My Escort - Updated 28-Nov-2011

[T3ORA]

Originally Posted by Mike Rainbird Empty . Just some fluff, an old jelly baby (covered in aforementioned fluff ) and a button left . FOR SALE: One Quife thickwall casing - "slight" damage - Arladite supplied for minor repair! can i have the butten then

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[rapidcossie]

Thats unlucky Mike...

Its done a hell alot of damage

[Stoo]

Yeah I'd have pretty much shat my pants if that happened to me. Good it's getting sorted so quick though!

[pete mcrash]

ur car pretty good mike............but not a patch on u baby...............

[Sticky.]

Originally Posted by Mike Rainbird

Will be ready Sunday night .

Peggy will go to the ball

[Mike Rainbird]

[Charlie Chalk]

Originally Posted by kjc300

Ryan, you almost chuck the towel in if a bit of dirt lands on the car!!!

[rapidcossie]

What are we looking at here Mike?

I know its a R+D front diff but give us the low down on it!

[Mike Rainbird]

Originally Posted by rapidcossie

What are we looking at here Mike?

I know its a R+D front diff but give us the low down on it!

7" with uprated out-put flanges to utilise lobro joints like this:



Which means the end of my drive-shaft woes as well, as they will bolt to the diff like they do to the rear .

[Ryan]

managed to sort the outputs then, good work mike

[Charlie Chalk]

Originally Posted by Mike Rainbird

Which means the end of my drive-shaft woes as well, as they will bolt to the diff like they do to the rear .

Why didn't you do that in the first place then

[Mike Rainbird]

Radders,
Because an R&D diff is now Ł3,580 + VAT just for the diff + extra for the cross-shaft and output flanges, and I didn't want to spend that kind of money, so I had to wait for one to come up at the right price . Luckily for me, one of Harvey's customers was breaking their rally car, and I bought this for a steal (just been full over-hauled by R&D) to the extent that I could sell it for Ł5-600 profit tomorrow, due to R&D hiking up the prices of the diff (I bought it when the guy thought they were still Ł2,800 + VAT ).

[Charlie Chalk]

Nice one

[T3ORA]

Originally Posted by Mike Rainbird

Radders,
Because an R&D diff is now Ł3,580 + VAT just for the diff + extra for the cross-shaft and output flanges, and I didn't want to spend that kind of money, so I had to wait for one to come up at the right price . Luckily for me, one of Harvey's customers was breaking their rally car, and I bought this for a steal (just been full over-hauled by R&D) to the extent that I could sell it for Ł5-600 profit tomorrow, due to R&D hiking up the prices of the diff (I bought it when the guy thought they were still Ł2,800 + VAT ).

so you shafted this bloke good and proper mike

glad to see you getting it sorted in such a small amount of time

[rapidcossie]

hope it all works out at the Ring then!

[fezzajsy]

[Dan]

Glad to hear it will make Germany Mike!

[dave cos4x4]

real shame about the damage Mike.

thats the only thing about spending top money on parts,they are really expensive to replace when things go wrong.

glad it will be ready.

[RichardPON]

You do like doing these things days before you go away!

Shoul have made it RWD years ago

[marco polo]

hi mike

i could not belive it when you told me this morning , i haven't been on the net for a while ,

well one good thing at least it will be sorted hopefully tonight


cheers marco

[Mike Rainbird]

I would just like to add a big thank you to both Marco, Bara and Harvey, who without their help would mean the car would not be ready in time.
1. Marco gave up his Sunday to collect a set of drop-gears and chain and deliver them to Harvey .
2. Bara for opening up his workshop and sorting the above on a Sunday .
3. Harvey for working all day Sat, Sun and bank-holiday Mon to get the car ready . I doubt you will see such dedication from many other tuners .

