What went wrong and what went right?

[Jason]

Alternatively titled "There but for the grace of God go I..."

There seemed to be a higher than ever number of non-finishers this year so in order to help with the preparations for next time I'd like to collate some details about what went wrong and what went right. All those who had issues and overcame them are also welcome to post, the main reason for doing this is to collate some group learning and try and work in some preventative measures next time.

This info can also help Raider who's been collating failure info to see what the trends for failures really are.

So, over to you...

[Deleted User]

our only prob was the throttle return spring [on mk2 gt6 rod/linkage] snapped ..giving me full throttle whilst having some fum in the welsh bits..easily rectified with a made up return spring from the spares box..other than that the little car flew

[SteveJP]

Our only problem was the alternator dying at Bristol, fortunately our Support Car (Team 98) which was carrying our joint spares arrived and it was duly fitted in the pouring rain. Big thanks to Andy Copas for bringing it otherwise we would have had to limp on in battery mode!

Car perormed perfectly all the way, morale here is lots of preperation beforehand ( and 2 failed 10CR's for experience ;D ;D) Bottom end (The Car) will need some attention before any future jaunts like this though.

[MarkDeTriomphe]

Unfortunately, I don't think there was anything we could have done to avoid the freak incident that ended car 30's run and one or two others - but I may consider fitting roo bars next time!

We might have got going again with a new radius arm.  We were carrying a 6 cyl. de-coke set and complete rocker shaft assembly added during last minute preparations so they did not get onto the excellent spares list.  Both items could have helped other cars if we had known in time.  Too late to think of it now - but was there any way to use the SMS broadcasts to send out requests for spares and should we have known about it?

Mark

[mikeyb]

Car 1 - white Dolly Sprint

My message - prepare early and avoid a last minute rush.  We picked up an occasional misfire before JOG which gradually worsened to the point of dropping no.3 cylinder a few miles before Conan Bridge Hotel.  Our ability to fault find was seriously hampered by my omission to pick up the spare plug leads from the garage floor when packing the spares in a rush on Friday morning! This rush being in turn down to last minute spannering the night before!

Our fault finding was greatly assisted by the kindness of the two Vermillion Sprints, who both turned back to help out after I texted their numbers on the entry list, and Olly who had the garage at the rear of the hotel.  The fault bizarrely turned out to be the rotor arm, of which we had a spare. The car ran fine after that but we lost over 1 hour getting to that point. If I had packed all the bits, that would have taken 10 mins.

Other issues:

Starter motor not working when hot - get around was to park strategically and kick the other two out to push.
Overdrive switch failed - quick fix from carried spare.
Filled boot up with petrol at Salisbury due to broken tank breather hose - cut rubber back to good bit and refitted.
Possible internal failure of rear shock absorber - just kept going and told the other two fat boys to eat less cakes!

Was also sorry not to be able to help a chap in a herald estate who had master cylinder trouble - I had planned to carry a spare overhaul kit as it is the same for a sprint clutch, but had used it on the my sprint on Thu evening leaving no time to get another.

I'm no novice at car prep having sucessfully completed 3 previous RBRRs and 2 recent 10CR's so was a little annoyed about having a last minute rush.  My basic plan always is to overhaul before the event, anything that is a common fail ie. wheel bearings, clutch/brake cylinders, brake shoes/pads, UJ's, ignition components etc. - even if it is a quick strip, clean and recheck.  It's always easier to do this at home than on the road!

[Tim Bancroft]

The little GT6 did well, a few snags but nothing major:

A1 Ware: Rear Carb needle valve sticking: Rectified at Blyth
A9 Aviemore: OS CV Boot failed, rectified at Skiach with CT plastic bag and cable ties. This lasted to the Finish. Thanks to Dave Pearson for suggestion. Good quality bag needed, hence use of Club Triumph bag!
M5: Front driver footwell full of water, this drained through into the saet floorpan and got soaked by the seat, umm wet arse for the rest of the event (Again plastic bags helped to partly re-solve the issue). Triumph provided a nice waterway-Ta!
A30, Indian Queens (From LE): Front carb needle valve sticking: Rectified in lay by on A39
A39 Wadebridge: Rear Carb needle valve sticking: Small piece of rubber found to be blocking the seating of the valve.

