Since our Amazon is now on wheels and we've test driven our steel grey speedy Amazon, we all of a sudden started to think about safety. A pure coincidence? Perhaps not. We don't how fast it will be, but it will be fast.
So we started to order expensive safety equipment (driver chair interior, safety belts, parachutes etc. etc.)
To change the mindset about the cost for quality safety stuff we used videos like this.
Autumn means that winter awaits. It'll soon be dark and cold and people who's living in the northern hemisphere will start to wind down. Wind down to a ruminate kind of level. We all know that this will happen and therefore we're prepared to suck out every single minute of joy from this warm dry weather late summer that makes car guys bloom like if there was no tomorrow.
Anders enjoying a cheerful test drive of The Beast after a many hours of hard work
The Beast while passing a Saab
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Nature at its best - and some yellow leaves.
Salt Slush logo
Is it only me? The autumn sun on a red C1 makes me feel at ease.
C1 Corvette covered in the last sun rays of summer.
As we're now in the jump-in-and-drive-mode, with our Landspeed racer, I came to think about this amazing moment, when you after weeks, months, years, sometimes decades move your hand towards the starting key and seconds later you hear how the solenoid complete its mission and the engine magically fires up.
Seconds after first start some weeks ago
With engine running on steady rpm, the heart pounding like hammer, the nerves tensed like piano strings and all senses fully alert you and your ride roll out from the garage/workshop/basement.
Every vibration is felt, every misfire is registered and the muscle control is close to perfect. The tip of the right foot keeps the engine at a nice rpm over idle while the same heel keeps vehicle from flying out on the street before you're in the mood for that.
Simultaneously, the left foot is getting to know the clutch force while the right hand desperately is working with the gear shifter. Who's driving? Well, that task outsourced to the left hand...
At this point in time, with the eyes like billiard balls fixed on oil pressure and coolant temperature, the noseis not used for breathing anymore its only there to register fumes from oil, gasoline (or diesel).
First 10 second is painful, the following 20 can not be described as relaxing either, but then, after approximately half a minute, with the engine still running, happiness in its purest form arrives.
Peace of mind... while the road or race track awaits you.
Ok. The sun is shining and our race car runs and everything works fine, well nearly everything....there is this oil leakage, which is like a stone in the shoe, you can walk, but it hurts a little. For a while we ignored the problem but eventually we started to analyze where the leakage came from.
By using fancy digital optic equipment, we found a small oil fountain from the connection between oil sump and bed plate in the area close to the oil pump.
But how difficult can that be? Just remove the oil sump and correct the error! Now this operation wasn't as simple as one could imagen, since the oil sump is part of the rear face of block, which means that the transmission had to be removed. And the propeller shaft, but first of all the transmission tunnel had to be taken out...etc. etc.
Ragnar, Anders and the precious one-zillion-bolt-screws Volvo 960 oil sump.
Here's the oil sump. But what was really the problem?
This was the problem. Around the hole to the left, there should be an o-ring (assembled in the bedplate). And there was none. Who was to blame? Who assembled the engine? Never mind....it's ok now. I've heard that it's only human to make errors.
The headline should not to be mixed with Fast Fourier Transform, instead it represent what happened when we quickly assembled all the sheet metal on our racer and transformed from a Mad Max alike contraption...
...to a wild looking Amazon. Yes, it runs and drives.
We had a bad oil leak. We thought it came from the adapter from the engine to the oil cooler hoses.
So we made a new adapter. Not only because the leak but also because the original adapter had a thermostat we wanted to get rid of.
The installed adapter looks like this:
It's the squarish shiny piece in right in the middle of the picture.
The bad thing is that it continued to leak. And it is close to impossible to get to see were from the oil is coming. At a first look, it's comes from the flange between the engine and the adapter. But after thorough cleaning, and squeezing someones head into position, close to the fan belt, while an other one started the engine, it was indeed possible to see that adapter was NOT leaking.
However, it was still impossible see the actual leak.
But, a $50 high tech USB inspection camera from Biltema, made it possible:
