This year’s RAK rally was almost the same as last year’s – three stages run three times through the stony tracks around the cement factory, out beyond RAK airport. But this year, by way of variety, we decided it would be nice to have the benefit of power steering.
However, about 500m into stage one, we lost the power steering. ‘Oh dear’, I said (or something like that). ‘How fortunate that we have a spare 6PK2040 drive belt in the back’. We were stationary almost for exactly 3½ minutes to replace the belt, a new record, due to the practice we’d had at the last rally. Back at the service part after the 3rd stage I took off the belt again and found hidden behind the idler pulley the remains of the previous belt, which was probably binding on the pulley.
The rest of the event was fairly uneventful, although at the second service I found the front RH hub leaking axle oil and had to tighten up the bolts holding the lower cover plate (why were they coming loose?) And by the end of the 9th stage, they were loose again.
Anyway, another first in T1 class, and 6th overall, so not too shabby.
So the serious prep for the ADDC begins. After stripping the hub, Nanjgel found that an oil seal had failed and the half-shaft was slightly scuffed, so that has all been sorted out now. Oh, and the upper LH rear control arm had a knackered bush (again), so that was replaced, along with a few other suspect rubbery bits. Three old control arms have now been re-bushed, so we have spares for the ADDC. The idler pulley bearing was rough, which possibly contributed to our succession of belt failures. So I managed to source a replacement bearing and that is now back in the Beast. Richard suggested (insisted, more like!) that we should go back to having a front bumper (which I had removed once it became apparent that you couldn’t remove the headlights without taking it off). Now it has been cut shorter to avoid this problem, but still protects the radiators, which is the main thing.
The Beast is now back home, with four shiny new 265/70R16 MT tyres to replace the rather knackered set of Bridgestones I’ve been using for the last 12 months. There are still various bits of fettling to be done, but Rick is arriving this evening (hurrah!) and he’ll be bored if there isn’t any spannering left to do. We have (for once) an inventory of parts, so we not only know what we’ve got, but which box it’s in. Once again Emil has kindly arranged for some extra spares to be added to his own consignment stock from Al Masaood, which hopefully we won’t need.
We’re seeded 21st out of 62 cars, which I think must be a record entry, and our race number is 222 – which makes a change from 333 which has been my EDC race number for the past two seasons. It’s a very strong field and my expectations are limited – there are apparently five teams who would qualify for the GCC awards seeded ahead of us, and only three prizes! Looking back over the past couple of years results, my old formula of ‘get through 5 days without penalties and you’ll be in the top 10’ no longer seems to hold true. ‘No penalties’ nowadays might get you in the top 15 if you’re lucky, such is the increasingly professional approach to the cross-country world cup. There are seven Minis and two Toyota Hilux ahead of us, all driven by professionals, and the only way we’ll finish ahead of any of them is if they have a major problem.
So we’ll do what we always do – try to keep out of trouble, push where it’s safe to push, avoid getting stuck and hope for the best!
Kate’s arriving tomorrow morning, and Richard will collect the Canter from Al Thika tomorrow afternoon. Things are about to get serious.
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