Team BMC - Shitbox Rally 2013 - 69 Mini Van - We did it!

[bnicho]

Sorry I neglected this thread!

Some pics from the first drive out of the shed. Still had a bit to do at this point though.







Cheers,

[bnicho]

We were racing to finish all the little items to make DAV before we handed it over to David Walker for it's Roadworthy.

We also had a weird ignition fault we could figure out. Rather than trailer the car, Watto (my partner in crime) drove the Mini through Melbourne traffic while only able to use half throttle and with a top speed of about 75kph. What a nutter!

David fixed a few items that needed attention for the RWC and also fixed the ignition problem. Would you believe both condensers we tried were faulty!?!

On the trip home from the RWC the clutch started to slip. So David showed up at Watto's the next day and changed the clutch pressure plate for us. What a star!

While a little low on compression and a little rattly in the timing chain, the motor seemed quite good and the gearbox is fine.

In summary, we now had an RWC (MOT) and were doing the paperwork to put DAV on Club Permit registration (Historic plates). We still had to finish the stereo install, fit some sound deadening, a sump guard and spot lights.

Cheers,

[bnicho]

Ladies and gentlemen, we are road legal.



Outback, we are coming at ya!!

[bnicho]

Signwriting mostly completed free of charge thanks to Graphic Effects!





Almost every supporter is on there somewhere. A few more to come.

Our Stonie cartoon on the bonnet.

[bnicho]

Time to leave for Adelaide (800km away) with the car all finished.

We left May 1st with the rally starting from Adelaide on May 4th. That would give us a few days to fix any faults.



Signage on the roof:



On the back-roads between Geelong and Bordertown



Crossing the border from Vic to SA



Land Rover on a pole at Tailem Bend



The issues list:

A couple of clunks in the front end to look at.
Drums need adjusting. Just the new shoes bedding in.
Oil pressure gauge hose leaking slightly. Needs to be fixed properly before it gets bad.
Temp gauge reading very low. Suspect the sender is faulty, so we will change it.
The timing chain is a bit noisy, but we are carrying a spare in case it gets really noisy.
One CV is also noisy, so we are carrying a driveshaft for that side to change it if needed.

The motor was running really well. Except for a couple of big hills we maintained 95-100kph all day, no problem. With the sound deadening fitted, rebuilt suspension and Toyota seats it's a great little cruiser.

[bnicho]

With the car generally running well and not much to do we decided to attend to a few of DAV's little issues before they became big issues.

- The temp sender because it was reading low.
- The speedo cable because it broke before we hit the border.
- The oil pressure hose because it was leaky.
- The throttle cable because it was sticking.

That meant we needed parts, and Minisport in Adelaide looked after us with a very cheap price for the bits we needed.

On the non-mini specific bits list we did the following:

- Fitted a clock to the dash so we can keep track of time.
- Put a better seal on the roof vent from Clark Rubber, because it was rattling.

We also adjusted the brakes and ride height. Watch out for the scary man boys and girls!!



With that lot sorted we made a pilgrimage to the National Motor Museum. We pushed the car quite hard up the hills fully laden, trying to find any faults. But the temp was perfect and nothing broke, clunked or fell off.



At the Museum we met some guys in 4x4's doing a variety club 4x4 challenge. After the rally we run across one of the same cars again in Perth traffic! Bu we never saw any of them on the Grand Central, so they must have gone a softer way than us.

[bnicho]

Rally - Day One

With much excitement, we lined up with the other 190 odd cars for the start of Shitbox Rally 2013.

We thought DAV would be popular with the other teams and the spectators and we were right.



We left about 8:30am. Watto drove first and DAV was performing fine. Along for the trip was "Mongrel" and "Mini Mongrel", official mascots of the Victorian Mini Club Inc.




Unfortunately about an hour into the Rally we found the temperature gauge was climbing rapidly. We pulled over and found the bottom hose where the heater hose fits had split. We trimmed the hose down, reclamped it and were soon on our way again.



We passed through some beautiful and barren country around Spencer Gulf.



Unfortunately our woes with the bottom hose were not over. It split again about 500km up the road, so we were forced to let the engine cool down and change it.



After finishing the hose we had to drive 250km in the dark, keeping a constant wary eye for Kangaroos and Emus that might end our trip in a spectacular splat! We were quite late into camp, arriving at Coober Pedy at 9pm. We had covered around 850km.

The car problems were high, roughly 10% of the field had problems of some sort. But that is what you expect from $1000 S**tboxes and we were not the last car in.

After grabbing dinner we decided to plumb in a second heater core to help with the cooling. We had no cooling issue spreviously but the higher ambient temp in this part of Australia, combined with the long day ahead tomorrow convinced us it was a good idea.

Then it was off to bed, ready for another early start.

[bnicho]

Day Two

We reached Uluru around 5pm. Over dinner I captured this shot of the fantastic landscape.



This is truly an amazing part of he world. Remote and harsh, bit stunningly beautiful.

