The alternator has landed

Yes, I finally got my hands on it this morning and rushed it round to A2B - and it fits. Huge sigh of relief. So hopefuly they can nail it into place this afternoon and tomorrow I can take it to Rob at Bin Sulayem Garage for testing, and then to the TRA for registration. The door is re-painted, the few odd jobs they had to do are done and who knows, we might even have the chance to take it for The Final Shakedown before the DC.

Tyres for the trailer have had to be sourced from UK, because none that are here have the right load rating. And the supplier in UK couldn't ship outside the EU. So I ordered them for delivery to my Dad in Kingsbridge, who then had to individually wrap them (why?) before TNT would pick them up on Friday. As long as they arrive sometime this week that'll do, because I don't need the trailer till this Friday.

Lots of information has now been posted on the ADDC website, including the start list where I am seeded at 214, ahead of Fadi Melki (who beat me last year) and behind Dave Mabbs (who I beat last year) - go figure. But who cares, once we get going the numbers are academic. It looks a strong field - maybe another top 10 finish isn't on the cards.

I've reached the point where excitement and panic are pretty equally balanced. Last year's cooling problems and this year's disaster at Hail are still too fresh in my mind. I just want to get Day 1 out of the way without any dramas, then I can settle down.

See ya later, alternator

There's not much that attaches to the serpentine belt that hasn't been changed since the Beast came into my posession. The AC compressor has been binned and replaced with a spring-loaded jockey wheel. The water pump has been replaced with one that doesn't have a viscous fan. The P/S pump just got changed as well. And now it's the turn of the alternator. (I'll say that again for those of you who didn't get it first time - the TURN of the alternator. It rotates, you see - please try to keep up.)

The nice man at Bosch told me the voltage regulator had ceased to regulate and the bearings were noisy, and maybe he could fix it. Yeah, right. Unfortunately, the required parts for this Delphi alternator are 'not coming in Dubai' to quote my friend the Grumpy Goat. So after fruitless waiting for Mr Bosch to fix it, and equally fruitless searching for parts in the darkest recesses of Dubai and Sharjah, I decided to hit the internet - because you can find anything on Ebay.

Bingo! Mr Kovaleski in Connecticut had the exact alternator in its original GM package for a starting bid of $100, and when the hammer came down no-one else wanted it. So Mr TNT wil be picking it up shortly, hurrah.

Other bijou problemettes have been addressed by A2B, the fans re-wired, the hub re-sealed and the door taken off for beating and painting. So sometime soon we should be able to get it re-registered.

The clock continues to tick.

Long Way Out

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. My business partner and part-time blog-napper knows a few people. People who know…people. A certain celebrity was visiting, and would like to go out in a race car. So when he asked if the Beast would be ready, I naturally lied and said yes. This was before I realized that the pump would take two days to fit and that the oil line had been sabotaged.

But by dint of ignoring anything vaguely work-related for a week or so, it all came together, and on Wednesday we were out in the desert with that star of stage, screen and TV – Charley Boorman! He and his sidekick, Billy ‘Biketruck’ Ward were out for an appearance at the Dubai Literary Festival, and had a day free. So Dave Mabbs (Team FJ), Mark Powell (Team Saluki) and I shared the arduous task of blatting round the desert for the best part of a day with them, which was great fun.

Well, most of it – except the bit where I managed to prop the car up on a damn great rock near the Saddle, and the bit where the alternator packed up and the battery went flat, and we had to be towed. Both times with Billy ‘the Jinx’ on board. So I explained that they’d actually been on a shakedown, and as bikers accustomed to things going horribly wrong, they took it in their stride. And a nicer couple of blokes you couldn’t wish to meet.

We ended up seeing their show on Friday, which was great fun, and then meeting up again on Saturday at a charity fundraiser for Tony Jordan, a biker involved in a horrendous crash at Dubai Autodrome in November.

Anyway, the race car is back at the Al Quoz Hospital for Poorly Race-cars, the alternator is allegedly being fixed elsewhere and I’m starting to panic because the DC looms ever closer.

Still pumping..

How hard can it possibly be to fit a power steering pump? A couple of bolts, a couple of hoses and Bob’s your uncle. If only life was that simple.

Turns out the pump reservoir wasn’t exactly made for this pulley, and the pulley fouls it, so I have to insert a washer behind the pulley to make everything fit. Then the pump has to be spaced off the block so the pulleys line up. Looks like about 10mm, so I get an aluminium spacer made up, which needs a bit of filing to make it fit round the bolt head which hold the existing plate onto the block. But of course then the pump retaining bolts are too short, and of course they are UNC thread which means I have to go hunting for them. Another hunt into darkest Awir produces the required 6-rib drive belt 2040mm long. But the plumbing turns out to be complicated enough to necessitate a house-call from the Hose Doctor, but at last it’s all working. A five minute job has taken almost 2 days.

Except – there’s a pool of oil under the car when I stop. And it’s not ATF, it’s engine oil. Remember the hose which failed in Hail? Well, its neighbour has decided to leak in exactly the same place, which is a bit of a coincidence. Inspection shows it has also been cut on the top surface. I’m now convinced that someone sabotaged the car while it was in Hail. If only they’d known how crap our power steering was, they could have saved themselves the trouble…

By now I’m on first name terms with the guys at Advanced Technical and Engineering Services (ATES) in Al Quoz, so they make me up a replacement hose while I wait, and finally everything works.

But why, you might ask, am I doing all this myself? Because, dear reader, a certain VIP visitor has been promised a passenger ride in the Beast the next day!