The only othe issue being what seems like a prop in-balance-I have my doubts though, something a bit more fundamental? This limited our speed to 70ish.

[cook1e]

Full Report on our failure in my Blog:- http://cook1e.blogspot.com/ Root cause of the failure, a large Stag jumping out in front of us couldn't really have been avoided and I think we were lucky to get away with it as lightly as we did. As Mark says earlier in this forum topic we could have kept going if we had a spare tie rod/radius arm, but it's not the kind of part that just fails and so not the sort of spare anyone was likely to carry. If I hadn't of tried to straighten the bent rod further at J O G then it wouldn't have snapped but the fact that it snapped very easily means that it could have failed en route of we had carried on and that could easily have caused a loss of control and a further accident so again I'm not sure I would have done anything different.

Picture of the failed tie rod below, Looks to me like it may have already had a stress fracture before the final bit snapped.

[Jason]

Thanks guys, this is just the sort of thing we need, collective learning :-)

Mark - regarding the SMS thingy, the original plan was to have the facility for anyone in any car to broadcast to all participants so messages like "6 cylinder rocker shaft needed at Blythe" could be sent to everyone. The technology exists and it's apparently easy to implement but the costs are the issue. One message is immediately 250+ (every phone in every car) and that could be £25 a pop. Add to that no control and a little exuberance could see the club with a serious bill at the end of it.

It's certainly something I had on my list to look into - the ability for any entrant to broadcast to all entrants in case of emergency. If anyone has any mobile phone sms service contacts perhaps we could do a deal with a service provider, it might mean putting a sticker on each car in return for a set number of messages. I'll put that one down as one to investigate and consider but let's not debate it here yet.

As for Tim's exploits , I now have a vision of him sporting some plastic pants made out of CT carrier bags in order to keep his backside out of the puddle in his car!

[thescrapman]

A few things to Add to Mikes list

The OD was actually 3 issues, 1 of our doing, we had knocked the wire off the solenoid refitting the tunnel in the last minute rush. Check and check again, don't make the test run the drive to the start!

Also thanks to Steve Radley for teh loan of the gearstick wiring, Mikes bit of old speaker wire jammed into the switch and held in place with Blue-Tac had eventually given up the ghost.

I take exception to the bit about kicking out the 2 passengers, it was only ever 1, me! And I have the scars to prove it. I even had to bump start it on my own at one stage by pushing it down the hill, chasing after it and jumping in as the other 2 were off gassing somewhere.. :-)

If you get a petrol leak, investigate earlier, I still feel shite from the fumes today.

Final failure was the LED on the end of the whippy aerial. The mag-mount had a terminal grip velocity on the bootlid which we discovered on the A74M. I now have some paintwork repairs to do.

The best preparation is to not to have to prepare. Last time we used cars that had been in almost daily use, and had few issues (I did have a fuel pump burn out after 9 hours, I hadn't done a 9-hour test run! There were 3 spares in the boot) This time we used a car that had been off road for 8-odd years. We had the mis-fire on the way to Gaydon, very intermittant, just a cough every 5-10 minutes, it never got looked into in the time frame.

YOu need no better excuse than the RBRR to use the car as much as possible. It would be interesting to also ask for usage figures of the cars, and whether the failing components had been checked.

For example I know Paul Beeson had a few issues, related to bits he had been fiddling with (to cure another problem).

Cheers

Colin

[cook1e]

Jason wrote:

I now have a vision of him sporting some plastic pants made out of CT carrier bags in order to keep his backside out of the puddle in his car!

How do you know he doesn't wear PVC or Rubber pants, (he may do at the weekends if he mixes in the same fetish club fraternity as my sister and brother in law)

Only Joking Tim  ;D ;D ;D

[andy thompson]

Car 87 Mk1 2000 PI

If we don't count needing a new cylinder head and metering unit on the thursday we were pretty much fault free.

