Like all professional sports teams, the top beer rally team understand the importance of preparation.  Race preparation for an international motoring event, such as the scally rally, involves four key areas:

• Scrutineering to ensure driver and spectator safety
• Decoration so the car not only looks good but satisfies sponsors' advertising requirements
• Mechanical preparation for maximum performance and reliability
• Logistics so driver, navigator and mechanic have everything they require for the arduous journey

Scrutineering

Performance rally cars, such as the 1.1 Metro, need to be safe for both driver and spectator.  For the scally rally we needed to pass intensive scrutineering from none other than the DVTA and their crack team.

I believe ordinary car owners refer to this as an MOT.

Although in good condition and a mere 19 years old, we still felt it prudent to carry out some checking prior to inspection.

Underneath

 

 

 

 

First the passenger and then the drivers side was placed on axel stands.  This proved slightly problematic as whilst lowering the car onto the axel stand under the drivers side jack point, the axel stand was observed to “start to disappear into the floor”.

The stand was moved to under the sub frame.

Investigation of  the drivers floor revealed what could only be described as a large amount of rust and a bit of a hole.  So as not to confuse the inspector, a strong glass fibre was applied inside the car to protect the floor from the big puddle of water forming in the foot well each time it rains and the underside was liberally disguised painted with hammerite.

 

 

To prevent any misunderstanding we screwed the carpet down well.

Since the car was raised we took the opportunity to “whack loads of grease into anything that moves” using a grease gun.  This would not only reduce friction in the suspension and transmission during the rally, but would also eliminate any clunks or squeaks from say, a worn suspension bearing, making the Inspector more comfortable during car wobbling testing and preventing any clunking from causing ear damage when the wheels are yanked around.

The emission system was also found to be somewhat off tune.  A hole in the exhaust on one of the joints.  So as not to poison the Inspector, the joint clamp was loosened and the tin holder from a “night light” candle wrapped around the pipe and the clamp re-tightened over the top.  An old coke or beer tin can also be used for this.

 

Electrical

A couple of issues were discovered.  One of the rear brake lights was inoperative.  This was traced to a fuse.

 

 

This fault may have been caused by the wires hanging out the hole in the side of the car so we put some masking tape over the hole.  This would also prevent the Inspector from having to worry about cuts from sharp edges.

The front lights required alignment. One be them seemed to be held in place by some screwed up paper.  We discovered that part of the light housing was broken, so we re folded and re-positioned the paper to form a much more concise wedge.

The lights were then accurately aligned by driving up John’s wall putting two bits of tape on the wall where the lights were, driving back a bit to where the flat bit ends [on John’s drive] and aligning down a bit and to the left a bit of the tape.

The test

 

Originally booked for the Saturday five days before the rally, the committee decided it would be prudent to “get it done asap in case we need to find another car”.

So, a cancellation was found and early Tuesday morning the car was presented for inspection.

Due to their extensive and meticulous preparation work, the team were not at all surprised that the car passed first time without any issue!

 

Decoration

For this event the painting and decorating department have excelled themselves.

Stage 1 – mask with tape the Stuart left at your house

Step 2- Apply a couple of coats of paint and touch up stripes

 

Step 3 – fill holes and apply advertising, and names

 

Mechanical

(This bit contains little humour so I would skip it).

The only slight flaw in the car was coughing a spluttering when accelerating at low revs and cutting out when stopped.

A set of quality spark plugs and leads were obtained from Halfords but, as expected, this did not rectify the problem.  The chief mechanic reckoned it was the timing and had even borrowed a strobe off his dad on a recent trip to France to cover such an eventuality.

Since the car has no rev counter, a tachometer (rev counter) was ordered from EBAY.

Setting the timing sounds really hard – but is actually one of the easiest things to do.

1. Find the timing marks on the pulley wheel.  On the metro this involves removing the front drivers wheel and a plastic cover behind it held on by 3 screws – two of which are broken or missing.
2. Find the notch on the pulley wheel which is the timing mark – and highlight with paint or, in my case, a handy white sticker that came with the tachometer.
3. Also find the numbers written on the engine next to the pulley with small lines next to them.  These read something like 4, 8, 12 and is the degrees before top dead centre (TDC) – don’t worry about what that means.
4. Your manual will have the timing stated as something like 8 degrees before TDC at 1500 rpm. so using the tachometer (which you can point at the mark you’ve just made) , adjust the engine idle speed to 1500 rpm (or whatever).
5. Turn off the engine and attach the strobe light.  To do this you disconnect the spark lead from the No1 cylinder  (the one on the left) spark plug and attach one of the leads from the strobe, attach the other to the lead you’ve just pulled off the plug.  Now when you start the engine the strobe light will flash every time the No1 cylinder fires (sparks).
6. Shine the strobe on the pulley that you’ve marked.  The mark you applied will, by magic, appear stationary (because the light is flashing in time with the turning of the engine)!  Its a bit like those cowboy movies when the wheel appears stationary or moves slowly back and forward.  What's more the line should be next to one of the numbers mentioned earlier.
7. If the timing is off – i.e. its pointing to the wrong number, turn off the engine, loosen the two bolts on each side of the distributor (the black thing all the leads spark plug leads go into) and rotate it slightly.  This advances or retards the ignition – moves the line you marked a bit.
8. Do the light shining bit again until the line appears next to the number you want it too.
9. Put everything back together and set the idle speed back to factory recommended.

According the the manual, the timing was different depending on which of the three types of carb were fitted.  I found the carb identifier and it did not match any of the types listed.

Since the listed types were 8, 9 and 10 degrees before TDC, I opted for 9 as an average. 

The initial reading was 4, so it was a fair bit out.  

Once I put her back together I road tested and other than having forgotten to tighten the road wheel  no issues.  Engine now running as new!

Logistics

After some careful planning:

• Martin’s bringing his tent.
• I’m bringing a gas stove.
• John’s getting us some new self inflating beds.
• We think we’ve got a map.
• Martin has my cold box and some beer left over from his birthday.