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

[bnicho]

Day Five

With a second-hand headgasket, we doubted we would get very far this day. But we resolved to press on and see what happened, keeping the speed below 50mph / 80kph and a wary eye on the temperature gauge. Our mate who had towed us with the Tercel the previous day offered to tow us again if it blew, all the way to the end of the rally if necessary!

The rally went through more rough country and rough conditions. However, the day would end in an actual town, Laverton, rather than a roadhouse. The end of the wastelands and beginnings of civilization again.

We survived a dust storm and the Mini ran perfectly all day. There were no signs of cooling issues and we ended up being one of the first 20 or so cars into camp at the end of the day. For once we took the Mini straight to the camping area instead of straight to "Triage" where the mechanical work was done.



That night we enjoyed the bliss of a Pizza and a beer at the pub. Then I retired early, just before a huge rainstorm whipped up. The storm flattened most of the tents in the campsite. Yet somehow my cheap tent survived and I didn't have a drop of rain inside!

[bnicho]

Day 6.

For the Day six route the Rally director had two choices for our journey from Laverton to Kalgoolie. The easy way on the bitumen, or the hard way on mud and dirt. After the storm the previous night the Police recommended we take the bitumen route. The roads authority recommended the bitumen route. As did the local council.

Naturally the Rally Director decided we would take... the dirt route!

What a fun day we had in the mud and slush! While many larger cars plowed into the muck and bogged down, the little Mini just skipped through with mimimal fuss. The engine did cut out a couple of times due to getting the distributor wet, we had neglected to waterproof it before the rally. A liberal dose of WD40 and cobbled together shield made from a coke bottle and cable ties worked fine.











Again the Mini ran perfectly all day. Until just 30km from Kagoolie that is! The temp rose and we lost power. The engine was running on three cylinders again. Damn head gasket again! We nursed it into camp.

We felt there was little point in removing the head again as there was only 620km left of the rally - the final day. We flushed the cooling system out and threw in "Chemi-weld" one of those magical temporary cures for ailing head gaskets. We could only hope it would work.

Once we reached the end of the Rally we had Cono at Minicraft lined up to help us fix DAV's ills. All we had to do was keep DAV running for that last stretch.

[bnicho]

The final day of the Rally.

With an ailing car we knew this would be a long one. But we were determined to finish it, even on three cylinders.

Rather than wait for the morning briefing and run with everyone else we got up at six am and were on the road by 7am. The Mini had a comfortable cruising speed of 85kph with every hill causing that speed to drop alarmingly. Some hills we were down to second gear. Fortunately it was all bitumen roads.

With water starting to stain the block at the had gasket line, we were forced to stop every 50-100km to add water. In the small town of Southern Cross we bought new plugs and ignition leads, hoping to get just a little bit more out of the tired engine. With $99 of parts on the counter, the manager reduced our bill to $70 when he heard we were raising money for the Cancer Council. Maybe it did not help the car, but it least it gave us a moral boost.

The day wore on and bit by bit we chewed up the miles, slowly drawing closer to our goal. Keeping stops to an absolute minimum helped and we managed to stay ahead of most of the rally traffic.

About 150km from the finish at Fremantle it started to rain. That helped keep our engine cool and we were able to stretch out the final water stop. We reached Perth right on 5pm, during the evening peak. Bumper to bumper traffic on the freeways was causing much gnashing of teeth as we prayed the engine would not boil again.

Eventually the traffic cleared and we had a clear run, bringing the temperature down.

Just after 6pm we drew into Fremantle and reached the finish line outside the Esplanade Hotel. After the nerve-wracking journey I could not believe we had finally made it. We pulled up, danced around the car and I gave it a great big kiss on the bonnet. I was literally in tears, all the hard work had been worth it. We had made it under our own steam.

I'm afraid I don't have the "official" end point photo from the Rally yet, so this is all I have. This is us in the carpark at the finish after the official photo.



Despite the breakdowns and the 300km approximately we were towed, we are proud of what we achieved. We took a Mini that was destined for the scrapheap, made it live again on a shoestring budget and through sheer grit and determination made it last to the end. About 15 cars out of the 200 that started did not make the end at all.

If we had our time over again, we would pay more attention to the engine before we left Melbourne. A thorough flush-out the block and head would have been a good start. Also we would have removed the head, cleaned the galleries and fitted a good quality head gasket to start with. We also would have taken two head gaskets with us, not just one!

Next year the Rally will travel from Perth to Darwin over far rougher roads than we experienced this year. At this stage we are uncertain if a Mini can make it up those roads. We will give it a few months to decide if we want to do the Rally again and if we want use a different car next time.

Most importantly, thanks to our supporters Team BMC managed to raise $12,000 Australian for the Cancer Council. The Rally as a whole raised 1.24 Million Dollars! That money will go directly into Cancer research and helping the victims of Cancer and their families.

[bnicho]

Perth - Preparation for the return.

With the Rally officially over we stayed around for a few drinks and to see the bulk of the field come in. Then we headed to the home of Ruth and Cono from Minicraft, who had kindly offered to accomodate us for a few days while we fixed the car at Minicraft.

The next day while most of the rally participants were at the Auction saying goodbye to their cars, we were working to fix DAV. We wanted to make the official after-party in DAV late that afternoon.

Watto cleaned the mud and dust from the engine bay.



Cono from Minicraft and Watto checking out the damage to the head.



What we found rather surprised us. Two burnt exhaust valves. We had a two cylinder Mini!



No.2 and 3 bores were badly scored, which explained our oil consumption. Cono offered us a second hand 1100 engine but we felt that changing the engine be fore we arrived home would be kind of cheating. Also it was a lot of work we really didn't feel like doing that day!

