We have heard a lot of good things about the BFG Rival race tires. They have the 200 tread wear required by Chumpcar and seems very sticky. However the set that came with our car were very worn. In fact a couple of tires had blisters after the hill climb. I ordered a new set from Tire Rack.
They arrived in a couple of days and I mounted them up last night. I am not sure if it is because they are so wide – 225/45-15 – or if it how they are made but even after breaking the bead they wanted to reseat on their own. I thought for a while I was gong to need an assistant but I eventually found a way to hold two tire spoons and the breaker bar to get the tires on and off the rims.
I stopped by NAPA and got some of their tire lubricant instead of using my normal home brew solution. I was pleased with the NAPA juice and will have to do a side by side comparison with my home made solution sometime. It was too hot last night. I look forward to running the new tires at Barber in August.
I have never given much thought to safety wire. We used it on several critical fasteners on the printing press I used to maintain, but I did not even keep the pliers when I left there.
However on our new to us Porsche Race car, the shift linkage was supposed to be safety wired and was not. This caused the shift linkage to fail on one of my starts up the hill at the Dragon Hill Climb. Not being familiar withe way the shift linkage operated, I first loaded it up and headed back how to the shop. However after consulting a mechanic friend, I decided to stop and take another look.
I set the trailer ramps on jack stands and backed the car out to make a mini work pit. With better visibility I was able to see that the set screw had backed out.
I put it back and we went back racing. But it came out again. I was much faster at putting it back but I knew I had to do something different. The folks on the FL/GA 944 owners group suggested safety wiring.
I ordered a set of pliers. I also noticed that there was already a hole in the bolt head so it was intended to be safety wired.
Here is the result:
I also decided that the cheap pliers I ordered from Amazon are nothing like the ones I used to use. I will be searching for a set of Milbar pliers in the near future.
We took our newly acquired 1986 Porsche 944 to the Dragon 8 hill climb in Robbinsville, NC. We figured this would make a good shakedown before our first endurance race.
This year Registration and Tech was located on the hill rather than in the town of Robbinsville. So we made the 12 mile trek and unloaded the car at the bottom and drove up and staked out a spot to paddock on the side of the road.
Tech was a breeze since this car already had a log book. Once registration was complete we set up our spot and saved a spot for our friend Dave (aka Captain Chaos) who uses an ambulance body for a tow vehicle. S2000 driver Krafton and Julie were there with lots of snacks as well. We tuned our radio to the worker frequency so we could keep up with what was happening. The ambulance made a great place to hang out and change in and out of our sweaty driver suits.
We met up with more friends from previous events and went back to town to eat at Lynne’s place. With the event going on in addition to the regular weekend motorcycle traffic, the restaurant was packed. But we had fun catching up and telling car stories as we waited. The food was excellent as usual. I had the dragon tail chicken.
Saturday morning the weather was beautiful. No fog like in years past. Tom took the first run up the hill and ran 144. I followed with a 144 of my own. My best time last year in the Sentra was 147.
We were feeling pretty good about the car until on one start, I went to shift from 1 to 2 and found only neutral. We spent some time trying to diagnose on the side of the road and finally decided to load up and take it back to the shop hoping to return on Sunday.
We were working to meet up with our mechanic friend who was on his way up to see us race. He offered some suggestions, so we stopped at the Walmart in Murphy to check the linkage more closely.
I set the ramps out on jack stands and was able to back the car out and had sort of a mini lift. This made access to the transaxle much easier. I soon found a set screw had backed out of the shift linkage. I put it back in and we headed back to the hill.
We had missed a few runs and lunch but we each got in two more runs on Saturday. We were both down to 140 being careful with the shifter.
Saturday night we went to the historic Tapaco lodge for dinner. We ate outdoors by the river. The weather was perfect and we enjoyed a variety of foods including wood fired smores pizza for desert.
Sunday morning, I broke into the 139’s on my first run. I also broke the shifter again on the way down. However, this time I knew what to do and had it fixed in time for Tom to make his run group. He was tentative in his shifting and stayed in the 140’s. I will be putting a safety wire on this screw before we endurance race it.
I slowly chipped away at my times during the day. Being careful with the shifter, I started running in third and just holding at the rev limiter in the short straights instead of shifting to forth. This method actually helped my times. By the end of the day I was at 138.1. Tom got 138.5.
I really enjoyed diving the Porsche. The balanced handling gives me a lot of confidence in the car. I think this will help when driving in traffic on the road course.
Glenn Holden got some great shots of our car: (some of Dave and Krafton as well)
The windshield wipers on my 1995 GMC Suburban were haunted. After a trip to Savanna and doing the ghost tour, the wipers took on a mind of their own.
If I tried to pulse them them would run several cycles before stopping. On intermittent they would run ad few strokes then stop in random positions.
In mist they would often just run on and on until I considered pulling the fuse. They they might stop in a random position rather than parking at the bottom of the windshield. A few miles down the road they would decide to park.
I was ready for an exorcism. However every time I put the truck in the shop to see what was wrong the wipers would function perfectly. Haunted.
Recently on the way home from Atlanta in a misty rain, they continued to act up until I got back to the shop. I now had my chance to find the trouble.
It turns out the park signal is generated inside the wiper motor. I watched a few youtube videos to see how to remove the wiper motor. It is not too bad.
Just remove the wiper arms, a few screws (some of which are hidden) and remove the grill over the wiper motor.
You might want to mark the position of the wiper arms on the motor as they adjust where they are connected. Loosen the ten mm head bolts and slide the wiper arms off the motor drive.
Then remove the three bolts that hold the wiper motor to the firewall. Disconnect the wire and you can take it out of the truck.
Before replacing the motor, I wanted to know why it did not work. I removed the cover and found a circuit board inside. The board shows signs of being hot and possible smoke removal.
I did a quick search and found the board was available separately. I ordered one form my local parts store and proceeded to put everything back together.
I found the board can be swapped without pulling the motor off the firewall by simply removing three torx screws. I swapped the board and now the wipers stop when turned off. The pulse and intermittent settings work as expected as well. Exorcism complete.
Radiator removal and replacement on a 1992 Nissan Sentra SE-R
I wanted to remove the AC condenser on our Sentra SE-R race car. This step involved removing the radiator first.
When the top radiator hose was removed, I noticed the inlet tube from the radiator was broken. I ordered a radiator and kept working.
To remove the radiator, I first removed the two clips that hold the radiator to the support. They had 10mm heads. I then removed the four self-tapping screws that hold the fans to the radiator.
Then I found that I could not get either fan out. I had to remove the tubes and a black box that is part of the EGR system to make room to pull the driver side fan. The passenger side fan can be left on the radiator and pulled as a unit.
The AC condenser was then held in by two more clips that bolts to the support.
When the new radiator arrived, I found that the inlet and outlet pipes were too small. The new hoses did not fit. I took it back to the store and ran all the options and all listed the same 1 1/8 inch fittings not the 1 3/8 fitting that the SE-R radiator has.
All the parts stores I tried listed the same smaller fitting. Eventually, I found that Advance Auto listed both sizes. When the radiator arrived, I found their solution was to use a rubber sleeve to make up the difference in diameters. Now that I have the sleeves, I can use a radiator from any of the major suppliers.
Refitting the radiator involved, mounting the first fan, sliding the unit in place and then mounting the second fan. I then put all the EGR system back in place and hooked up the inlet and outlet lines.
I then removed the vent screw above the thermostat and filled the system with coolant. Once it was filled, I replaced the screw and the radiator cap.
