Early to mid-October is the trip to Mull for the Tunnock's Tour of Mull Rally (www.2300club.org) which is billed as "the Best Rally in the World". Been a couple of times before, and I certainly haven't been to a better rally yet - and I've been to lots of UK rallies from road rallies, through clubman's and national events right up to old skool and modern WRC events.
I'll set up another blog about the event itsself - "Tour of Mull 2008 in a Sunbeam", so check out the event info there. Hoping to do some blogs from the island, if I can get a wifi connection.
So to the prep:
The nearly finished Yokos are off and the old "soft" compound tyres are back on - they have about 3 mm of tread, so should be much better for the distance to Mull (230 miles each way) and all the water we expect to encounter on the roads. Whilst the wheels were off I checked over the brakes, suspension, bushes and all nuts / bolts etc.
Drained and flushed the cooling system and refilled with water and anti-freeze.
New battery - it's getting harder every year to get the right size with enough oomph for cold starting. The casing is a standard mini battery but it has a 310 cold start cranking rating and a 48Ah capacity. This year I couldn't get the full spec and the new one from Lucas only has a 40Ah rating. Should be OK, but will have to be careful with the rear heated window! Thanks to "The Quality Factor" in Chester for their persistence in finding the nearest fit. Still have to shave off the lower mounting lugs to get it to slide into the tight space in the inner wing.
Last weekend saw the longest job - the inner passenger door lock slider had become detatched from the locking mechanism inside the door, which was going to be a pain for a 5 day trip with a passenger! So out came the Haynes manual and off came the door's inner trim panels - all of this was the easy bit. The rod has to clip onto another rod deep inside the trailing edge of the door, using a spring clip. Of course, its out of sight, it's difficult to get to and is the most awkward and probably very cheap fitting (I can't use the words design or engineering in this context!) known to human kind. It was impossible to work out, so off came the driver's door panel to give me an idea of what to do. My wife also came up with the genious idea of taking a photo of the inside of the panels using our digital camera - brilliant - just the job. Despite this, it was still a 3 hour job! What a pain.
Another job was to replace the hatch gas support struts. They're notorious for losing their ability to support a damp sponge never mind a glass hatch, and sure enough they've been very weak for a couple of years and have been totally useless this year. Of course, they're impossible to get hold of. However, via the ASOC website forum (www.asoc.co.uk) a supplier was found - www.gasstrutengineering.co.uk. With a few measurements and specs from the side of the original struts, a new pair were soon on their way - the guys at GSE being very patient helping me to get the correct measurements and details. The new struts came with metal ball joint fittings so these were swapped for the Sunbeam's plastic originals to maintain the integrity of the electrical circuit to the heated rear window. The new struts clipped on very easily and they're performing brilliantly - watch out though, the hatch moves up so quickly there's a chance of getting a bump on the chin now, instead of the bump on the head you used to get from the hatch falling back down. If you were really picky, you'd notice that the new strut piston rods are black rather than the original chrome, but they really do work well.
Other work was just to top up the engine oil, check other fluids etc., so apart from a quick wash and polish (first polish in 2008) and to check that the wheels don't need balancing up, we're good to go. Really looking forward to the event.
Hopefully I'll post a bit more just before we go.
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