Pump my Ride

The interweb is an amazing thing. Once you know what your problem is, there’s bound to be something out there to help you solve it. It would be more useful if it told you all that stuff before the problem occurred, but somehow that never happens. Which brings me to the question of power steering pumps, about which I now know enough to bore you senseless.

Looking back, I find that we’d already replaced the p/s pump once, because it wasn’t giving pressure. We then replaced it just before the rally for the same reason, but the pulley then wasn’t tight on the shaft. (Pressing the pulley onto the shaft, and expecting it to stay there, is one of those really naff American engineering ideas.) Then we replaced the pump again before day 2 and the pulley was welded onto the shaft, and even that didn’t last. Are you beginning to see a pattern here?

The reason for these repeated failures is now pretty clear. The p/s pump had a remote reservoir, connected to the pump by a flexible hose. The pressure side of the pump goes to the steering box, the return from there comes back to the tank, from which the pump is sucking fluid. And it sucks big-time. According to my new friends at KRC, this pipe should be able to withstand a vacuum of 28” Hg., and if it’s not, it will collapse under the suction of the pump – especially if there’s a bend in the pipe, which there is. And when that happens, the pump will fail – either the seals will fail, or the pump will stall, in which case something else will give – like the non-existent bond between the shaft and the pulley, for example. Apparently this is the biggest cause of p/s pump failure, but you can eliminate this potential weak spot by using a bolt-on reservoir.

A new GM p/s pump is Dh 1700, without a pulley or a reservoir. An after-market KRC pump with bolt on reservoir and splined pulley is only slightly more. Yes, 17 splines give the pulley something to actually grip onto, and a nut tightened to 46 lb/ft to make sure it damn well stays there. I like the sound of that. So I’ve given the plastic another good spanking and ordered a shiny new pump with all the toys, and eagerly await its arrival. The only downside of this arrangement is that a bolt-on reservoir tends to make the fluid run hotter, but since I will use a slightly larger 6.5” pulley, the pump will run slower and hopefully that won’t be too much of an issue.

No-one has been much help on the ARB front diff problem. I have the part number of the flange which I need to replace, but even appealing direct to ARB hasn’t produced any response. So I guess I’ll run with the standard front diff.

Last weekend I was down in Liwa to run through this years Day 4 route (basically last year’s day 3) for Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, to check that no-one has built any new roads, fences, camel farms or other obstacles in our path. Turns out the only major issue is at the start, where last year’s seldom-used gatch track is now a major construction highway, so they need to change that bit. The worst bit of the route – and of the rally – is the section from Ghayathi Rd back to the Crescent Rd, about 30km of unadulterated hell. Driving it with no vehicle tracks to follow othe took us nearly 2 hours, during which the car wasn’t horizontal for more than about 5 seconds. One bowl follows another, and it’s as a soft as a very soft thing. And in another month’s time it’ll be even worse, and as hot as hell. At 355km, Day 4 looks like being a long, long day, and I foresee many cars being time-barred at PC4. Let’s hope we’re not one of them!

Hail Day 3

Once again we are up at sparrow-fart to unleash The Beast from its cage that is parc ferme. It's barely light and it's damned cold - a thermometer reads 3 degrees c as we head out through Hail for another 100km-plus liaison to the stage start. The steering is OK-ish - there's a wobble at certain speeds on the road and I suspect the steering damper is on its way out.

On the road, the engine water temperature never exceeds 50 - and that's without using the twin electric fans! So we seem for have overcome that problem at least. At the start we head off for a 212km stage, again new to us all. It promises some rough and rocky sections and I worry about tyre pressures. In the end I stick with 18/19 as the majority of the route is sand.