During the journey shots:

Crossing the SA-NT Border



Just cruising along



Morning briefing with James, the Rally Director



At a rest stop



Car update. This morning started out okay, then the engine temp shot up again. We stopped and found a slight leak the thermostat housing, probably when we removed the guts of the thermostat yesterday!

We also discovered the second heater core we fitted to the front was half blocked and full of crud which had now migrated to the radiator. This explained why the heater did not get hot inside the car.

We removed the second heater core and replaced the leaking thermostat stud. I flushed the cooling system through with clean water then put in some radiator flush from a service station. After allowing that 15 mins or so to circulate we dumped that out and flushed with clean water again. Finally we added proper coolant. Now the gauge does not go over half, unless we stop after a long run where it will spike to about 3/4. Considering how hot it is up here, we can live with that. We will see how it goes tomorrow.

Other than cooling the car is running beautifully, although it's using a bit of oil. It's not dripping oil at all, so it must be burning it.

Fuel economy is excellent, much better that it really should be with so much load on board. We richened it up one flat in the morning to see if that helps the cooling at all. We don't want to run too lean.

We were looking forward to getting onto the dirt roads for the first time.

[bnicho]

Day Three

Day 3 is the day our rally started to unravel a bit.

We left Uluru in high spirts. The cars was running perfectly and loving the conditions on the dirt. We managed to get to the front of the pack where we diced with an old Volvo 164 for hours. Nobody could believe we could maintain 90kph on the dirt.



The land was harsh and dry. Every few kilometres a wrecked car dotted the landscape, abandoned after a breakdown or a crash. These cars dated from the sixties to as little as ten years old. We spotted some classic Holdens and Valiants. Who knows how long most of them had been there.



At lunchtime we stopped at Lasseter's Cave, the last known location of a famous prospector that wandered out into this harsh land looking for gold.



After the lunchtime stop the temp gauge was reading a bit higher than normal. Then it suddenly started to rise and the engine lost power. I knew we were in trouble. I turned the engine off and we coasted to a halt in a cloud of steam.

We had blown the head gasket in the middle of nowhere. There was very little shade, just a sandy road with scrubby bushes and rally cars passing regularly. We had a spare gasket so we could have changed it right there, but the hot and dusty conditions would have it very difficult.

Reluctantly we called for Support on the radio and the Mini was trailered over the border into Western Australia behind a Nissan Patrol while we hitched a ride in a Range Rover.



We arrived at Warakuna Roadhose before the Mini did. There was not much to see. A service station with a few pumps, a dusty camping area and a run down mechanical workshop. In remote areas of Australia, this is about as civilized as you get.

When we arrived at camp everyone assumed our rally was over. But we knew how simple it was to change a Mini head gasket and we had come prepared. We managed to change the gasket by torchlight and have the car running again within two hours.


Unfortunately our problems for the night did not end there. The mechanical fuel pump was leaking everywhere. We decided to bypass the pump and rapidly plumbed in an electric Facet pump we were carrying.

People on the rally could not believe we were carrying spares and tools for these repairs. But we did not expect to find Mini parts out in the bush, so we knew we would have to be self sufficient. We were merely glad we were able to continue!

[bnicho]

Day Four

On Day 4 we left Warakuna with the rest of the field, confident we had experienced our last head gasket issues.

The day was mild and the engine temperature was low. The car was running as well as ever.



We stopped for lunch at Warburton Roadhouse, the only place fuel was available on that route. It was another small settlement consisting of a service station and a few cabins. The temptation of an air conditioned shop, hot food and ice cream kept us there for an hour before we set off again. We also had internet so I waxed lyrical on Facebook about how well the car was running.



Just 20km later the temperature spiked and the head gasket blew again. This was really serious, as we had already used up our only head gasket.

With all the car trailers already occupied by other broken cars, we were towed the remaining 200km to our overnight stop behind a Toyota Tercel on a rigid bar. Being towed 200km over very rough, rocky and dusty roads was like riding through an asteriod belt. A tarpaulin tied across the front of the car prevented a lot of damage, but we managed to break one headlight and sandblast a lot of paint off one side.



At camp we had no choice but to remove the cylinder head again. We were livid when we discovered the head gasket we fitted the previous evening was a low quality item. It had comprehensively blown between cylinders 2 and 3.



We had no other choice than to reuse the first had gasket we removed from the car. I would never recommend reusing an old had gasket, but with no other gasket available it was our only choice.

We used a hand file to shave the head and block back in figure eight patterns in an attempt to make things as flat as possible. The old gasket was carefully cleaned and refitted with a liberal dose of No.3 Permatex on both sides. To our delight, the gasket worked and the car ran well again.



That night two Alfas were retired from the Rally with blown head gaskets and a Lada Niva with a broken rear axle. Besides the headgasket and despite the rough conditions we had no issues with the Mini at all. Not even a flat tyre!

Out here nobody seems very worried about roadworthiness and keeping their registration current. These are two vehicles that were being driven on public roads.