 904]

To get the repair underway, it was obvious that a number of new parts would be required.

1) Having had a number of discussions with various people about rod ends, there was a strong opinion that rod ends should be replaced at regular intervals depending how much use they undertook and also how many times the car had gone "grass cutting" in the past. A total of 6 new rod ends were purchased - 2 outer for both top wishbones and 4 inner for both top and bottom wishbones on the RH side.

2) A new windscreen was ordered on Triplex who had supplied the original.

3) The RH track rod was bent so a new pair of turbo 911 parts were put on order.

4) The shock absorber rod had sheared at the top mounting so a new pair of dampers with both bound and rebound adjustment were ordered from AVO. When picking these up in Northampton, I mentioned the broken unit, to be told that they could repair it by fitting a new rod. A spare pair are now in the spares box. It was sad to see that AVO had ceased trading as I had always found them very helpful.

5) After a previous incident, Andy Lockwood had made a spare pair of bottom wishbones a few years ago just in case they were needed in future. They were!!



6) The fuel tank had taken a clout on the top right hand corner which had burst the welds and was now leaking.

In addition there were a number of parts which just went into the skip - wing mirrors, headlights, spot lights, shredded fibreglass and some very mangled aluminium panels as well as the wishbone mounting brackets which had been either torn off the chassis or had been distorted so much that they were now beyond repair.

On inspection, the steering rack, upright, brakes and wheel seemed OK.

The main thing was now to get the car up to Yorkshire for Andy to get it back in its wheels. New mounting brackets were made and welded to the chassis. The new wishbones fitted and the car was now mobile. To replace the damaged fuel tank, a spare dry sump oil tank which had been fabricated previously was pressed into use so that the car could be manoeuvered under its own power.

[Kirklands 904]

With the car back in its home garage, there were a number of decisions to be made as to the next steps. As part of transaction years ago I had a complete set of spare mouldings to make a complete body to be used if necessary. I hoped that the old wing and nose could be repaired to allow me to pass on a complete spare body when the car went to its new custodian in due course!






However, I then made an a attempt to repair the old body. I still had the old moulds which were in a bad condition having been outside for years but could be used to get a moulding of the correct shape but with a very poor surface finish. The first thing to be made was a new moulding which is the joining piece at the very front which joins the two wings together. This was duly made with a black gel coat as per the next photo



To repair the damaged wing I decided to make a thin skin to go over the scuttle piece and the wing and not only join them together but to bridge the gap between them. This would be bonded on top of the two existing pieces with holes in the scuttle and wing to be bonded through to give additional strength.

The skin moulding



Drillings in the scuttle and wing





The skin in place before the wing and scuttle were positioned for bonding

[KS]

Amazing work!

[Kirklands 904]

Finger problems

[Gary71]

Cage looks great certainly added some strength as well as the obvious safety

[Kirklands 904]

As the summer of 2022 went on, it was very obvious that the 904FF was not going to be ready for Ollon Villars in August. When I spoke to Vernon Williamson of Historic Ecosse to advise him that I would have cancel my entry, Vernon very kindly offered to swap my entry to one of his single seaters. We finally agreed on his Lynx and so I went up to Edinburgh with the FF trailer to pick it up and bring it home. I had arranged that mad Jim Collins of VW/Porsche fame or as someone else put in recently should that be Jim Collins with the mad VW, his now wife Julie and Peter Hubbard of Maximus 2-stroke fame should go together to Switzerland to celebrate Jim's birthday!! As it turned out, it was a great adventure and perhaps I can post the blog that Peter wrote in due course. One of the highlights was the front wheel coming off the Van Diemen when I was taking it from the top of the hill to the paddock at the bottom in between normal traffic in the pouring rain. Talk about water cooled testicles!!



However, putting Ollon Villars to one side and continuing with the repair of the FF a decision had been made to supplement the roll bar with a roll cage. A number things had triggered this, pressure from scrutineers, Jim's off and space where part of the body had been previously. Mike West had recommended Josh Paige of JP Cages in Woodall Spa which was relatively close by. Josh came over looked at the car and said he could make a custom cage. He also told me what body, interior parts and instruments, switches and wiring etc to remove before bringing the car over in early 2023. One of the things which needed to be done beforehand was to weld in temporary "A" pillars to ensure that the roof was at the correct height before the cage went in. As you will see from the photos below, the windscreen had arrived safely from Triplex in an enormous box.







The car was taken over in early February 2023 and a few days later Josh rang to say that the only way he could get a cage in was to take off the roof. Blimey, that's a bit drastic, I thought but if that's what is needed so be it!! As well as the cage itself, Josh had also agreed to fabricate new removeable tubular framework at the front on to which the nose of the car was to be mounted and to remove the tubes from the central tunnel up to the chassis tubes under the facia. These tubes were in the original chassis design to increase the torsional strength by tying the central parts of the chassis together. They were the used to mount the central instrument and switch panel in the car. Whilst that no doubt helped the chassis strength, the instrument panel meant that ones right leg had to be tucked round the corner to reach the throttle pedal. not very comfortable and difficult for strangers to the car to accommodate even though I had never found any difficulty. The addition of the roll cage meant that the chassis was now much stiffer and the tubes which were redundant were removed.

[Kirklands 904]

The car and a separate roof were retrieved from JP Cages in the spring of 2023 but by this time my health had deteriorated to the extent that I could do no more than an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. I had a date of 6th May to have a knee replacement at the Fitzwilliam Hospital in Peterborough but after attending all the pre-op consultations, I was telephoned to be told that " due to my underlying health conditions" they were not prepared to carry out the operation. Since most private hospitals have no A & E department, there is not a resuscitation facility. If anything untoward happens, then 999 is rung for an ambulance to take you hours later to a NHS hospital. I am even less a fan of private medicine than I was before!

