Two steps forward, one step back..

So, dear readers, you may rightly wonder why such an aeon has elapsed since my last foray into the blogosphere. It’s not so much that nothing has actually happened – it’s just that a blow-by-blow account of the rather turgid pace of progress would have sent the average reader into a coma. However, let me briefly reveal the ‘two steps forward, one step back’ kind of progress we have made.

Having taken off the bent front axle and stripped its (functioning) innards out, it went to Trinity Engineering, whom I was unreliably informed were able to straighten the bent axle casing. Well, it turns out they weren’t willing to take the chance of knackering the axle casing further with their 200-ton press, which is a bit daft as it’s clearly knackered already. So the only alternative was to throw some more cash at the problem and buy a new axle casing – which then of course had to be reinforced, hopefully to a higher standard than the old one.

Then the engine and gearbox were to be re-assembled with the new clutch and thrust bearing. First job is to get the old thrust bearing out of the adaptor plate casting, which sits between the engine and gearbox. Four bolts hold the thrust bearing assembly into the ‘spider’ of the adaptor, and once removed, the adaptor plate casting promptly disintegrated. Bugger! Turns out it was only the bolts that were holding it together. This is another part of the Marks 4WD conversion kit from Australia, so guess what? Give the credit card another good spanking and get a new adaptor plate. Of course, if I’d known it was going to fall apart, I could have got it at the same time as the clutch. Such is life.

Are there any more repairs in store that can go disastrously and expensively wrong? I wouldn’t bet against it. Can Gareth, for example, reinforce the chassis without setting the entire vehicle on fire? Well, actually yes he did, but you get my point.

What we need now is a new radiator, because those of you who have been paying attention will know that cooling is a Big Issue. So I’d been recommended to get an original aluminium V8 Cruiser radiator, but that would have plastic tanks, which would have to be replaced with aluminium for strength, and then we’d have to fabricate a shroud to house the fans, and mountings to attach it to the Patrol. So rather than faff around with that, why not get a proper custom-made race radiator that can solve the problem once and for all? Then we can get a double pass unit with the inlet and outlet on the same end of the rad, such that our hose runs to and from the engine are minimized, which is a Good Thing.

Have you ever read BillaVista’s tech pages on Pirate 4x4? He does go on a bit, so probably best if you put the coffee on first, but you get the feeling that he knows whereof he speaks. And he speaks highly of Griffin Radiators in the USA, and by chance has fitted one of their custom rads to his project off-road vehicle – which just happens to have the same LS2 engine from Turnkey that lurks under The Beast’s bonnet. (The only difference is that he probably got his rad for free, in exchange for giving it a massive thumbs-up. But I digress.) So I dropped them a line, together with a drawing of what I wanted, and they came back by return with a four-figure price. Ouch. I thought it was expensive – until I got another offer from a UK supplier which worked out at nearly double the money. In the immortal words of Griffin’s Benji ‘If this doesn't do it, there's nothing else on the planet that will!’ Time to give the plastic another spanking, I think…

So once we get this rad in, and all the other tedious but necessary jobs are done (like making sure the exhaust doesn’t fall off, and the engine mounts stay where they belong), we’ll be able to take it for a blat – sorry, ‘shakedown’. And assuming it all works as planned, then I need to find a cheap but relatively competent paint shop to remove the massive dent the bastard Frenchies put in my rear doors, and re-spray all the bits that we’ve replaced. In all probability, they won’t do it for free, either.

Then it’ll be ready to race, won’t it? Well, actually, no. Because the FIA, in their infinite wisdom, have decided once again to change the mandatory inlet restrictor size from 2011 from 37mm to 35mm. So I’ll have to get a new one made, and I know from experience that no-one in the UAE can make one the way I want it, so I’ll have to get it made elsewhere.

Somewhere in the distance I hear the sound of a credit card being spanked to death…