1. Reset metering unit at Blyth to lean off the midrange - result being we went from 21mpg to about 26-29mpg for the rest of the trip (mpg dependant on driver mostly (whistle) )
2. Changed a stuffed injector just north of Blyth, all the injectors were from the spare unit and hence untested and we had plenty of spares + rebuild facilities so no issues there.
3. Poor connection on starter solenoid fixed at Stirling with a quick squeeze of the connector

Used 5 litres of 15W50 and 3 bottles of valve master additive. Car was driven with little mercy and felt better when we got home than when we started

Didn't like the HID headlights - nor did a lot of other drivers - reckon decent Halogen are the go and have told Doug as much

Great fun - loved it

[James]

An easy way to cut costs is to only have a designated mobile per car - easy. Most places seem to be less than 5p per text - so about £5 per text to everyone.

Biggest issue as we discussed was how to control it.

We could add £5 to the entry cost and allow every one a single message but that seems a bit restrictive.

[Tim Bancroft]

Thread drift.

Maybe most will have Iphones and the like by 2012 and be able to read E-mails on the event. A dedicated RBRR Event Log website for 3 days?
Sections: SMS, Parts Needed, Breakdowns etc, etc.

Back in '98, hardly any crews had mobile phones.......

[GreenV8Machine]

:) 8)My failures were window winder mech letting the drivers window open a 1/4 of the way heading to scotland. Fixed that 3 times. Shitty "no blow" exhaust clamps letting the zorst drop off. Fixed. New rack, track rod ends, turret mounts, UJs and mounts gunna be installed. New drive boxes for the wipers needed as mine failed leaving me without wipers a few minutes after leaving the plough!
Be raaaaaaaate! ;D ;D ;D ;D

[Deleted User]

Well the RBRR was an interesting experience.
I arrived with the car which was running great at Steve’s in Bury / Bolton area at 9:15am where we fitted the relay for the driving lamps before setting off to meet up with Neil McDonnell and his brother at Lymm services on the M6. A good but wet run to the Plough to find very low oil pressure on the M25.
On getting to the Plough we checked the engine to find a rocker cover gasket was askew that fixed and new oil in the engine Oil pressure back to 60-70psi.

A good meal and we started the run waved off by everyone and the girls from the charity Mind. We had not long got going and I think  we had just caught up Jason and Dave in the Courier when I noticed low oil pressure again. Pulling over at a petrol station we checked the engine only to find a hole in a oil take off for the oil cooler. Pulling the sandwich plate off the cooler we removed the problem and re filled the car with Castrol GTX (only oil available at the garage) as we had used all the classic oil I had come on the run with.

With great oil pressure we pushed onto Blythe and then Edinburgh airport. All was going well and on the next leg I decided to get some sleep so I would be fresh for the Skiah to John O’Groats leg.

A few miles above Pitlockery on the A9 heading for Skiah Services, I was asleep (well sort of) and the car was burbling rather well at about 65mph. Steve said he was trying to overtake a wagon as he pulled out beside the wagon he said the car just jumped out of gear. The car rolled to a halt with Steve making attempts to select a gear. In Steve's words we had a box full of neutrals.

Team Shorts were no more as it was blood freezing so the long trousers and fleeces were put on. A big thanks to the two guys in the V8 Herald who pulled over and gave us a hand with the car.

Well we waited for about an hour for the recovery service before a relay home to Manchester some many hours later. Me and Steve did discuss continuing on in his GT6 but we were not sure about if this would upset the MSA or the club so it was decided to call it a day. Steve said he was going to the Lancaster stop to cheer on the rest of the entrants but I said I did not have it in me. To say Gutted would not come close, especially after last years exit from the 10CR. It seems I have got my name back Bobby Broken Spit!

Well after a pint at home and some hot food I decided I was being a big girls blouse and phoned Steve at about a quarter to eight and asked him if it was too late to come to Lancaster, Steve being the great guy that he is said no problem and picked me up and we attended Lancaster to say hello to the rest. I was again really gutted to see everyone continue on without us in tow.

