The Mission


The Peking to Paris Rally is a recreation of the 1907 challenge issued by Le Matin, "Is there anyone who will undertake to travel this summer from Peking to Paris by automobile?"
The 2016 version will follow a route of 13,695 Km (8,510 miles) and take 35 days. We are travelling in Rhubarb and Custard, a 1936 Buick. We know nothing about cars or rallying.

Friday 24 June 2016

Help! I need Somebody





Brilliant though this solution is the new bolt is not hardened steel and so has a limited life.

If anyone has a spare there's a bottle of whisky in the car for them.
No, not just anybody. Help, I need somebody with a 1936 Buick straight 8 rocker arm and ball adjusting nut as one of our ball adjusting nuts has snapped in two and been replaced with a drilled out bolt. If any readers have such a thing please let me know by posting a comment on this blog and perhaps we can sort something out.

Here's what happened.

All was going well on our trip to Novosibirsk when just as we reached the special stage unburnt fuel started to explode in the carburettor. This is not good.

Owen came past at that moment and got out to help. He was overwhelmed by massive insects - he listened to the engine, pronounced it 'broken', looked at the massive insects and got back into his 4x4 saying, "Take it to a garage" and drove off.

65 km later we caught up with him at the garage where proper insect-free diagnostics took place and a broken ball adjusting nut was found. This is a small hollow rod that moves the rocker arm up and down. The rocker arms let fuel in and exhaust out of the cylinders.

This is not a part we carry a spare for because it's unlikely to break and it's not universal to all engines. We could drive on 7 cylinders but this would ultimately ruin the engine and Paris is still 8,000 km away.

Andy Inskip, who is chief sweep and who takes pride in being the most dour and taciturn man in the room, took over and a little bit of engineering genius happened.

He took a standard bolt and in the back of his van with a hand held drill he cored out the centre and made another connecting hole at right angles so that oil could flow in and out of the bolt. This he cut to length and made a rounded ball type ending and voila he had created a new ball adjusting nut.

No comments:

Post a Comment