The route starts off with some wide plains where we can use some of the Beast's speed, but soon we're into twisty, bumpy tracks among small dunes, and areas of sharp stones hidden in the sand. We run wide at one point and I see a nasty rock just too late to avoid - the front right is punctures and the rim is damaged. We swing into action with the trolley jack and rattle gun. We're not exactly F1 standard, but our wheel change is pretty slick, and we head off to the viewing point just ahead where Sheila, Osama and Desert Knights service team await. Then I realise that the rear right is damaged too, and when we stop just past them to change it, they run up to assist in another wheel change. Oh, and the battery clamp has come loose and the battery is just lying there, and the wash-bottle is only held on by one bolt. So we ditch the wash-bottle, refit the battery, bin the damaged wheel and rim and continue. But carefully - because we've now run out of spare wheels.

The steering is a bit stiff but manageable - until we reach 144 kms, when it becomes very heavy. Oh no, not again! We've lost the belt - and the welded-on pulley. This time the pulley is gone for good and we're completely stuffed. We inform control through the Iritrak and wait for the sweep team to arrive.

Their brief is to tow us to the nearest tarmac - but the guys from Jeddah 4x4 go the extra mile - well, actually it's more like an extra 100km. They argue with the police, who finally allow them to tow us to the outskirts to Hail, where we get a recovery truck to deliver us back to Rally Control. (Towing through Hail in the rush hour would have been suicidal!)

So once again we take 8 hours of penalties. But we do have a finish - 29th place (i.e. last), which is better than 5 others who failed to start day 3! The closing ceremony is scheduled for 'sometime after 5pm' and we're determined to get the car over the finish ramp, come what may. It eventually kicks off at 9pm, by which time most of us have lost the will to live, having been hanging around since about 3pm. The engine runs - but with no water pump operating, I don't want it running for any more than a minute or two at a time.

Finally it's our turn, and we park it on the ramp to shake hands with Someone Important - probably the new head of SAMF. We accept our finishers' trophies and suddenly it's all over.

Not our greatest rally, really, but we've had fun. Richard has been an absolute star, learning rally nav and tripmeter-calibration on the job, getting stuck in with some awesome bush-engineering. What can I say about Sheila? She's been running the show, organising food and running around with Osama out on the stages, and out with various other strange men to find parts. Osama, Tariq and all the guys from Desert Knights get a special mention for all their help, as do Jeddah 4x4 Club, whose menbers form the sweep team. Matar Al Mansouri, who stayed late to help us fix our oil pipe, Saeed Al Hameli for the transport, Elie Semaan (the Clerk of the Course) who probably should have given us even more penalties than he did - and so many spectators and competitors who became our friends and saviours over the course of a week in Hail. Many, many thanks to you all - and yes, despite everything, we'll probably be back next year.

The results are here.

Another day, another disaster

We're up at the crack of dawn for our 100+km liaison to the start of Stage 2, which is completely different from last year's stage. A new railway blocks access to the part of the desert we used in the last two years, so it's terra incognita as far as most competitors are concerned.

We start fairly cautiously, aware of the possibility that we may have more belt-related problems. All goes well for the fisrt 10km - then, yes you guessed it, the belt comes off. And the power steering pulley. A short walk back into the stage and I retrieve both - but how to press the pulley back onto the shaft, to at least get us out of the desesrt? The Sweep Team come, look, and continue, and then the police arrive, look and hang around.

A plan evolves. I drain the p/s reservoir into a handy water bottle (the reservoir conveniently holds 500ml of ATF) and dismantle the pump from the block. Then we sandwich the pulley and the pump between the hydraulic jack and the rear tow-hitch and press it back together. This is not the standard workshop method and in fact knackers the pump (we find later), but we're pretty pleased with our bush engineering. We can't get the pulley on far enough to line up, but with the belt 2/3 on the puiley it's enough to get us out of the desert. We trundle back to the start, nursing the engine at 2200rpm, followed by our police escort.

Our journey back to Hail is slow and uneventful, and we divert to the Sinaiya to find a workshop to solve our problems. It's run by Khalid, and Arnold, a pony-tailed Filipino, is the foreman. They seem happy to stop whatever they are doing to help us out, Arnold sources a new pump and then beats the old pulley back into shape (yes, we knackered that too, and he couldn't find one the same). As well as pressing it back on, Arnold welds it to the shaft for good measure to prevent it slipping off again. We head back to rally control, just in time to put the car into parc ferme. Everyone is happy to see us and offers sympathy and encouragement.