The car is in the garage until I can take a “be arsed” pill. To say I don’t want to look at it would be a fair comment but I will wait until Neil is back and speak to him about getting my engine lift to whip the engine and gearbox out and take a look at the box. I guess a full strip and inspection before I know what went wrong.

The Megasquirt will have to wait until the gearbox is sorted.

I just hope not all the people want their sponsorship money back.

Signing off.

Rob

[Radders]

Car 58. Triumph 2000 Mk2 saloon.

Our key to success was to prepare early. I had decided in March/April that this was the car I was going to use, so a list of all outstanding repairs or issues was drawn up and gradually resolved. By the time the RBRR came, the car had all new UJ's across the driveshafts, all new wheel bearings and brakes, new UJ's on the prop (and had it balanced) and a diff that no longer leaked oil.  :)  (Oh yeah! and Rover 600 Recaro seats! -So comfortable!!!!)
I also probably took far more spares than I needed (except a fuel cap that sealed properly!) but nothing that couldn't be changed by the side of the road. I also made sure I had all of the tools to do those jobs should they be required.

I think taking the car to the drivers meet 2 weeks before was a good move as well as this highlighted one or two niggles that needed looking at. By the time the RBRR started, I was already quite confident that we would be ok, and that if we weren't, It wasn't going to be because of anything that, I could have, but hadn't done. Roll on 2012!  :)

[shedmonkey]

Team Shed-

Breather on filer neck came unstuck fixed with silicon -after ripping the bag out of Homer for forgetting where he had put the silicon after trying to stop the rear screen seal leaking earlier

Tired gearbox making some more rattles and clonks on taking up drive -but I knew about this pre-start

Annoying rattle which it has had since 08 RBR sounds to be internal to the heater!!??

Hot start problem - I now think I have this sussed! will test later!

Oil used over 2273 round trip 400ml
average fuel consumption 22.8 mpg  oops!! - some of this is down to loosing fuel but need to work on an more economic set up!

Bens arse failed badly resulting in a cat3 pollution at Bude

[Keith]

My only problems (with the car)  were the indicator flasher unit falling out on the M6, which on a TR4a is located in the passenger footwell and despite my best attempts to cable tie it in got kicked out, and, more annoyingly, the 1st/2nd gear selector pin falling out at Scourier, necessitating some unplanned fishing inside the gearbox to retrieve it.
Thanks to the guys who donated some gearbox oil, I didn't need it in the end so you can have it back either as oil or in the form of beer in March!

Keith

[Radders]

ajp wrote:

Team Shed-


Oil used over 2273 round trip 400ml
average fuel consumption 22.8 mpg  oops!! - some of this is down to loosing fuel but need to work on an more economic set up!

Andy, I have a good tip for better economy..................ease your foot off a bit!!!!!

Your car is becoming similar to Peter's PI estate in that I only ever see the back of it after it's come roaring past me!!! ;D

(It does sound good though!!)  :)

[Alex]

391 wrote:

Andy, I have a good tip for better economy..................ease your foot off a bit!!!!!

Your car is becoming similar to Peter's PI estate in that I only ever see the back of it after it's come roaring past me!!! ;D

(It does sound good though!!)  :)

another fuel saving tip for Andy;
maybe slap the co driver for leaving the fuel pump running :B

I can say that now but was'nt going to suggest it at the weekend ;D

[Radders]

Alex wrote:

another fuel saving tip for Andy;
maybe slap the co driver for leaving the fuel pump running :B

I can say that now but was'nt going to suggest it at the weekend ;D

You'll be alright Alex, He's a good ol' stick is Andy. After all, he did let me cut a pair of his rubber pants up to try and cure my petrol cap seal.  ;D

[Alex]

391 wrote:

You'll be alright Alex, He's a good ol' stick is Andy. After all, he did let me cut a pair of his rubber pants up to try and cure my petrol cap seal.  ;D

I so wish there was a like button on here Steve ;D

[mpbarrett]

team 51

we had 2 problems. Ign cutting out, this only started on way down to Plough. Got worse on way up A10 so nipped home (just off A14) and nicked coil off Herald and did a quick rewire. Problems solved.

