Beth and I are having a GREAT time!! The weather has been warmer than usual and it hasn't rained but once and thats quite odd for this corner of the world!
All has been well except a small bit of damage to our "hired car" as the Brits call it... Some Bastard ran me into a Brick wall and this driving on the left stuff and all these "roundabouts" in the road are for the birds.. Other than that it's all fine..
So far we have spent a day at Raby Castle, and another in the North of England just goofing off.. Then we headed down to The South to hang out with our old friend The Mighty Spyder, who invited us into his home for some English hospitality... Yesterday we hit London for a full day, saw all the sites and pissed off a couple of Koldstream Guards (Royal Sentrys)...
We returned last evening to some bad news about the Spyder and it's gearbox...(Thank goodness it has nothing to do with the engine or MY work!) It seems that no one here in the UK quite understands the internal physics of a 901 gearbox and I have no tools with me for working on the internals while I am here. There are also some issues with the shift linkage that has been totally fabricated that are worsening the situation...
Today I put a solid day into working on the issue along with David's Mechanic, Rob trying to remedy it so we can head off for Le Mans according to plan, but the end result made none of us happy.... The issues were found to be deeply internal with the gearbox and as I stated, I have zero tools or jigs (or 901 parts) with me to "fix" the issues...
We have decided to leave the Spyder at home here in the UK because it just is not ready for a trip. The gearbox issues and linkage issues are numerous and would really make for a horrible 6 hour trip into France.
This coupled with the fact that the car still is not fully licensed and has had no raod miles to work out any "bugs" after being 100% handcrafted is also certain to create huge issues on such a long maiden voyage into a different country and all of us involved have agreed to do the smart thing and still attend the event, but NOT attend with the Spyder.
David has a '74 911S that he will be sporting to Le Mans while Beth and I haul the camping gear and etc in our rental car (Peugeot 407 Diesel) and while a rather large convoy of Speedsters and Spyders head to France from the local Porsche group.
BUT there is good news, very good news! Another of my customers, Simon Hambly (forum member) is also a member of the Speedsters and Spyders group and has agreed to allow me to still have my laps on the circuit while driving his Speedster equipped with a RAT 2270 from 2004! While nothing would be as amazing as The Mighty Spyder on the circuit at Le Mans this is a chance I will never have again and I certainly want to drive on the track with RAT power! Thanks Simon!
So thats the update....
While we are seriously depressed about the fact the Spyder will not be up to par it goes with the fact that I always preach to ALL my customers... That fact being:
NEVER, EVER ALLOW AN EVENT OR DATE TO DICTATE THE COMPLETION OF A PROJECT VEHICLE!!! EVERY TIME I or one of my customers have had an issue with a car or engine it has been when trying hastily to prepare for an event and allowed time to be the determining factor. This set back while HUGE is certainly not as depressing as some issue with the car while in France that could lead to mechanical destruction or even a fire. It is ALWAYS best to get a few hundred miles on a vehicle andwork out all the small issues until the car is 110% and THEN debut the masterpiece.There are a lot of details to be worked out in a vehicle that has been scratch built with as many outside the box thoughts and goals involved as this one has. As soon as I arrived and saw all the loose ends from paint detailing to the sorting of wiring and that horrid shifting arrangement I knew the car would not be going on the trip fully sorted. That really hurt, but its always the most wise decision.
All the while my engine is working beatuifully and sounding awesome! Its very hard to bounce the tach off 8,000 RPM and know that the only gear that you can select is second....
With that, I am outta here and looking forward to the sounds of 904s, 908s, 917s and 547 Carreras over the next few days as well as meeting up with a whole ton of members of the RAT fan club, some of which don't even speak English...
BTW- Many of you that have not been to Europe may be thinking "Why don't they just trailer it up and haul it to Le Mans?" Well for this there are two answers.. The first is that a truck and trailer are VERY difficult to find in the UK and they have not been scheduled for the Ferry crossing which David did MONTHS ago (this alone would keep the car from going on a trailer)... And the second is the fact that I'd rather leave the car behind as have to depend on a trailer to sport it around, it was built to be driven and it will not be debuted not able to power it's self to an event a mere 350 miles away!
What matters is that we are having a great time, we are looking forward to le Mans and the Mighty Spyder engine is flawless!