In which Sid and Doris visit Earley Engineering to see the progress and make some decisions.
In looks we are heading toward something like this, which was prepared for the Flying Scotsman. Sid does love a louvre. You can see the spare wheel on the other side. We will have one each side. You can just about see the tiny rear door, which we are not having. Alex has stressed that if we do the Alpine Trial or similar we will need a shorter wheelbase or be three point turning in the hairpins. There will be enough room behind Sid and Doris for spares and luggage, or in home trim two occasional rear seats for pub runs. I suggest we not try to get much beyond The Hoops at Perry Green.
Our chassis is from a 4.3 saloon. In the picture below it has already been shortened by about eight inches and some cross bracing put in as well as reinforcement for the fore and aft chassis members. Working from the back forward you can see the axle looks as if it is off a three ton truck. You can see the size of the aluminium drums. We are going hydraulic not wire-pull. Apparently all the VSCC racers have done it so our mod will not have us drummed out of the Brownies. Given all that unsprung weight I am happy there will be telescopic dampers with plenty of oil (though we cannot have canisters). We have the option of 3.4 or 3.8 final drives. If first gear is low enough I suspect we will get away with the taller one. But Alex will weigh the car, have a look at our torque curve and advise. We’ll have both, as do most of his clients.
Here with no weight on it you can see it is at max height with the axle at the bottom of the chassis cut outs. When we first stood next to it felt like a Baja bug, and then Alex kindly pointed out why. We are having a steel frame rather than ash. Alex does both, but ash does not last on bumpy roads. You can see the shape of the back of the car and forward of that the roll over structure that will support the hoop behind our heads. The cage will be demountable so that when we are being pretty none of it will show above the bodywork – the upper picture shows the full cage in place; the lower picture is just the permanently-fixed part.
The hood will be elegantly hidden in a trough so we will not look like a go-faster perambulator, which requires some careful design of the structure. Going further forward is the cast aluminium bulkhead that carries our dash. Dash planning starts now as they need to make the loom.
As you can see in the picture to the right, ours is based on a chassis with independent front suspension though given that enormous spring I am not expecting supple. However, as we are having an alloy block we might be able to pull a couple of the leaves out. We are blessed with lever arm dampers on the front, much as later used on MGBs. The tubes you see under the chassis will be across the car under the body work and carry the dummy hubs for the spare wheels. The steering column puts the steering wheel at an awkward angle to the driver. We have elected to put UJs in the column. The trade off is that the amusing advance and retard lever on the original wheel will move to the dash. Alex explains that with modern petrol they are only used for the first few minutes, though I am thinking they might be useful as altitude and oxygen change.
The mechanic at the back is Mike. The workforce is very diverse. They are not all called Mike and I think one of them may not have a beard.
We have chosen to have the 3.7 Silver Crest engine we bought built up as 4.3 litre. In 1938 Alvis dry-sumped them for use in tanks. The crank/crankcase, bellhousing and box have all been in the car and are away being machined for Alex’s dudes to build up. The deposit for the conrods is about what it cost to build the Mini engine. The car will have a Silver Crest gearbox which was one of the first all synchro boxes. There is some joy in getting dog boxes right but Porsche put a synchro box in the 917 because over a long distance event drivers will make mistakes.
So it comes along. As we were leaving Alex said, of course before we hand it over we will test it up at Phil Price’s rally school. No says Doris, we will all be there driving it.
While Sid and Alex talk technical, Doris has time to roam around the unit looking at decoration.
