No oil spewing all over everything = “success”

At the Fallon 250 desert night race, where we finished last because I’m an idiot, we had a problem with an oil leak that required us to add a quart of oil every 40 mile loop of the course. In a regular car, that’s reason enough to pull the car over and call the mechanic, but this is racing and you just put more oil in until you finish the race or the big red light comes on and stays on. We opted for the former.

Anyway, so now it’s two weeks later and we got under the car and figured out that the majority of the leak came from a failed valve cover gasket. Richard and Scott swapped it out for a new one and then Crusty (seen in the above video) followed out with swapping out our yellow rubber oil lines with braided steel ones. Much stronger and they look cooler, too.

Probably tomorrow I’ll get the new radio mast from Skid and we’ll see what kind of range we can get between the car and the pit radio.

Three weeks to the Hawthorne 250.

Under the lights. Also under Crusty’s deck.

Two weeks til our second race of the season, a VORRA short course race that is also “Bug Invasion I”. Richard, Crusty and I spent the day working on the car. Richard focus on hammering out dents from the rollover, Crusty and Richard worked on straightening out the frame, from the rollover, I scraped off decals, damaged as a result of the rollover.

Road trip planned for Tuesday to Sanger to meet with Scott Sebastian with MetalCraft to build one or more transmissions. I hope Richard, Scott, Crusty and Bob enjoy that 4 a.m. departure time.

A handful of photos from today’s work.

Scott, momentarily not under the car fixing something, fixes something inside the car.

One week til the the first short course race of the VORRA season and we were all set to button up 1107. Realized that the pulley is tight. Engine was back on the truck. Bob and Mike will be going through it tomorrow. As a backup, we’ll pull 1117’s engine, but we will be racing.

Some photos from today’s work day.

It’ll be good as new in a week.

Mike in mid-engine teardown.

Bob brought his ace engine guy Mike over today to help us tear apart the engine and decide how much of a rebuild we needed. Initially we planned to just change the rings, but on closer inspection we decided to do a complete teardown so we can start the season with an absolutely fresh engine.

Crusty focused on a redesign of our rear bumper, valence and skid plate, so that the whole back end mounts as a unit. Here’s a gallery of shots from today’s work day.

Bob jacks up 1104 in preparation for removing the engine.

1104 moved from my place over to Desert Dingo Racing HQ (aka “Richard’s place”) to begin winter tear down. Powerwashed, engine pulled, transmission pulled, light bar removed, CV joints pulled. We’ve got three months to prep the car for the first race of the 2010 season. A lot of ideas to improve it. Gallery of today’s photos here.

Also, this is the greatest off road video I’ve seen in ages. Props to Trophylite.

Crusty and Richard under the car, finishing engine installation.

A full day of running around for parts, working on the car and getting our secret weapon configured. We’re close to getting the car buttoned up. Contingency and Tech are tomorrow. Still need to get the IRC unit. Finish configuring the secret weapon, secure fuel, get registered. Typical day.

Almost time to hit the jacuzzi.

Some shots from today’s work (I just heard them fire up the engine.)

Skid works on something on the car.

A quick update. Driving down we blew an engine in Crusty’s pickup. Lefty and TPR rode in like the calvary the following morning with coffee, hooked up 1104 and the trailer and got us down to Orange County. After a quick reconnoiter, we headed down to the Wal-Mart in Chula Vista, were eventually joined by Chase 2 towing 1104. From there we caravanned down to Ensenada and the Estero Beach RV park where we are now.

Some shots of Monday and Tuesday’s adventure.

We (ok, Richard), needed to modify our light bar to accommodate the bigger TrailGlow HID lights we’ll be running for the first time at the Baja 1000.

Among other things we accomplished yesterday: Modified the light bar to accommodate the larger TrailGlow HIDs, fabbed two rear view mirror nerf bars, installed a smaller fisheye rear view mirror in the car, chased down a short circuit in the electrical system, tweaked the rear skid plate to make it go in easier, hammered out and painted a new passenger front fender, organized the tool bags and spare parts bins, futzed with the GPS unit and eventually loaded the low-res SCORE GPS data in it, ate Roxanne’s pound cake, wired the pit signs, welded up the spare front end.

Today, more of the same. Tomorrow we head out.

A handful of photos from Saturday’s work.

Heavy metal parking garage.

Richard, Scott, Crusty and Skid met earlier today to erect the frame of a workshop in Richard’s back yard that will soon be the new home of Desert Dingo Racing. The frame is up, as is the primary structure for the overhead crane (Did we mention we’ll have an overhead crane? Yes, we will.)

The rush is to get the workshop enclosed by Thanksgiving because apparently Richard is having dinner for 30 in it. After that, it’s all ours. (I’m contributing a very cool Bilstein racing calendar).

Photos from today’s barn raising are here.

As a matter of fact I do know which end of an impact wrench to hold.

The SNORE South Point 250 is a week away and we’re buttoning up 1107. Crusty and Scott fiddled with the fuel pump pressure regulator. Carrie spray painted all the tools (so we can keep track of them) and packed the tool kits based on our laminated lists. Scott also installed the lights (we won’t need the night lights for Saturday’s race as it’s only two 60 mile loops.)

Crusty’s been welding 3/8s inch diameter rod into the rims and Richard will take them to Dixon Tires to get all the tires put back on. Oh, and I pulled the tires, installed the fenders and then put the tires back on, you haterz.

Car and equipment get loaded into Creech’s toy hauler Thursday night and we’re all wheels up gawdawful early Friday morning for the drive out to Vegas. This race is also the Stock Bug Challenge II, and we’ve got 13 Class 11s entered. Should be a good race. This race will have Richard and Crusty and Scott ‘n Carrie in the car. Roxanne and I will staff a checkpoint or road crossing for the bonus 25 team points.

Some shots from today’s work day.