“Less than a mile in Seth called for a Big Jump but somehow Luke only heard small jump in his head and didn’t lift for a second. We launched into the air, flying 65 feet before landing with a thump.”
Yep, thats it. 3 stupid little cracks that prevented the oil from staying in the sump and us from finishing the rally.
Here you can see how the rear axle was bent from the hard hit into the bank. I added the white line to make it easier to see.
The bent rear axle was causing the tire to rub on the wheel housing.
Lots of new goodies are coming out of SaabRally.com. A new site look is under way along with a new gallery and forum. Please excuse the mess as we get everything integrated. We also posted a video on you tube and would like to add more as soon as we get them back from our Media team. Keep checking on our progress!
– SaabRally.com
The cracked sump from BRS has been repaired. One of the cracks extended up quite far. Unfortunatly the original drain neck could not be saved as it was cracked too heavily and mushroomed apart. The original neck was cut off flush with the bottom of case and a new neck was fabricated out of 6061 aluminum. It was welded on and tapped for a steel helicoil for better thread reliabilty. Better than new.
Spent the better part of the weekend working on the redesigned skid plate. It should hopefully prevent from ever having a cracked sump be the cause of a DNF again. I still need to weld additional wear strips on the underside and glue a rubber pad on where the aluminum contacts the chassis crossmember. The thing weighs a ton, but I keep telling myself that its low slung weight and its not like were short on power anyway! Overall I am quite please with how it turned out. John stopped by and we discussed the idea of rebuilding the original skid plate for use as a tarmac event sump gaurd, which I think is a good idea.
A simple Rally-X this Sunday tested both the car and our patience, but we struggled through and put down some good times to boot! The rally cross which is sanctioned by the Philly region SCCA took place on an old oval dirt racing track and utilized both the track and the infield for the course. We were the first to run among a 40+ car field, but about half way through the run we heard a clunk and the engine reved but the car would no longer propel itself. We coasted to the side of the course, popped the hood and put the car in gear while somebody watched the driveaxles, axles were spinning but not the wheels. The right side CV joint had blown. Quickly thinking our options through, we jumped in the van and headed towards a junkyard we knew of about 10 miles down the road. Luckily the yard was open on Sunday. We walked in, found an ‘88 SAAB 900 and got busy. About 15 minutes and $12 later we had in our possession one SAAB CV joint that we hoped would fit on our ’75 SAAB rally car. We arrived back at the racetrack and quickly installed the CV just in time for the 2nd 2WD heat. We started our 2nd run, perhaps a little too excited about our quick repair of the car. While coming off the main track and onto the infield the car just didn’t want to accelerate. The engine was running but the throttle was not working. Once again we coasted off to the side of the course. A quick glance under the hood reveiled a loose throttle cable. A bit embarrassed, we grabbed some tools out of the trunk, tightened it up and transited off the course. At that point, with all bad luck for the day over, we were able to put down 3 more solid runs. Overall, a great day out racing that turned into quite an adventure.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7494850455036481939&hl=en
First event of the season for saabrally.com team provides new challenges and a unfortunate learning experience.
Sandblast rally, which is based in the rolling sand hills of south carolina, provides a unique set of roads with conditions quite different than any other rally on the east coast. The roads range from wide hard packed sand , to narrow and twisty with deep sand washes. The event started well and we were running in the top 50% after the first service and re-seed. The car was running very well and needed little attention during the first service. The 3rd stage contained some steep uphill climbs through very deep sand and tested the limits of our traction. After successfully negotioating one very tough uphill our cockpit started to fill with smoke and the clutch pedal went soft. The smoke subsided quickly and then we became stuck in 3rd gear. After several exciting corners the clutch was started to slip very badly and we could not maintain speed. We coasted to a safe section of road to stop and put out the trangles. When we popped the hood to determine if there was anything we could do to fix the situation we saw flames coming from the clutch area. We grabbed the extiguisher and put out the fire.
