And so begins the task....

The Phrankenblogger has left the room, the dust has settled on another Desert Challenge, and the Beast is back home in Dubai. As you can see from the previous photos, it's a bit poorly. But first, the good news.

The gear-change issue now appears to have been due to the absence of a heat-shield which used to live between the exhaust and the clutch slave cylinder. It was suggested that clutch friction plate debris could be jamming the clutch release fingers. But each evening, the hydraulic fluid was black, which is not the colour nature intended. The heat-shield must have gone walkabout when the new Y-piece of the exhaust was installed, and we simply never got the car hot enough in the local races to face the problem - even in the DC we could manage 100+km before we entered 'gear-change lottery' territory.

The new suspension worked like a dream, aided by the 265/75 Bridgestone MTs. They provided huge amounts of grip at 18/20psi, and the suspension made the car feel much more planted and compliant.

On SS2 we were overtaken by Khalid Al Jafla in his 3.6L Chevy-powered buggy just before PC1, and proceeded to keep up with him all the way through PC2 and almost up to PC3 - when the 'gear-change lottery' started up again. Khalid couldn't believe how quick we were, and we had great fun getting past various cars as we duelled for some 100km.

But the sheer mass of the car, and the high centre of gravity, was our achilles heel. The spare wheels have ended up slightly higher than before, due to the new rear frame comprising shock-tower and tyre/jack/air-bottle rack. So when the front wheels dug in as we landed over a soft dune, the back end overtook us and we pitch-poled onto the roof. This happened in an area of white sand just south of the crescent after PC3, near midday, and just after I'd made a comment to Sheila that I hated this time of day, when the sun is too high to throw any useful shadow.

We'd already talked about the possibility of losing a bit of weight. When last weighed, the beast was a portly 2600kg, against a minimum allowable weight of 2050kg. So cutting out some flab is clearly desirable. We've already lost the rear doors (almost 40kg), and losing the rear side doors and roof would probably yield another 100kg, making it a pickup (or ute, if you speak Australian.) The front doors, and front and rear wings can be replaced with fibreglass, which cuts out even more weight. The rear floor can be dispensed with, allowing the spare wheels to sit down between the chassis rails, further lowering the C of G. So now, having damaged most of those panels anyway, the idea becomes ever more attractive.

Unfortunately, you still need a cab, and that's a mess. I'm sure it can be repaired, but that means it will be full of Bondo - not ideal. Grafting in a new roof from a scrapper might be preferable.

Then you start to think of all the other issues. The engine needs to come out for an overhaul. The strange and complex exhaust headers means some of the plug leads are alarmingly close to the headers and getting the plugs out is a nightmare, so maybe we should have symmetrical headers, perhaps into separate mufflers. The electrics are a complete rat's nest, and the car needs rewiring from A to Z.

But for the time being, we want to concentrate on doing the unavoidable minimum to get the car ready for the next round of the Emirates Rally Championship (9-10th May). That means the engine comes out, the roof gets sorted and maybe we cut the back off. The rest can wait.