I pottered away during the summer doing little jobs on the car but by August, I realised that I needed to have the car completed by others. My pals, Mike West and Olly wright had extended their cooperation to form Teme Valley Motorsport based in Shelsley Beauchamp just across the Teme valley from Shelsley Walsh. Initial discussions at the September Shelsley resulted in Mike coming over a couple of times to look at the car, mouldings and moulds to see what would be involved. The earliest they could have the car was in early 2024 so in January, Mike came over and took car, roof, old body and new nose to their workshop.

In that summer two significant events took place.

I was the first recipient of " The Spirit of Competition" trophy presented to the Midland Automobile Club by "The Dogs" in memory of Bruce Atkinson who had so tragically died at Curborough at the wheel of his Alfa Romeo. The Dogs are a group of motoring enthusiasts who meet regularly at the Dogs pub near Droitwich. I was very surprised and humbled. Why me?



The other significant event was at the September Shelsley. I always try to have a drive at the last meeting of the year since having had a birthday in early September I can add a year to my competition age!! There have been a number of very kind friends who have lent me cars to meet this desire even though I wonder about anybody who would lend ME a car. This year Jonathan Williamson stepped forward and brought up from Devon his beautiful Porsche 914/6 which has a similar engine to the FF. Having driven David Strange's 911 at Etretat a few years ago, that's nearly the full set of air cooled flat sixes from Porsche!





The 914 was very different to the 904 since it was in fully road going trim which include a shoulder and lap seat belt rather than a six point full race harness. Very strange insecure feeling on the hill.

One of the high (low??) light of that weekend was talking to Jonathan, both in our pyjamas, outside the Talbot at Knightwick around 4.00 a.m. after a fire alarm went off!!

[Kirklands 904]

A number of tasks were now agreed upon by Mike, Olly and me.

EXTERIOR- using either existing body, spare body parts or new mouldings.

1) Repair nose and right hand wing.

2) Refit roof and rear bulkhead.

3) Install windscreen and rear screen

4) Repair and refit doors.

5) Repair and refit bonnet

6) Refit oil cooler.

7) Refit headlights, spot lights and mirrors.

INTERIOR

1) Make and fit new facia panels

2) Fit instruments and switches.

3) Make and fit gearchange gate.

4) Extend clutch pedal pad.

The car in TMV workshop ready for work to commence.

[Kirklands 904]

Mike and Olly were now faced with a three dimensional jigsaw with parts which were not necessarily from the same box. The door attachment pillars were not quite in the same place owing to now being attached to the roll cage, The roof height was slightly different again due to the roll cage. Were the new front body and bonnet mouldings which had been made by a third party identical to the old ones. Probably not as the old mouldings, particularly round the windscreen aperture had ben built up to fit. The original windscreen had been taken as the reference point and the car more or less had been built round it.

When the new nose was roughly positioned, the windscreen aperture was not right to fit the windscreen in its rubber mounting.





The decision was then made to use the old moulding which had the correct shape for the bottom of the windscreen. So the old moulding was then positioned and the wing was cut out of new moulding. The black skin which I had made to join the old wing to the scuttle was removed.







The scuttle and wing were then joined, filled and smoothed off to blend in.

This had all taken more time than anticipated and Mike and Olly were determined that the car would be at the June Shelsley meeting so a temporary polycarbonate windscreen was screwed into place which can be seen in the photo above. To save time, it was suggested that the car was not repainted which would need days but wrapped.

Late hours were being worked but their promise was that the car would be in its pits place on Friday afternoon at 4.00 p.m. 4 o'clock came and went but no car. Jim and I trundled over the river to be told to go away and wait in our pit in the paddock. About 5.30, a very familiar engine was heard starting up at the bottom of the paddock and lo and behold a car was driven up the paddock. However it was silver not my orange one. To say my gast was flabbered is an understatement and my face was apparently a picture. I could not believe how well the car looked. Not only were Mike and Olly there but also the young lass, Amy, who had done the wrapping. All a bit emotional!!

Not only was the car back in one piece, the interior had been transformed and in climbing in, it felt like Dr Who's Tardis



A reminder of the cockpit before its transformation.

[Kirklands 904]

On Saturday morning, we removed the bonnet and lifted the tail for the first time to see a lot of new aluminium finishing off the rebuild particularly on the right hand front. Some of the shaped panels had been provided to me by Alan Woodward in Morton north of Bourne. Alan's main business is making aluminium fuel tanks for race bikes but was involved in making panels for the replica V16 BRM created by Hall and Hall in Bourne. His father had been a panel beater at BRM in their hey day.

A look at the notes from two years ago, gave us the tyre pressures we had ran, fuel in the tank and we were ready to go! The first run was faced with considerable apprehension. It was two years since I had sat in the FF and the set up had consisted of making sure the front wheels were pointing in roughly the right direction. However after a gentle start and through Kennel, It was impossible to get into third so that meant the slowest run ever up the Hill in second. The handling was distinctly odd since on turn in , the car emphasised the turn in and the steering had to be relaxed.

Back in the paddock, Olly filed the change gate to allow the gear lever to come back further and Mike and Olly jacked up the front and adjusted the steering to have less toe in. The car felt a little better and third gear was definitely in the box but so was reverse which could be nicked very easily. A reverse lock out is now on quite a large "to be done" list.

However, we had made it up the hill and I was delighted to be back in harness!! Roll on Classic Nostalgia.







My heartful thanks to Teme Valley Motorsport and all the others who had got the FF back on the hills and made an old codger a very happy man!!

[Bootsy]

Excellent result and great pictures

[neilbardsley]

Great story

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