Big problem was vibration from prop  this started after I had to change diff after the drive back from the drivers meeting. I got a new prop and fitted that and had wheels ballanced on wednesday before the start but still had vibration. We started the RBRR aware of this but thought we could live with it. But eventaully it just got worse and worse until the OD 3-4 switch worked loose so we did not have OD and evenutally couldnt drive any faster that 50mph without tthe whole car shaking. Once we got to the first stop we were ~60mins late after it should have shut! Carried on for another 50miles and realised we couldnt continue just could not go fast enough. So retired and drove home slowley at 40mph down the A1 (not recommended, lorries do not expect to see a slow car on the A1 at that time in the morning) and got back to cambridge a 4:45am.

We took a chance on the prop vibration, it was either start and hope for the best or not start at all. We are both really disappointed not to finish but are glad we tried....

Preperation. I have done a lot of work on the car. Its has been driven to work everyday for the last 2 months and has been thrashed down to Kent and back at least 4 times. I have never had any ign problems until the day we drove down to the Plough.....
On sat afternoon I took the propshaft out and found the rear gearbox mount has come un bounded from the rubber so I think this explains why the vibration got so much worse. I am not sure the new propshaft is balanced correctly so thats going back to be checked.
We will try to do the 10CR next year and probably the next RBRR. Next time we will prepare the Herald as a standby just in case.....
BTW How many cars did not finish this year?

cheers
mike and Libby.

[Jason]

Current stats are that we had 109 starters, 6 non-starters (and amazingly not everyone of those told us they weren't playing - c'mon people, it's just a phone call!) Out of those 109 starters 89 finished - I'm not yet sure if that is official, full set of signatures finishers or just 89 turned up at the Plough.

[TRad]

Car 118, blue TR7 FHC.

As it was our first RBRR, we took advice from other veterans we had spoken to, on the importance of preparing the car early.  I know it probably sounds like common sense, but its amazing how quickly time slips away with work and family etc and before you know it, you're a week or two from the event with a long list of jobs to do!  Although there are always lots of things I'd like to do to the car to improve performance etc, tbh, my budget only really goes as far as to maintaining the car in standard form.  And this is how I've improved the car (I know some would not regard this as 'improving it') over the ast 18 months of ownership.  Lots of 'improvements' gradually completed over months, that have allowed me to have a car that I'm confident (or as confident as I can be!) is more reliable than when I purchased it.  

Only a handful of faults really over the weekend: -  

I commented to Rich a few miles from the finish control that I was so pleased with how the car had performed - who believes in jinxing things?  The car does - so it decided it had had enough of its viscous fan half a mile from Crews Hill and that it would give that up.  :o Luckily we managed to limp it the last half mile to finish the event.  Some emergency surgery in the car park (thanks to the advice from the chap in the 'white?' Dolly Sprint)  ;) allowed us patch it up enough to limp it home without a tow from Mr RAC.  Glad it was cool last night and traffic was flowing!  I'll be inspecting my spare engine this week to see if the viscous coupling from that is good enough to use as a replacement - (viscous couplings are how much?!!)  :D

The only other fault was the 'rally type' aerial that was ripped off by a low hanging branch.  Unfortunatley, I think that the branch came off better from that incident than the aerial.  In fact, I'm sure that there is some off it left back in Devon.  ??)

The car has always leaked in several different areas (I don't know where they all are though!) and I've seam sealed and welded new patches in to some of the worst areas.  I've also stripped all the water clinging sound deadening and carpet from the car as well.  This does mean though that when you're on a long drive in torrential rain, doing things like plastic bagging luggage in the boot is necessary.  I appreciate that this isn't a long term solution and it does needs sorting!  :-/

Despite these minor car niggles, we really enjoyed the event.  :)

Adam

PS.  The chap who said to us that the run into Cornwall is the worst stage for fatigue - I agree!!!!!   ;D