October 2003
Sunday 12th October 2003
The two spherical bearings [GLXSW12] have arrived from autosport-bearings.co.uk. They fit in the track control arms, and replace the Poly bushes that I'd used. It is a tweak first suggested by Dave Walker. The TCA's move up and down with the front wheels, and because of the arc prescribed by the front tie bars, the TCA's unless free to move, bind against the Poly bushes. Thats why its best to use spherical bearings. When fitted, the TCA's can move in any direction with no resistance. The hole in the TCA is 30mm, and the nearest bearings I could get were 30mm OD with 12mm ID. They're Zinc plated, with PTFE liner bonded to the inner surface, so they are maintenance free and won't wear. Price is £24 each. I'll bond them in the TCA's using Loctite Bearing fixative. Photo's to follow.
Wednesday 8th October 2003
CCC article is now available for download. The Magazine recently closed down after over 40 years of publishing. I received all the pictures taken on the photoshoot from IPCMedia last week, and they've been scanned by Jessops so I can use them on the website and in other publications over the coming months. Some of the pictures they took are brilliant, but space was tight in the magazine and they couldn't possibly use them all. I however, dont have the same limitations on space...
CCC Clinic feature from the last ever CCC magazine, October 2003Monday 6th October 2003
I competed on the MCC Edinburgh Trial on Saturday, in my fathers Liege kit-car. We had much fairer weather than last year, and we visited all the hills this year, only failing on two. Bamford Clough was so steep we ran out of momentum near the top and the engine stalled. The standard Reliant 850cc engine only has 40HP. And on Corkscrew, we restarted OK, but the car became bogged down in the deep ruts when we tried to turn left just after the restart section, and we lost forward motion and stopped. We're claiming a Bronze Award, for failing just two hills. (You get a gold if you clear all of them). Great fun again, and I've now come down with a heavy cold, probably due to all that fresh Derbyshire air. I bought a Magellan Sportrak GPS receiver for the event, so I could track where we were at all times. I never needed to look at a map, as the road book was so good (just one mistake which I spotted), but the GPS was really useful for showing the direction to the next hill, so we had confidence that the road book was sending us in the right direction.