Dissapointing to say the least especially since a brand new carbon metallic clutch had been planned for installation before the next rally as clutch slippage has been on ongoing issue on tarmac roads. We had believed that the loose nature of the sand wouldnt provide enough friction to aggrevate the problem, but it turned put to have quite the opposite affect.
Teardown of the cluth reveiled a severely overheated disc with no friction material remaining.
Below are some picture at the event and of the aftermath.
The team’s hard work repairing the car from damage suffered at Rally New York in April payed off this last weekend at the 31st running of the Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally. The 1975 99 was running on a new engine that was freshly rebuilt before the event.
The day started well with fast times on stages 1-3, passing cars seeded ahead of us on nearly every stage. Stage 4 meant that we had to face our fear of deep water in the “Scooba duba roooo! splash” stage (we had ruined an engine in testing just one week prior to Rally New York). This time We had prepared the car with a specially designed water deflector surrounding the intake filter. We pulled up to the arrival control for the 4th stage, confident but nervous nontheless. When our minute came we went to pull into the controk, as I went to release the clutch the car started to die. I quickly put the clutch in and blimped the throttle… Nothing. The engine was idling fine but movement of the gas pedal had no effect on the rpm. We quickly troubleshooted and discovered that the metal slug on the end of the throttle cable had pulled off and left the pedal non functional. With some quick thinking a pair of vice grips was pulled from the tool kit and pinched onto the end of the throttle wire. With a quick cell phone call We alerted Matt who was back at service to source a throttle cable kit asap. We pulled into the control and checked in but soon realized that the weight of the pliers had resulted in an idle of 4000 rpms and that the car would not be drivable as is. We waited for our minute and started the stage, limping out of the control zone area where servicing is not allowed. We spent several minutes on the side of the stage rigging up the vice grips with zip ties so that their weight was not bearing on the throttle so heavily. Thinking all was set we pulled back onto stage, not realizing the steering wheel that had been pulled for better access to the gas pedal was not fully clipped into its hub. The first movement of the wheel resulted in a loose steering wheel in my hands and a rather abrupt meeting with a ditch. Startled but happy that no damaged was apparent we set off on the stage again, this time with the wheel securely locked in place. Still a bit shakey we finished the stage in a brisk transit. After all this the creek crossing turned out to be cakewalk by comparsion. We made it through with a nary a sputter.
This is probably the most significant finish that we have ever had as a team. 24 2wd teams set out in hopes of claiming one of the top 6 positions and the Max-attack prize money. The stages in west virginia are absolutely unrelenting. In places they are rough as a jeep trail, other places fast as an expressway, but always VERY VERY twisty. Nearly every blind crest is followed by a sharp turn… usually off camber and often on the side of the mountain. The stages run on friday are some of the most intimidating i’ve ever seen. One slip up and you’ll be lucky to get caught by a tree before rolling down an 800 ft ravine. The goal for friday was to set consistant but conservative times that ensured us a good position for the max-attack two wheel drive championship. The stages friday were rumored to be very rough and we’d need to survive them to keep in the running. Saturday we would assess our position and drive accordingly. On the first stage in we had a major impact with a rocky washout across the stage caused by rain the day before. We hit it HARD and it kicked the drivers side up of the car up in the air several feet and for a minute it felt like we might roll. Luckily the car came down solidly on all fours without missing a beat. Several other cars that hit the same ditch were not so lucky. At the first service it was discovered that the impact had bent the sump guard rather severely but no other damage was found. The stages on saturday were epic. These are the roads that rally drivers dream about; endless turns, rough enough to weed out the week, and fast enough to get in trouble if your co-driver blinks. We had some great stage times were even able to beat the megafast Sarasin and Burmiester outright on a couple stages. The stages were quite abrasive and our tires were consumed at an extraordinary rate. We finished the last couple stages on basically bald tires. This left us at quite a dissadvantage to the other crews that were fitting new tires at every service but nontheless we were able to hold our own with a top ten finish and 5th (should have been 4th if a competetors penalty points were properly scored) in max-attack securing us $1000 in prize money. We have some great photos and in car from the event we will be posting soon.