Another 8 hours of penalties are added to our one hour from day 1, but we are assured a start on day 3. We're last (of course) but we're back in the race!

Mushkeela Kabir!

Oh dear. It was all going so well. We made it over the start ramp, shook hands with Someone Important, and shot off to the start of the Prologue for some more Waiting Around. Then suddenly, it was the turn of number 22 - us.

For the first 30 seconds the car went really well. Then I felt the awful weight on the steering wheel telling me that we had no power steering - i.e. the serpentine belt had come off. Since this meant we also had no alternator or water pump, it seemed wise to stop before the engine cooked itself, or the battery ran flat.

We got off the track, opened the bonnet and sure enough, the belt had gone - but the entire inside of the engine compartment was covered in oil. This doesn't usually happen when the belt goes and clearly Something Bad had happened. Anyway, we had a spare belt, nice spectators helped us fit it, and we set off again. 30 seconds later it happened again, accompanied by copious amounts of smoke. Opened the bonnet again, no belt again, but a small fire was just getting going on the left-hand headers, fueled by the oil which had been spread around. A quick squirt with the hand-held fire-extinguisher put paid to that, but we'd run out of belts. And oil. So we begged a tow off some other nice spectators and got dragged ignominiously into the service park. I was ready to throw in the towel.

It turned out we had two unrelated problems, which seem to have occured more or less simultaneously. The pulley on the power steer pump had moved out of line (away from the block) and the oil return line from the cooler to the pump had sprung a leak. Working feverishly against the clock in the gathering gloom and cold, we pulled off the damaged pipe and Richard blagged a lift from some other nice spectators to the local Sinaiya (car parts souk) where a new one was made up in record time. Meanwhile I pulled off the p/s pump, removed the spacers A2B had put behind it to get the alignment right, and by great good fortune the pulley now lined up correctly.

Sheila meanwhile was attending the Stage Briefing for Day 2 (which we should have been at) and collecting the Day 2 roadbook and the GPS unlock code.

Refitting the oil line proved to be an absolute bitch of a job, because by now it really was damned cold. But you would not believe how many people rallied round to help us. Finally we got it on, filled up with oil (thanks to the Desert Knights rally team) and started the engine. Several litres of oil which had soaked into the wrap of the headers gradually boiled off in clouds of white smoke, while we watched with the firex at the ready. Then I took it for a quick blat round the service park and left it there, just outside the parc ferme (which we should have been inside - but the organisers have let us off that one).

So what of the rally? Well, we'll be starting last (obviously) with a one hour penalty for not completing the prologue within limit time (30 mins). We have over 100km of road liaison to the start of the special stage, which we'll use as a shakedown - if we survive that without further disasters we'll try our luck in the stage.

The people of Hail have been our saviours. The guys who helped put the belt on (and then sought us out to return our tools!), the impromptu recovery crew, Abdullah and Abdullah, our fellow competitors and everyone else who got us through this nightmare - Shukraan Jazilan to you all! You are the best. Almost as good, in fact, as my noble co-driver Richard and Team Manager(ess) Sheila, who have been running around like mad things to get us back on track.

Now let's see what tomorrow will bring...

Quick postscript: the results are here.

Scrutineered

Yesterday we nailed into place all the mandatory equipment and stuck the stickers. Apparently we did an adequate job because we passed scrutineering without a hitch. Saudi TV were doing an outside broadcast from there, and decided that we were sufficiently newsworthy to interview.

Today we walked the prologue, which is basically the same as last year. Richard has made notes and we're agreed when and how much he has to communicate about upcoming points of high disaster potential. Sheila has made friends with Osama, who manages the Desert Lions race team, and who has offered to chauffeur her around the stages for the next two days. This does mean that she can't take a lot of spares and kit with her, but at least she'll get to each view point and the finish.

Now we're getting ready to depart the Jebalain for the ceremonial start and prologue, so I'll leave you with a couple of photos of The Beast.

