Spent yesterday in the garage first of all getting the car out, and then building the ramps for the Sylva to sit on.
Getting it out was easier than I feared. The car was buried underneath all the Veeteor moulds (just visible in the picture on the left) so a massive thanks to John and his son Cristian for coming over to help me lift them out the garage (especially since John had such a hangover!).
A big thanks to Paul as well for helping out with his tow car. Once we had pumped up the left hand tyres which were both flat as pancakes we attached a hefty rope from his Shogun's tow bar to the Sylva's roll bar and some carefully placed blocks it was a cinch to pull the car out without any grounding issues at all.
Getting it out was easier than I feared. The car was buried underneath all the Veeteor moulds (just visible in the picture on the left) so a massive thanks to John and his son Cristian for coming over to help me lift them out the garage (especially since John had such a hangover!).
A big thanks to Paul as well for helping out with his tow car. Once we had pumped up the left hand tyres which were both flat as pancakes we attached a hefty rope from his Shogun's tow bar to the Sylva's roll bar and some carefully placed blocks it was a cinch to pull the car out without any grounding issues at all.
The basic idea with building some ramps was to avoid grounding issues caused by the slope in my garage - the dry sump and bellhousing catch on the threshold as the car is very low.
The ramps will also make it easier to work on the car from above and below, and they will also enable me to work on the car by myself inside, in the warm.
The ramps will also make it easier to work on the car from above and below, and they will also enable me to work on the car by myself inside, in the warm.
Once the car was outside we tried starting her up and it did grumble into life for a few seconds before running out of fuel and then the battery died. I topped it up with more fuel but the battery was too dead by that point.
So I set to work building the ramps out of some sleepers and breeze blocks but soon discovered just how tough oak is to cut! Pauls chainsaw hardly made a dent.
So I simply laid the sleepers down on top of the breeze blocks but that does leave a bit of a step at the front, and so I will have to cut them to fit the slope later, once I have a man with a proper chainsaw to hand!
Anyway, with the ramps out of the way, I can now begin to plan out some servicing & maintenance to prepare the car for a seasons racing. Even though the car was in good working order when I put it into storage it would be rather foolish to go to a track and hope everything is still working.
The first job will be to get the car running so I can move it in and out of the garage easily by myself. After that, I will check the brakes and suspension, and then rebuild the exhaust manifold which is blowing at the joints (recorded 114db last time I took it to a track...). The engine could do with fresh fluids & filters, and I think that the safety harness might also need to be swapped out for a new one as it might be past it's use by date (racing harnesses are dated, as they must be kept fresh in case of stretching & general deterioration and this is something that scrutineers check for).
So I set to work building the ramps out of some sleepers and breeze blocks but soon discovered just how tough oak is to cut! Pauls chainsaw hardly made a dent.
So I simply laid the sleepers down on top of the breeze blocks but that does leave a bit of a step at the front, and so I will have to cut them to fit the slope later, once I have a man with a proper chainsaw to hand!
Anyway, with the ramps out of the way, I can now begin to plan out some servicing & maintenance to prepare the car for a seasons racing. Even though the car was in good working order when I put it into storage it would be rather foolish to go to a track and hope everything is still working.
The first job will be to get the car running so I can move it in and out of the garage easily by myself. After that, I will check the brakes and suspension, and then rebuild the exhaust manifold which is blowing at the joints (recorded 114db last time I took it to a track...). The engine could do with fresh fluids & filters, and I think that the safety harness might also need to be swapped out for a new one as it might be past it's use by date (racing harnesses are dated, as they must be kept fresh in case of stretching & general deterioration and this is something that scrutineers check for).
RSS Feed