Joe's NB8B

[The American]

[Jeo]

More khanacross this weekend just past. Significantly less flags and WD's than the last event but somehow further off the pace of the front runners when it did work. Most tests I placed in the 7-10th range, with the two tests the involved flags stretching out to mid 20's. Overall result was 9/35.

Still had a lot of fun though and feel like I'm starting to think about pretending to almost nearly get the hang of it.


Also picked up some new wheels today. Forgot to grab a photo and they're now under the house but they look like...


SSR Integral A2
15x6.5
Will get fitted with appropriate motorkhana tyres once I wear out the Zestino's on the stock wheels.

[Jeo]

Well this thread show about how much the car moved last year. Rego expired in August, not long into the ACT lock down. Sum total of what I've done with the car since then is that I charged the battery a few weeks back, drove to the end of the driveway and let it idle for 10 minutes. Then last weekend I again moved it to the driveway, let it idle up until temperature, back in the garage to change the oil and coolant plus a general bolt check, and then registered and drove to work on Monday.

All smiles. All easy.

Motorkhana with the MG Club this weekend!

[Jeo]

Whoops, missed a few in there.

MG Motorkhana in February didn't go spectacularly - I don't even remember what I placed but it wasn't good. Far more sideways than usual (or than you arguably should be) and was just generally off my game pretty much all day. Also managed to spin a couple of times... I see no correlation there...

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Light Car Club of Canberra Khanacross in March was a definite improvement over previous runs. 8th overall and 3rd non-Impreza. Two tests involved penalties for cones but the other ten times were all either close to my PB or PB's themselves. Most individual courses were in the top 5 outright but those two blowouts really hurt my overall standings.

Didn't do much withe car between then and yesterday, other than the occasional drive to work or evening run to grab takeaway. Basically any excuse to go for a drive that didn't involve kids, resulted in the MX5 getting out of the garage.

Yesterday then saw another LCCC Khanacross and again I feel like I'm improving. After the first three tests I was running 3rd outright, in front of a number of turbo AWD Subarus. A spin on test 4 saw me drop a bunch of places but I managed to slowly claw back up to 5th with pretty consistently competitive times through tests 5-10. Unfortunately another spin on test 11 dropped me back to 7th outright which was where I finished the day. 7th outright and just to add insult to injury, that spin on the penultimate run also dropped me to third in the newly created 2WD class. Previously classes had only been road or rally cars, but with very few dedicated rally cars turning up for the last year or two the club decided to switch to two new classes - AWD or 2WD. Awesome for me of course as it meant I'm not directly competing with a bunch of Imprezas. Yesterday saw me take an early lead in the class and then go back and forth with Steve's BMW Mini for most of the day, again right up until the penultimate test where Russ and his IS200 pipped me by 1.1 seconds across nearly 10 minutes of driving. 7th outright and 3rd in class is still my best result so I can't complain too loudly. Keen to see that drop just a little further next time though.

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And another MG Motorkhana on the 22nd of this month if any Canberra people want to come join.

[greenMachine]

Good work Joe!

I'd like to come and say g'day on the 22nd, but I am going down to WP to catch up with a few of the track rats.

[The American]

Love it! Looks and sounds like you had fun.

[Daffy]

With some normality coming back to the world after the 2 odd years of lockdown covid shambles, a bit more seat time on the track will see you go from strength to strength me thinks mate

[Jeo]

Ok... has been a while apparently. Had to go back through the photos to figure out when events were but since the last update we've had...


Motorkhana 22 May
Don't remember anything specific from the event other than that I drove better than the previous time. No idea what results were but I'm guessing much closer to the top.


Khanacross 25 June
Trophy! 2nd 2WD and like 5th(?) outright. Got very muddy

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Also spent much of the day talking with a couple about my age, who were competing in their Impreza while taking turns looking after their young daughter, who herself was a few months younger than my eldest. This then turned into a discussion with my wife later that evening if she'd like to join me one day and we could double enter the car. She wasn't interested in driving on dirt but said that she had considered having a go at tarmac motorkhanas many times over the years but was afraid of looking stupid/being slow. We talked about it a couple of times over the next few weeks which basically just involved me repeating that you probably will be slow, but nobody will care in the slightest. She agreed and one Motorsports Australia licence and changing my club membership to a family membership later and we were both entered in the next MG Club event.


Motorkhana 28 August
Carlie's first motorsport drive! She had an NA LE back when we were fresh out of uni which she took along to a skid pan day or two, and had obviously dríven all of my MX5's over the years, but this was the first time at a sanctioned event. We left the 5yo with her sister and brought the 9 month old with us. Setup a picnic rug in between the parking and the courses, and rotated between driving and parenting throughout the day. Was wonderful. Our eldest joined us after lunch and I must say that I enjoyed this photo from a course walk through far more than I let on at the time.

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No idea how I went on the day so I'll assume that means close enough to the top that I wasn't unhappy, but not far enough up that I'd remember. Carlie had a goal of 'not last' which she absolutely smashed - was about 2/3rds the way down the results and fastest of three female drivers. And importantly, had fun and wanted to do it again.