[carlo]

well done all

[marco polo]

Originally Posted by Mike Rainbird

I would just like to add a big thank you to both Marco, Bara and Harvey, who without their help would mean the car would not be ready in time.
1. Marco gave up his Sunday to collect a set of drop-gears and chain and deliver them to Harvey .
2. Bara for opening up his workshop and sorting the above on a Sunday .
3. Harvey for working all day Sat, Sun and bank-holiday Mon to get the car ready . I doubt you will see such dedication from many other tuners .

Hi Mike


that was not problem im really glad i could help you , im sorry i had to take money of you i just couldn't afford the petrol in the cos on a journey that long , im sure if i was in the same sitution you would have done the same for me

really thank Bara for opening his work shop otherwise it wouldn't of happend

best of luck with the car and see you soon

fair play to havey aswell not many people would do that either

cheers marco

[Dan]

So is the car back on the road Mike?

[Mike Rainbird]

Almost. The wrong front drive shafts were sent, and the correct ones can't be made in time, so I have had to fall back to using the originals. This has necessitated getting the gear arrangement for the diff to accept these from R&D, which will arrive tomorrow. Then it is just a case of fitting these and setting up the geometry.

[Lambchop]

bloody hell theres always a drama come germany trips! i'll cross my fingers you DO NOT have to see Guido this weekend! at least not at his place

[Mike Rainbird]

[dave cos4x4]

well done all involved getting the car ready.

hopefully it will be all ready.

[Mad Matt]

Wow quite some damages there ! But what was the problem with the small prop shaft ? Was that a standard item, or already a group A-like item or renforced std ? Would be interesting to know more about that it may happen to another car I think.

Glad you sorted out this already with the help of the "usual" peps

[Mike Rainbird]

Matt,
It was a standard item.

[Mad Matt]

Originally Posted by Mike Rainbird

Matt,
It was a standard item.

Ok thank you Mike. You don't wanna try to cure this "problem" ? I would be too afraid of putting again a std item with the failure you've got. I don't know if there is a way to renforce the shaft tho. Anyway it was just bad luck so the chances it happens again are as high as finding a brand new R+D front diff at nice price those days I guess.

[Mike Rainbird]

Originally Posted by Xen

Ok thank you Mike. You don't wanna try to cure this "problem" ? I would be too afraid of putting again a std item with the failure you've got. I don't know if there is a way to renforce the shaft tho. Anyway it was just bad luck so the chances it happens again are as high as finding a brand new R+D front diff at nice price those days I guess.

This item had done 65k of hard abused miles on my car. Originally the UJs are designed as "life" items (as in don't need replacing for the life of the car). It is possible to replace them with Transit items, which have grease nipples incorporated in them to prevent the joints from drying up. However, I have since learned that the later ones have this facility, but blanked off with a grub screw, so this can be removed and grease nipples put in place. This will be done upon my return and then the UJs regularly checked and greased as a service item.

[Mad Matt]

Thank you Mike for these "tips". I already knew about that small grease thing because a mate did it on his car, but wow didn't thought it was that strong.

Good luck with the end of the rebuild, and hopefully some pictures of the finished car soon and track pics !

[Richie.]

Well done to all involved in the repair


Looking forward to seeing 'Peggy' in action at the weekend

[Mike Rainbird]

Had an amazing time at the Ring, ran the car on 1.5 bar the whole weekend, as the ambient temps were a bit extreme. The car never went above 117°C oil and 105°C water - and that was a particularly "hot" lap (weather and "on it" wise ). The weekend started tentatively and I was overtaken by quite a lot, as I was scared to push the car incase the untried front end gave up the ghost (drive-shaft wise). However, as the weekend progressed and I gained confidence in the car, I gradually picked up the pace and by Monday, I felt that Peggy was "back" . After playing catch up to the green CSL and his mate (and then finally managing to get passed - they really didn't want to let a Ford through ), I then had a couple of awesome laps with James (Johnny Bravo) as passenger. By then I had completely regained my confidence in the car, and despite some hectic traffic, we had two really good laps - one of which was managing to sneak past the green Supra after following him round for half a lap, short shifting at 6500 - 7000 to stay with him. Once I saw an opportunty to get past (we had a better line out of the fast uphill corner after the bit where Niki Lauda crashed), I had to use all the revs to out drag him up the hill (still on 1.5 bar), we then played cat and mouse as it was his turn to follow me as we threaded our way through the traffic.