Cono checked the head and pronounced it was borderline flat enough for reuse. He sandblasted it and could not find any cracks. He fitted new valve guides, stem seals, recut the seats and fitted four new oversize exhaust valves.

Once reassembled we drove across Perth to the after party. DAV was running nicely again although we were producing a notable smoke-screen behind us.

The excessive smoke worried us a bit, but we really didn't want to dive in and swap the engine. So we resolved to live with it until we reached home.

We also replaced the headlight switch which had decided it liked to flicker the lights on the corrugations and the broken left headlamp.

Cono refused to take any payment for the parts and the work he did.

[bnicho]

Return Journey

We spent a coule of days in Perth. Watto did some photo shoots of a staggering P76 collection and some

Morris Minors for his magazine "The BMC Experience".

On Tuesday May 9th we left and headed East, on the long journey home.

First we stopped off at the excellent York Motor museum.













The curator was impressed with DAV (our van) and and asked if we would leave him there for a while on

display!

We had the option of travelling on bitumen all the way from there and going back to Kalgoolie, or seeing

Wave Rock and travelling over a dirt road to Norseman. This would save us around 200km.

Not long after we turned onto the dirt road DAV started running rough again. But we pressed on to Wave

Rock



Finally we arrived in Norseman after dark and checked into a scary looking hotel. Although it did not

look so bad in the morning.



A compression test on DAV showed 30 psi on number 2 and 0 psi on number 4. We had either burnt out two

valves again, or we had a hole in a piston.

I was pretty frustrated at this point. We had checked the timing and mixture multiple times. We were

no longer overheating. Yet we had burnt two valves within about 700km of replacing them. There must

have been a crack in the head.

Enquiries around this small town did not turn up any leads on A-series engined vehicles we could rob

another head from.

I have the top level "Total Care" breakdown cover with the RACV which covers me Australia wide. I made

a call to them and explaned the issues with the car and also that we wanted to take the head off to take

a look. The RACV told me that they needed the RACWA to pronounce the car unfixable within three days

before they would pay to ship the car home. If we attempted to fix the car at that point and failed,

that was fine, we would still have transport home.

Conveniently the RACWA workshop was right across the road from the hotel. The RAC representative was

there in ten minutes. He agreed that it could not be fixed there within three days, so we could use our

breakdown cover. He offered his workshop if we wanted to try and fix it.

We too the RAC man up on this offer and pulled off the head again. Two burnt exhaust valves!! This is

the worst one.



We had three spare valves of the correct size. We pulled out the two dead valves and replaced them with new ones, lapping them in correctly with grinding paste. One vavlve seat was a bit poor, but it would have to do. The head was refitted with a new copper gasket (thanks Minicraft) and we were ready to roll again!

We were still at a loss as to why we were burning valves. I had a theory that the excess blow-by from the engine was going back through the breather below the carb and leaning out the mixture. I plugged the carb port and directed the breather into a coke bottle "catch can".

Our determination had returned and we resolved to keep going, sticking to 80-85kph and avoiding full throttle. The road was now bitumen with a 110kph limit, but there was plenty of space for overtaking and traffic was sparse.

[bnicho]

We had another couple of nights bush camping:



Although we had another rally car for company one night.



We picked up a hitchhiker via an open window:



Still along way to go.



We crossed the border into South Australia, drawing ever closer to home.



To get this shot we had to re-enter WA and Watto almost got us in trouble for running the Quarrantine post.



We made a 40km detour up dirt roads to the Old Eyre Highway, visiting an abandoned homestead. This place used to sell fuel until they were bypassed in the mid 80's. On the property is the remains of many cars that did not survive the journey across teh Nullarbor plain and found their final resting place here.

















There was one lonely Mini so I positioned DAV for a shot next to it.



We saw the Great Australian Bight - where the Desert meets the Sea.



DAV was fitted with a new sticker. We had crossed the Nullarbor.



Finally we arrived in Adelaide. Back at the same hotel two weeks after we left, completing a huge loop.

[bnicho]

The next day we attended a car show celebrating 100 years of Morris cars in Adelaide. DAV was by far the dirtiest car there, but was alos the most photographed.



We mentioned to various people at the show the issues we had with DAV's head. The Morris Register of South Australia offered us a free A-series head from their spares stocks and a member offered his home to change it. We took up this kind offer and selected a very good looking head. It appeared to have been recently reconditioned.

For the fifth time we removed DAV's head, but this time we fitted the "new" one. The difference was instant. He revved a lot better and definitely had more power. We were extremely grateful for this help. The old head went in the back for later examination.

The next day we drove the final 800km home. DAV was singing along, although still using lots of oil.

We visited the town of Wolseley



and the P76 Museum at Kiata.



Although it's a pretty diverse museum now, not all P76's. In the shot is two Valiant Chargers, a Force 7, a Nissan Skyline and a Holden Gemini. The Force 7 is a P76 coupe - the same one I used to see in the early 90's in Sydney and one of nine known survivors.



Finally we arrived home without incident. DAV was tucked up in Watto's garage with his Moke and Mini Van.



Our families were very pleased to see us.

We were tired but very happy. 9,500km in three weeks in an old Mini witha tired engine. Despite the breakdowns it was fantastic fun. Our friendship survived intact with only a few terse moments in times of crisis.

Will we do it again? Maybe. Watch this space...

[rich.]

well done!

[Dandare]

A truly brilliant effort....and write up.

Danny

[Richard Moss]

Epic - and I don't use that term lightly. Well done chaps.