Have you guys ever watched the show "Junkyard Wars"? It is a great show where
they have two teams, made up of three really industrious real type people and
one expert in some field each. They have a huge junkyard full of cars, washing
machines, tractors, airplanes, etc. They gather the two teams, tell them what
that episodes project is and give them 10 hours to build it. Then either later
that night, or the next day, they have a contest with the contraptions they
built. Things like amphibious vehicles, floating cranes, submarines, gliders,
untralight airplanes, super fuel efficient vehicles, cannons, walking machines,
etc.
Well, the relevance of this story is:
The episode I just watched, was to create "power pullers", or as we here in the
states call them, tractor pullers! They went out to the junkyard, found old
tractor tires, some sort of steering arm, rear axles, metal for frames, and an
engine/transmission. And low and behold, up popped a rover V8 with TR7/8 style
LT77 5-speed gearbox and dual carbs! I don't know what it came out of as they
found it apart from it's car. The other team scrounged up a V6 with auto
gearbox. My wife and I were just laughing it up. She even recognized the
engine after seeing one in all stages of rebuild for my TR7 V8 conversion that I
am trying to finish by new years. It was a great show. They each fixed up
their axles, put the wheels on, connected the engine with driveshaft, and then
built a frame around them to hold them. The V8 sounded great without any
mufflers, just the manifolds on. They had to build steering controls, brakes,
and a kill switch. Then that night they chained the two, rear to rear, and had
a direct pulloff!!! It was great!!!
The rules were 2 out of 3. The first round, the V6 sputtered and backfired a
few times and the rover won fairly quickly. The V6 was tweaked and they went at
it again. This one was a minute or so long, with both spinning their big
tractor tires and no one moving an inch, until the V8 busted an old water hose
and cut power. The V6 won that round. The rover engined team fixed their water
hose and away they went on round three. Another dead heat with both spinning
tires and neither moving, until the V6 blew it's auto transmission. The rover
pulled it past it's finish line about 15 meters away and since their brakes were
really shoddy, ended up junking it into a rubbish heap at the end of the pulloff
area.
I would recommend this show to all of us junkyard mechanics. They did a 13
episode marathon on the day after thanksgiving, but are showing more on the 6th,
I think. They are also showing commercials for a new season this year as all
the current episodes are from last season.
Enjoy!!!
Dan Carrington
1977 White TR7, flying on stands, drooling over V8...
1994 Honda CBR900RR sportbike
|