It was a very enjoyable lap despite being slowed down by plenty of accidents and traffic. However, this was the lap where we discovered the problem. As we coasted down the main straight to cool the car off, I could hear a very faint ticha, ticha, ticha, ticha as something was either rubbing somewhere or the noise lifters make when they are low on oil. Given the car had just been hammered for 3 laps, my first though was that maybe the oil had run low, so we went back to the hotel to check.

This was 3mm above the minium, so I put half a litre in for good measure and then went to start the car to see if it had alleviated any of the noise. Bizzarely (so we thought at the time), the car wouldn't start. After numerous attempts with the Pectel monitor in the position to check the sensors, all we got was the normal "low battery" warning that you get when the car is cranking. I then decided to whip out the plugs to see if fuel was getting through, as it didn't appear to even be catching, so was obviously lacking spark or fuel. The plug inspection revealed perfectly coloured, but dry plugs on all four cylinders (relief - no oil or other issues ), so no fuel was getting through. A quick phone call to Harvey and he suggested that if the voltage dropped below a certain level, then the ECU wouldn't allow the car to start, so we borrowed a jumper pack from the garage next door and tried that with high hopes, but to no avail. By this time Guido had turned up and him and James stood at the front of the car while I turned it over. It was at this point that they spotted the bottom crank pulley wobbling around as the car was turning over. Another quick phone call to Harvey suggest that the bolt "may" have come undone, but he was sure it had been loctited. I could tell the concern in his voice, and asked what he thought it was if it wasn't this, and he just said "crank has snapped" . With hopes that it was the bolt lose, I jacked the car up and James leapt underneath and started to remove the fans so we could check the bolt. With this done he got under there and tried to see if it was tight. Suddenly the car started rolling back off the jack, I yelled, but luckily Jame's cat like reflexes had allowed him to scrabble out just in time as in slow motion the car fell off the scissor jack. In the rush, I had forgotten to put the car in gear and apply the handbrake fully . After a brief cigarette to calm his nerves while I got the car back into position, James went back under and checked the bolt, which was completely tight and would not budge.

Phoned Harvey and explained this, where he sounded extremely dispondent, "Have you tried undoing it?" he asked. "Nope" - "Try that and then call me back". So then it as a case of removing the alternator belt (swapping the pony Ford jack from one side to the other to do so), where I then got in the car, put it into fourth and stood on the brakes as James attempted to undo the bolt. He couldn't budge it, so I went and got my breaker bar from in the garage and gave him that to try. Back in position, James finally managed to crack the bolt and he shouted from under the car that it was definitely Loctited, as he could feel the courseness in the thread as he undid it. Unfortunately three full turns later and the pulley was off in his hands .

I don't know whether to consider this bad luck or good luck . Obviously it is bad luck to have failed when it did, but then again it is good luck that it hasn't (seemed to have) done any other damage (fingers crossed).

Apart from that, this was probably one of the best weekends for socialising that I have ever been on .

[J1mbo]

dont look good mike long wait for another farndon crank isnt it

[Ryan]

mike,

is harvey any closer to dianosing what caused the failure? i.e material?, design floor?

think i remember you saying it was going to go for an independant analysis before it went back to fardon? any news?

[Mike Rainbird]

Will be sent off shortly, but comparing it to Martin's failure, you'd be hard pressed telling whose was whose .

I'm actually chatting to John (the guy with the E30 M3) and he has been doing lots of crank research to find someone suitable to make the 2.7 litre version for his car, and his comments have proved quite interesting.

[carlo]

Mike did it do any further damage to valves ect?

[Ryan]

ahh mike, do pm me the info, AWESOME car.

did make me think of chopping the 3dr in and buying an ex btcc m3.