"We could be heroes...

...just for one day".

But, as my knowledgeable co-driver has pointed out, this is a three day event. So maybe we should avoid the heroics.

Yesterday, we successfully negotiated the UAE/Saudi border without any of the dramas and delays which had attended out previous excursions. In fact we were through both in under half an hour, and arrived in Riyadh in mid afternoon. Today we were re-united with the race car, and settled into our 2-bed apartment at the Jebalain, before heading out to rally HQ at Maghwat for documentation. While waiting for that to start, we were given VIP treatment at the Traditional Souk, where vendors of camel accoutrements, crafts-people and food-stalls vied unsuccessfully for our business. These were indeed 'local shops for local people'.


Back at the Jebalain, we are in the presence of greatness. Nasser Al-Attiyeh's Dakar-winning Toureg shares the same carpark and breathes the same oxygen as my humble Patrol. We are not worthy. The only question appears to be the extent of his winning margin in this event.

Tomorrow we have to install the rally GPS, Iritrak and Sentinel, apply the rally stickers and do some final tidying up before scrutineering at 1330hrs.

Departure of the Beast

Yes, it's gone. Finally drove it onto the transporter at 6pm on Wednesday after a day of frantic activity, culminating in the last minute discovery that the main fire extinguisher had been fired (by whom and when, I know not) and therefore needed to be refilled and re-armed at a cost of Dh 1000. Ouch. So...I borrowed Jason's instead! I also discovered that I had two square-ish front wheels (courtesy of the DC2010 prang) but no-one had thought to mention this to me. Funnily enough, it drove much better after I'd replaced the wheels with some round-ish ones. Stickers were stuck (rather hurriedly, by that time the transporter was waiting for me), tools and gear were loaded into every nook and cranny of the race car and now it's gone. Should have taken a photo really, but I was too stressed to remember the camera!

Looks like we could be the only Khawajas (white-faces) to participate in the rally. That'll be fun! And it's confirmed that Nasser Al Attiyeh will be competing in the Dakar-winning Toureg, so he's odd-on favourite to spoil Yazeed Al Rajhi's hopes of a hat-trick in the Hail Rally.

Tomorrow at 0730 we head off, hoping to get through the border before prayer-time (1240) and as far as Riyadh for an overnight halt. We plan to reach Hail mid-afternoon Sunday - inchallah!

Stepping back from the edge

The Beast has spent the day in intensive care at the Al Quoz Hospital for Sick Race-Cars(a.k.a. A2B Garage).

The problem, they discovered, was not the rear diff but the front one. When it had been rebuilt after our 2009 DC disaster, it would appear that the bolts holding the ring-gear to the ARB diff flange were not Loctited in and/or correctly tightened. They chose yesterday to part company with the assembly, and their remains were in the diff housing. Fortunately, the only real damage is to the flange. Unfortunately, this is an ARB part and the ARB dealer here doesn't believe in keeping spares in stock, or even being able to tell you how much they might cost or when they might get here. (Their South African dealer is much more helpful, and will therefore be getting my business.)

However that doesn't solve the problem of having it working right now, so they've borrowed the front diff out of the old race car. This means we won't have a locking front diff lock for Hail, but I can live with that.

The really good news is that the engine temperature didn't get above 85c even in 2nd gear in the dunes - until one of the electric fans packed up, but that too has been fixed. There were a number of other trivial matters to be sorted, and they have been - so once again A2B have scored major points with me. Thanks to Gareth, Jason, Maynard and all the crew there, I was able to drive it back home tonight.

Other than that I've got the ATC carnet and Police permit for the car to visit the Magic Kingdom, and sent out a press release to anyone who might be interested - which will apparently appear in Thursday's Gulf News. All fans who would like their copies autographed should form an orderly queue...

Tomorrow is for cleaning, stickering, fitting shiny new wheels and tyres (same BFG 275/70R16s) and getting it onto the transporter in the evening.

Now, finally, I can believe we're actually going.