Ok. We went to mount buller again last week for targa high country.

This is the fifth rally for the car and i am yet to have a trouble free run.

Anyways i hadnt seen the car since tassie because i left it at walkdens for them to prepare.

Prologue we took it very easy and ended up 9th out of 165 cars.

Wast aking it easy getting my head in the game again when on the 4th stage we lost power steering. Always though that power steerig was a luxury and not really needed. How wrong i was! Thing was horrible. Anyways the serpentine belt that runs the power steering pump also runs the water pump. The car started to get hot so we had to pull over and stop mid stage. We could have limped it out but would have done untold damage to the motor so we parked it up. Long andt he short of it was we missed the rest of Saturdays stages.

There was some biblical carnage up on the hill including blaises old evo 6 going to rally car heaven but touch wood everyone made it out ok.

We dont know why the belt broke. It was a brand new belt and had 3 new pulleys installed the week before the event. The three theories are 1) shitty belt 2) installed incorrectly 3) a rock or something flicked up and split it. My gut feel is that the 3rd option is the most likely.

We put the old belt back on and did sunday. Results were shit as we were taking it very easy because we were disapointed and wanted a straight car to take home.

My co driver took the piss out of me (he comes from a gravel background so stone chips are fine apparently) but i dont like them. So the car is coming back to Perth so i can give it a bit of a birthday. I'll post photos up as and when parts arrive but i have ordered the following:

New rotors
New pads
Ralliart sump guard
News erpentine belt
New tensioner
Heated windscreen

Also we changed the car to e85 before tassie this year. Definitely better than the elf. Anyways we had an issue (as did others) with the fuel freezing at the top of the mountain. It meant that we cracked the surge tank again thanks to expansion and contraction. So instead of one made out of 3mm and welded we are making one out of 5mm and folding it.

I have a few decent photos from the weekend so i will post them up later.

Also even though i have have had the car over 2 years i could not tell you what setting the sway bars et al set at so now the car is back in Perth i can do a day and test all that stuff.

I also am going to go to the drags. I imagine it will do something like a late 11.

Photos to come.

Brendon

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