Khanacross 26 November
And this is where things started to go wrong. Was running 2nd outright and 1st in class at lunch, dropped to 4th and 2nd after the next three tests, then proceeded to bottom out in a gully on test 10 of 12. Made a large crashing noise but the car felt fine so I kept my foot in it and finished the run, only to be told by the timers that I was leaking coolant. Shut it off and inspected the damage - cracked bottom tank of the radiator. Dang. Day over.

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Tow truck home and we're probably not competing in the motorkhana the following day. Put some posts up on Facebook and was very lucky to be given a lightly used OEM spec radiator at about 7pm. Much percussive maintenance that evening to get the mounting bracket back into place and the AC condenser out of the way, and the new radiator is in around 11pm. Filled it with coolant to check we're all good - and we've got a constant slow drip of coolant from the crank case. Dangit again. Assume we've cooked the water pump. Gave up and called it a night.


Motorkhana 27 November
Broken car means spectating only


And that's where I'm going to leave it for tonight. Will update the rest tomorrow.

[Jeo]

So, early December, presumed broken water pump and no spare weekend between then and early January I decided to let ACDC fix the car for me. Definitely wasn't due for it but also received a timing belt, new tensioners, etc, while they were in there. Drove it to work a couple of times and all was well.

My off course excursion had spooked me a little though, so I went gauge shopping as future insurance. Was originally planning on two or three round gauges where the then intermittently broken head unit was currently sitting, but after some research I managed to talk myself into a JRP 14in1 multigauge. Australian company, well reviewed, and like $50 more than what I was going to spend on three reasonable gauges anyway - seemed like a good idea.

Jump to mid-January and on the drive home from work on a particularly hot day, I noticed it smelled rather hot when I got home. Gauge read normal but was definitely hot when I opened the bonnet, and at that point noticed that neither radiator fans were running. Assumed no fans was the cause of my overheating, so cue this threadwhere I went troubleshooting over the next few weeks. Fans themselves worked with direct 12v power source, relays worked, wires between fan/relay/sensor all had continuity, so all signs pointed to a broken coolant temperature sensor. Bought and fitted a new coolant temp sensor last, went for a drive, got up to temperate and the passenger side fan came on. Never saw both fans working but also that was further than we got with the old sensor so I assumed that meant we were good. Spoiler - things were not yet good.

Installed the gauge, and the first three sensors (coolant temp, oil pressure and temp) over two evening after the kids were in bed. The install documentation was pretty good, but honestly I don't think you'd need it given how intuitive the labeling and colour coding on the base unit was. Future problem to add air intake temp and go digging through the ECU connector to find RPM and speed, but for the moment we have a working gauge.

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Fast forward to mid-February and it's my first drive in hot weather. Got home and both fans are running but also coolant is boiling. The drive wasn't particularly vigorous, so even with the high ambient I wouldn't have expected it to boil. Went for another drive the next evening while still in the low 30s and took the IR thermometer as well for science. Cue another thread but this time more detailed yet also more generic, to summaries that; thermostat opened at ~80, fan would turn on at ~95, bottom hose was ~15 cooler than the top hose, but also boiling at ~105 and fans not coping at keeping it cool when stationary. Some troubleshooting saw a good compression test across all cylinders, and presumed dodgy radiator cap.

Replaced the cap as well as a very involved clean of the cooling system two days ago and fingers crossed we're now at the end of the problems. Haven't road tested under load yet but letting it run in the driveway - fan came on at a reported 96°, temperature came down to 89, fan went off, slowly climbed back up until we hit 96 again at which point fan came on, and again turned off once we dropped back to 89. Cycled several times with zero boiling; couldn't do that before so I'm taking that as a win. Will drive to work in about an hour so hopefully that proves us good. Particularly given there's another motorkhana this weekend...

[Roadrunner]

I'm amazed the radiator support is bent that far back and nothing else is damaged! Must have been a rock or narrow hump in the ground to not have ripped the whole bumper and undertray and possibly sump off. Lucky.

[greenMachine]

I know where you can find a good sump guard...

[Jeo]

Update copied from the cooling thread 3/3/23

Progress! but still doesn't seem 100%

Borrowed the funnel from greenMachine and burped the system again last night. Didn't get a lot of bubbles but did get some so taking that as at least part of a win. Car still perfectly happy idling in the driveway - would creep up to 96 at which point the fan turned on, drop back to 89 and fan turns off, repeated several times. Which again is a massive improvement from two weeks ago.

Went for a drive at lunch time today. Got up to ~85ish and held there while driving around perfectly happy. Waited until the oil temp was similar and then went for some harder pulls. Feels like an improvement as it only took a single pull to crack 100 on the coolant temp sensor the other day, whereas today took maybe 10 hard pulls from 20 - 100kmh on a reasonable incline. It was slightly cooler ambient today but only by a degree or two so I can't imagine that's the difference here. Gave it a few more pulls until I saw 105 on the coolant temp gauge, and 112 on the oil gauge, and decided to head home. 90kmh up a big hill on the way home (William Hovel for CBR locals playing at home) and even with 3.5k rpm's the coolant temperature still dropped steadily. So again, improvement from where we were before the burping exercise yesterday.

