DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Got a call from the engineering works this morning to say they'd done it already! Picked up the bits and they look amazing (not got a pic at the moment) but now I'll be able to try it all out this week-end - result!

OK so here are the tubes of loveliness that greeted me from the engineering works




And this is one of the original dust covers on top of it for size - original is 70mm diameter, my new ones are 72mm diameter so should only impeded on camber/castor adjustment by 1mm - I can live with that

Nice! Quite a lump of metal..

Should be sturdy enough

Bit more progress today - basically a test fit. First I needed to cut the discs off the end of the old dust covers. One set looked to have been machine-scrimped on all round, but my original set only had 4 spot welds round the top - ground those off and then tapped it out



Once in place did a few spot welds


Then full welds


Then planished it all back a bit


At this stage I'd got the working version I could try out. After trying it on the car I realised that I do still need to have a helper Spring - so I need to order another pair of dividers. The good news is that even with all this in place it all seems to fit OK. So I'll order the dividers and fit the new system back in when I get back from my holiday (So that'll be the day before I take it to Centre Gravity, and 3 days before I set off for CLM

Whilst fishing around last night I realised that the solution I came up with had already been invented by Elephant Racing



Their version might look better than mine but it costs quite a bit more and it won't fit mine - they provide this with the Bilstein conversion kit, but not with the Boge kit. It was quite reassuring to note that 'my' solution was already being done by them.

Finally tonight a coat of epoxy mastic to protect them when in use

Are you doing another 'dash for the line' as it's getting close to CLM - I think you like a bit of a pressure timeline huh?

Pretty much - I'm off on holiday for a fortnight on Friday. When I get back I'll have a week-end to reassemble my "sladey-stylin' struts" - then it's off to centre gravity on the Monday for setup, one day in work and then off to CLM on the Wednesday

Gotta love a deadline!

(Bought a collapsible bike yesterday ready for CLM)

sladey wrote: (Bought a collapsible bike yesterday ready for CLM)

Whip up a tall bike, much better vantage point.....sure you'll look fine on it

I didn't know Bootsy's got new sunglasses - look nice

sladey wrote:I didn't know Bootsy's got new sunglasses - look nice

and had lost weight...

OK so probably time for an update.

I left the story having the week-end to fit my sladey-stylin suspension hats. This went OK ready for taking the car down to Centre Gravity on the Monday morning.

I took the hire car and drove back to work, coming back later to meet up with Jon who had his car booked in for the day after



As usual Chris was his usual OCD-brilliance. My car was all over the place when I brought it in and it left beautifully balanced.

Curiously it had lost 50Kg in weight since my last visit - now 1149K with a full tank.

My Sladey-stylin suspension hats lacked one thing - the original version from Elephant racing have some needle-bearing shims - that allow the suspension to rotate freely as the steering is turned. Chris mentioned that without this there is a slight issue with stiction. This has proved to be the case - in the mornging when backing out of the drive it's a bit creaky. Mostly it's not evident when driving but one morning the other week it wanted to turn right for most of the journey, and then left for the last part.

I've not got a solution for this as I've ordered some similar needle-bearing shims in 2.5 inch size, so expect to see this as a future project.

The other thing Chris mentioned was that I'd got a leak from one of the oil pipes in the OSR wheel arch. This was dripping onto the suspension arm but thankfully not hitting the brakes. I made a note to sort this out when I got back from CLM.

At the end of the day (around 7 IIRC) we went out for the test drive. Chris demonstrated how the car tracked true according to the camber of the road. It was feeling great. Then Chris started jerking the throttle on and off, to show that it didn't change direction with a sudden change in balance

"Look - i'm accelerating and braking, accelerating, and braking, accelerating and..... oh shite - your throttle's stopped working" Chris kept it in third and managed to coast around the next roundabout and into a lay by with the engine just on tickover.

He firtled around in the engine compartment



And eventually discovered this



The throttle connecting rod had snapped clean in two. A phone call back to base, and Pete came out. Chris went back and some time later returned with the rod looking like this



Just to be clear he took a stud and drilled out the middle. Then drilled holes in it from the side where the two ends would meet. He then welded it through the holes and at either end - a very strong solution.

I got away at around 8:30pm - once again Chris and Pete went well above and beyond the call of duty.

The car felt great and I enjoyed som spirited driving on the way to and from CLM



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

After returning I ordered the necessary oil pipes but it was a while before I could start the job.

One Sunday I replace my plastic scanner holder with a Sladey Spesh


Then youngest daughter managed to blow up the engine in her Clio. Cue replacement engine from ebay and a couple more weekends lost




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Finally got round to doing the pipes. This turned out to be a bitch of a job.

The leaking pipe had corroded onto the one below. When separating them the one that wasn't leaking fractured inside the thermostat.





Oh joy.

So ordered new thermostat

I then had to disconnect the pipes from the bottom of the thermostat - without breaking them. This was a bit of a nightmare and a real challenge to my technical ability and steely resolve.

Firstly there was no way I was going to get good access with the suspension arm in place. I was reluctant to disturb this as I'd paid a fair bit of money to have Centre Gravity set it all up and was reluctant to disturb the settings.

However there was no way around it, and also Chris had put white marks on all the settings so it wouldn't be too hard to get it all back into the same position afterwards.

Once I'd removed the spring plate (and the two brackets on the sills) I was able to drop the thermostat down to where I could get at it with my special 36mm semi open ring spanner



Try as I might the fecking nut wasn't moving. Time for some physics. Give me a long enough lever and I can move the world said someone (Einstein???) So I drilled and screwed a long steel bar onto my spanner. I was able to hold the thermostat still using a big pipe wrench. NOt a greta photo but worth looking at




Using this setup it all came apart wonderfully easily.



VERY satisfying.

Putting the nuts back onto the new thermostat proved to be massively frustrating - the nuts cross-threaded on the thermostat twice! I ended up having to straighten them out with a small file. Eventually they all went on OK.

Finally ended up with this

No more leaks!




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Most recently I've ventured into the world of in-car audio.

For some time now I've run a system called ioplay which allows me to play my phone through the car stereo. Since iplayer radio app came out I've stopped listening to 'normal' radio at all and now do all my car listening via the iphone (usually listening to RadMac on catchup from 6 music)

The problems are:-
- the version of ioplay I have only outputs to 2 speakers, and won't output to an external amp.
- One of those speaker connections has failed (don't know where) so all of my listening is through one speaker in the rear.
- my head unit is a crappy looking cheaply unit from a few years ago (that effectively I'm not using at all any more)

So whilst the principal is great, I can't get much volume - and what I do get comes from 4 feet behind my left ear.

I started nixing around on the web a year ago and found that ioplay released ioplay2 which outputted to 4 speakers or an external amp. I picked one up second hand off ebay very cheaply.

I then looked for a more classic head unit and picked up an old chrome Volkswagen unit which looked very cool.

Finally I thought it would be worth trying an external amp. I've always liked Alpine so I picked up an MRV340. This was all about a year ago. My thinking was that I would set it all up on the workbench and once that was done I'd install it in the car.

A couple of weeks ago I finally got round to it

This is the workbench setup





Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk