Okrasa Special

[steve wright]

yes 90kg's of soft component in the drivers seat!!!! yes, no puddings for me - quickest (and cheapest) way to lightening the car!

[neilbardsley]

So no puddings in the Wright household



Al

During my few visits to Historical Race events the number of pudding eaten (and more grey hairs) seems to be the best indicator of owner gentlemen drivers v hired young guns (present company excluded).

[steve wright]

[Pandora]

Is it finished yet?

Al

[Barry]

How funny, that's why I've just logged in. It suddenly popped into my mind that things must be underway.

Hi Al, Hi Steve BTW

[steve wright]

oh yeah, it's all done and we've been racing these past few months without telling anyone!

Merry Christmas everyone - in fact Barry I logged on about 30 seconds after you to see what was going on as I haven't done so in a while: we must be cosmically linked or something

A few things have got in the way recently: fettling other cars, hill climbing the 356 at Chateau Impney (what great fun and wonderful people - good to meet you in person for the first time Winston!)…



And in a moment of sheer madness almost buying another special, this time the completely knackered Nathan-Costin…



Thankfully the cabin was too small for me and the bidding went beyond my budget to three times its estimate at £90k

Anyway, steady progress on the Special, with two big milestones recently. The first was the chassis going to Ian's waiting patiently second in the queue while he finished the mechanical restoration of a RHD preA.





So the car is now up on axle stands with Ian going through each and every component to ensure it's up to the rigours of racing. First job was to strip the brakes. Ian managed to find a NOS master and slave cylinder rebuild kit even though everything looked fine. He also found a period catch tank…







He also located a few other bits and bobs:



And I've not been idle either. Firstly I got the 'seats' trimmed



Painted and assembled the lights



Sand blasted and put primer on the rims



Sorted the fuel filler cap as it was the only thing I wasn't happy with from Andy Robinson's, his looking too modern with a new cap, neck and lock. I've used a modified 356C filler neck...



I've also been experimenting with titanium to replace bolts and small components. I've found a supplier of grade 5 aircraft standard Ti and Nick Wright engineering has been machining everything. This guy is seriously good - does a lot of motorcycle racing and historic motor racing fabrication for the big boys but keeps a low profile as he doesn't need to advertise. Here's the wheel spacers and castle nuts now in Ti….





I also made templates of all the KG glass and sent them off to Plastics4Performance to replicate in Plexiglas. They even had the original logos which they etched into the windows. Here's me bending the Plexiglas to fit, the old school way with clamps and heat gun:





Out of sequence but I also finished the brakes, drilling, deburring, and painting the back plates once the GT scoops had been installed by Nick W.



And then finally last month we moved a step closer by taking the buck down to Gary and Vic at Mouland and Yates. It's such a pleasure working with these guys. They love the car, are enthusiastic about the project, are easy to work with and never short of a smile, and have decades of experience which will no doubt prove useful when it comes to solving the inevitable myriad of problems.



We will take the chassis to them 27 Jan and then Vic will be full-time on the car, so I expect we'll see some major progress on the bodywork which will be very exciting, plus Ian is getting stuck into the first of the two engines (the naturally aspirated one).

My new years resolution is to update this thread more regularly than I have AND to finish the car this year! Merry Christmas and a happy new year everyone

[Pandora]

Right, this is weird - I just thought "I wonder if Steve ever updated the DDK thread" and lo and behold.........

Happy Christmas Chaps!

Oh, and catch tanks are required (by law) to use Casrtol R tins. Here's mine in my old mini

8671_101464_full by Alastair Brown, on Flickr

Al

[steve wright]

Well the stars must be aligned or something! Ian managed to pick up six old oil cans, all in perfect condition. We went with the Shell one because it will match nicely with the logo on the side of the VW bus… (I think I'm getting more anal and peculiar as I age :/)

[Barry]

Excellent stiff, and good to hear things are moving on.

Looking forward to seeing the body coming together (of course). Also very interested in your Plexiglas bending as well.

[smallspeed]

did P4P not pre-form them for you? that was one of the driving factors for me in choose their windows
truly great and inspiring project - looking forward to what 2017 brings!

[steve wright]

they did offer to preform the windows but i wasn't sure of curvature with the ally body and the rear window needed to be slightly wider to compensate for the lack of window seal, so in the end I did it myself - nothing hi-tech but clamps and a heat gun worked a treat

[smallspeed]

Nice
I was well pleased with their windows for my car, and the service generally.. ..have also been impressed with Ricky Evans Motorsport who just made my windscreen too

[steve wright]

We're now tickling along nicely with the mechanical refurbishment of the car. If this was driving we'ed be at 3,500rpm in 5th on a sunny day out

Everything is trial fitted, cleaned, adjusted and then reassembled as this will be the final build. So first up, the front suspension and brake assembly:









What's fabulous is to see all the thought, effort, time and money now coming together in a completed car. Here Ian has finished assembling the front end with new Koni adjustable shocks, and spanner checked everything before installing new flexible lines. All the original rigid lines were perfect. Ian coated everything with a liberal dash of WD40 to clean everything and also lubricate and protect it. Next was the rear suspension and brakes...



Note Ian has also removed the side panel to check removal of the gearbox so you get a sense of how the chassis is constructed. It's pretty rigid! Next is a detail shot of the rear brakes, again notice how much material we've removed from the various components to reduce weight and promote airflow through the brakes... Notice also the lovely titanium castle nuts



The only concession to modern components that we've made is to fit a modern lightweight starter motor in the interests of reliability and weight reduction. Painting it black at least hides it a bit but I'm not sure it will remain. We might have to revert to the original and find the 6kg weight saving elsewhere!



Ian has reassembled the rear suspension to make sure it's all screwed together properly - this is the last build before we start shakedown testing and driving the car on the road for assessment.



Last up is a couple of moody shots of the car in Ian's workshop. Next update in a week when the motor is installed and the car ready to fire up. Ian is also planning to complete a mock up of the twin Shorrock superchargers to confirm the installation/ set up, then we're trailering it to Mouland & Yates Friday....

[kvinyl]

Fantastic, love this build and the whole process, ticks so many boxes for me, can't wait to see the body unfolding

[steve wright]

note the three preA cases on the bench... I think two are mine, one ally and the other magnesium, the former for the naturally aspirated motor and the other the blown engine. the third is for a 52 356 I recall.