Still doesn't feel right as ignoring the new gauge and whatever number it's showing, the factory gauge never crept much above 50% before, even when on track. So getting it to 75% while admittedly beating on it but still on the street make me feel like something is still wrong.

I'm going to give it a crack at a motorkhana on Sunday and will keep a close eye on the gauges, but beyond that I think the plan will just be to drive the thing for a while and see what happens. If it copes with a regulation amount of abuse in 30 second intervals on the weekend that'll be enough for the time being. r maybe I get bored and buy a new radiator and thermostat anyway just because I've run out of other ideas. Future problem regardless.

[Jeo]

With the cooling issues now at 'good enough for the moment, Saturday saw me complete some overdue maintenance. Back around Christmas time I had noticed that the upper shifter seal was well and truly shot, so decided to go digging in the turret and see what else needed doing while I was in there. Turned out the blower seal was in pieces as well, and the shifter bushings were all pretty worn too. Like all good broken things I took to opportunity to upgrade as well as fix and ordered a short shifter kit and new seals from Mania. They arrived back in January but as cooling issues had always take precedence I hadn't got around to it until the weekend.

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All told was very straight forward. Instructions were good, install was easy - can't complain. Shifter is definitely stiffer than I was expecting but is certainly shorter. I'm sure I'll get used to it.

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And motorkhana yesterday. The setup the MG club runs is six tests over the course of the day, two setup at once which you run back-to-back, with two attempts at each course. So overall it runs like 30~60 second course, ~60 second break, 30~60 second course. Repeat 6 times over several hours.

First run was fine cooling wise. Test 1 and 2 with no dramas, factory gauge showed normal and I don't remember what the aftermarket gauge said but it wasn't excessive. And then I got greedy... The line for my second go at test 1 was empty so I pulled straight back around and ran it again. Turns out three tests with only a minute or so break in between each run was too much. Didn't boil but the aftermarket gauge was showing coolant at ~108 and factory gauge well into the red. I pulled out of line and let it idle for a few minutes and the temperature quickly fell. Had another run and climbed back up to the low 100's again. Drove back up to the pits and again let it idle for a few minutes.

Rest of the day was uneventful temperature wise but I'm putting that down to good management, rather than anything having magically fixed itself. Tried to space out my runs for the rest of the day so that I had at least 30 minutes between passes, and that worked fine. Aftermarket gauge was always showing low 100's after the 2nd run, but would quickly drop after a little idling in the pits.

Still not sure what the problem is but instead got frustrated and took the "well nuts to this option". Even though I'm relatively confident both are fine, I bit the bullet last and ordered a new high flow thermostat and ebay special alloy radiator. So here's to that solving it?

[Jeo]

Uuuurrrrggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


So the ebay special radiator and Mania spec thermostat and gasket arrived during the week, and what better use of one of the days of a long weekend to install them. Cue cavalcade of frustrating minor problems.

Drained coolant into a bucket, barely spilled a drop, then noticed large puddle forming on the garage floor. That's weird. Oh crap there's a large crack in the bucket. Most of it drains out by the time I found another bucket.

Radiator removal was relatively straight forward. Thermostat housing was not. Whoever replaced this last went to town with BOTH locktite on the bolts some kind of sealant on the housing itself. Very concerned I was going to break the bolt/nut off, much penetrating fluid, mallet, and even eventually a blowtorch got them off. And then said mallet and more percussive persuasion couldn't get the housing off. Eventually a razor blade got that sorted though.

Cleaned the housing and neck, new thermostat and gasket, all back together.

Swapped the fans on to the new radiator and of course it doesn't fit back in the car as the radiator is thicker. Mostly I'm blaming the bent mounting bracket here and myself in that I'm guessing I only got it good enough when straightening it back into place, rather than back to where it originally started before the crash. Much hammer, vice, and swearing later and the radiator was in though.

Filled the radiator with maybe a litre or so of reused (three week old) coolant and the rest new (thanks bucket...). Moved the car out of the garage to get it on an incline and let it warm up with the funnel attached (thanks GM!). Got up to temperature, confirmed thermostat was working and coolant was flowing, bled the system and all seemed well...

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Then I noticed the primary radiator fan was running backwards?! Hold up, really? Hit the AC to trigger both fans and yes, they're spinning different directions. Waited for it to get hot enough to trigger the fan on it's own just to be absolutely sure and sure enough, the fan is pushing air from the engine bay forward through the radiator. Kids were getting restless at this point so I gave up and came inside.

I'm planning on taking it for a drive as is, just as part of the process of elimination/changing as few variables at once as possible. Will report back after a test drive to see if the thermostat or radiator have improved things, and will then change the direction of the fan and test again. Still seems excessive that it was the problem, but also does make some sense that it would have contributed. Cooling was fine when stationary but struggled when moving, so maybe the competing airflow from both directions meant little was achieved? Going to be somewhat upset if that was problem all along but also won't be upset if that fixes it, so here's hoping!

[Jeo]

Also forgot but I also swapped wheels back out for the khanacross tyres on the weekend too.

I think I got my money's worth out of these Zestinos and that my alignment is pretty good...

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